New name, new notebook.

  Same mildew. Same gum-stiff pillowcase. Same sound of trucks coughing down the highway outside my window.

  Welcome to rebirth on a budget.

  I got the job today.

  Which feels like a lie, because I got the job last week, technically—when Melanie slid my application back across the counter and said, “You spell your name like a graffiti tag or like… spiritually?”

  I said, “Both, depending on the day.”

  She laughed. Not polite-laughed. Real laughed. The kind that means you’re already halfway in.

  Shang Java doesn’t do corporate interviews. It does vibes.

  Melanie sits sideways on a milk crate behind the counter like she’s daring gravity to argue with her. Forty-one, biker boots, cigarette voice without the cigarettes. She clocks people fast. Doesn’t ask why I need the job. Doesn’t ask where I’m from. Just asks if I can make change, keep my mouth shut, and show up on time.

  “Everyone’s running from something,” she said, tapping ash into an empty oat milk carton. “The trick is not bringing it behind the bar.”

  I nodded like that was a promise I could keep.

  Cassie was there too—hoodie three sizes too big, paint-smudged nails, eyes soft in a way that feels earned. She handed me a latte halfway through the interview and said, “Drink this. If you lie, I’ll know.”

  It was bitter as hell. I passed.

  That’s when JB wandered in—late, earbuds still dangling, name tag flashing EVAN in cheerful corporate font. He leaned against the counter like he was auditioning for something and looked me up and down with absolutely no shame.

  “So,” he said, grin already loaded, “you come here often, or am I about to make this place way more interesting?”

  Melanie didn’t even look at him.

  “This is JB,” she said flatly.

  I glanced at the name tag. “Your badge says Evan.”

  “Short for Jailbait,” she said. Then, to me: “Watch him. He’ll flirt with any woman older than him. Or anyone with a pulse.”

  JB just winked, completely unbothered. “Age is a mindset.”

  “I swear to God,” Melanie muttered, “I should’ve let the espresso machine eat you.”

  JB turned back to me, softer now, more curious than slick. “You got a name, or do I gotta earn it?”

  “Tag,” I said.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  He blinked. “Huh. That’s hot.”

  Cassie snorted.

  Melanie sighed like she’d lost a small, daily war.

  That sealed it.

  Dr. Elson—therapist, prop, potential pawn—told me to “write my feelings before bed.”

  He thinks I’m new in town and between apartments.

  Half-truth. I’m between identities.

  That’s close enough for therapy.

  Getting the papers wasn’t easy. People think fake IDs are something you buy online like sneakers. They aren’t—at least not the kind that survive payroll, taxes, background checks. I had to trade. Favors for favors. Slept on a stranger’s couch for three nights. Handed over my old phone, my birth certificate copy, the last photo I had of Riley smiling like they weren’t tired yet.

  The guy who fixed it didn’t ask questions. Just said, “This one sticks if you don’t draw attention.”

  So now I’m Tag Urich.

  Barista trainee. Minimum wage. Verona U coffee stand.

  Slinging caramel drizzle for kids who still have futures.

  Nobody’s recognized me yet.

  I even get flirted with, which is hilarious—serving lattes to the same ecosystem that tried to drown me.

  Poetic justice in an apron.

  Verona University says I’m expelled.

  I say they panicked.

  I say people love a scandal when it makes them feel virtuous.

  Doesn’t matter what I say anymore; they changed the locks and deleted my ID.

  The “Urich” part I pulled from a dead sitcom rerun. It sounds real enough to pass background checks.

  Anything is better than that middle name: Agnes.

  I could never say it out loud without feeling like I was apologizing for existing.

  Agnes belonged to the person my parents wanted—quiet, devout, soft at the edges.

  The girl who’d sit between them in the pew, knees pressed together, pretending to understand obedience.

  That version of me died the same winter Riley did.

  I was twelve. Riley was twenty-one.

  Everyone called it suicide.

  They said the word like it was weather—tragic but expected.

  But Riley wasn’t the type. Straight-A’s, debate champion, the kind of kid who made adults stand up straighter around them.

  Then one morning: gone.

  No note, just a story the church agreed on.

  Closed casket.

  End of conversation.

  Years later I learned Riley had been transitioning. Quietly. Secretly.

  Guess who they confided in?

  Me.

  Guess who said nothing?

  Also me.

  My silence was prayer back then.

  Now it’s penance.

  When I came out as non-binary, people assumed it was rebellion.

  It was grief with better lighting.

  A way to finish what Riley started, only louder, without asking for permission.

  Dr. Elson says I’m “rebuilding identity.”

  He doesn’t realize I’m building a weapon.

  Still, I need stability if the plan’s going to work.

  Hence: job, coffee shop, minimum wage, perfect cover.

  Auré never liked coffee—“too bitter for sweet things like us.”

  So she’ll never walk in.

  That’s good.

  For now.

  Tonight I was scrolling listings, pretending to look for a future, when I found hers.

  Roommate wanted — basement suite, quiet neighborhood near campus.

  I didn’t even need to see the address.

  The pictures smelled like memory: same brick wall, same cheap string lights, same couch we stained with too much wine and not enough honesty.

  Then the last photo— Auré after a workout, hair in a ponytail, that tired-cute smile that used to make me confess things.

  She’s wearing the faded band shirt I gave her after our first concert.

  It’s crooked on her shoulder, sweat darkening the logo.

  I shouldn’t have saved the photo.

  I definitely shouldn’t have opened it full screen.

  But the thing about muscle memory is that it doesn’t wait for morality.

  That smile.

  That shirt.

  That tiny flash of stomach—

  Yeah. I came fast and mean, like punishment and prayer colliding.

  Afterward I laughed—quiet, messy, victorious.

  Some people burn incense for luck.

  I masturbate.

  And luck’s exactly what I’ll need.

  Because tomorrow, Tag Urich is applying for a room in Auré's basement.

  And if everything goes right,

  I’ll be back under her roof, under her skin—

  right where I belong.