by:

Jordan and his sister, Jess, are twins, some think identical because they look so much alike. They used to fool a lot of people when they were younger but the differences became apparent as they got older or did they?

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Author's Note: Ok so here's the new story I promised. I'm a good portion of the way done with this one, currently writing Ch. 8 as I type this. This one is a spin off to It's Just a Skirt, set in the same town with some overlapping characters here and there. Though you don't have to, I highly recommend reading It's Just a Skirt before this. Just for some background and things. If anyone has read my Center story, The Center: Weight Problem, then they'll be familiar with the format I'm gonna use here. I have two characters---a brother and sister---with each one telling a chapter from their POV. Some events will overlap but more often than not, each chapter will progress things forward. I'd like to thank ashleigh for all the editing and proof reading help

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1.

“Hey, Jess wait up!”

I tried to ignore her. Which if you know Tiffany Reynolds, that’s pretty much impossible. For one thing, she’s on the soccer team so she’s really fast. For another, she’s been the lead in every musical since the third grade so she has one of those voices. Fast and kinda loud when she could be, Tiff was definitely impossible to forget. So I couldn't out run her. I wasn’t the sporty one of the family, that was my sister. I also wasn’t one of those hard body type guys with the muscles, capable of running thousands of laps. It was because of my sister though that I was currently trying to ignore Tiffany.

Because well my name isn’t Jess.

“JESS!” she shouted louder, her footfall getting closer.

I hated it when this happened.

Because it always happened.

You see Jess and I have the rare distinction of being twins. I say rare because we’re the only set of twins in the whole of the tenth grade. There were only four sets of twins in all of Dover High actually. I’m not sure how many in our sleepy little town but from what I’d seen, not very many. Not that I go out of my way to look for them or anything. It’s just one of those things you notice when you’re walking about and things. It made me feel special being unique.

Well, most of the time anyway.

Today not so much.

Tiffany, it would seem finally caught up with me. Not that it was hard to do after all.

“Jess, I've been shouting for you,” she said, huffing. “Why are you ignoring me?”

I smiled weakly, trying to be polite.

I hated when people confused the two of us. I mean I used to like it when Jess and I went out of our way to confuse people but it sucked to be them. It used to be a fun game we used to play. That was of course before we actually talked like normal siblings. When we were little, it was always a blast. Jess was always a bit of a tomboy so she used to keep her auburn hair short like mine. She never used to like to wear dresses either which always angered our mother. When we stood side by side we looked like two brothers. She even called herself J.D., short for Jessica Diane. It was kind of fun for a while. No one was ever able to tell us apart. As we got older, though, the fun started to fade. Jess was still the tomboy but we drifted apart. My cool sometimes brother J.D. disappeared to be replaced by my standoffish and overly superior sister, Jess.

Now we were literally strangers.

The only time I saw her now---outside of school---was when I looked in the mirror.

It was very unsettling, to say the least.

I mean what sixteen-year-old boy wants to look into the mirror and see the face of his sister staring back at him. Many people thought we were identical twins believe it or not. I mean it’s not possible. For us to be identical I mean. Well not in real life anyway. I’d seen it a lot in different things---movies, manga, anime. What the media and most people didn’t seem to understand was identical and fraternal were not terms for how the twins looked. The term identical twin actually meant being born from the same zygote. The only way that Jess and I could be identical is if I was her twin sister or her my twin brother.

Different sex identical twins were impossible.

It didn’t matter how much alike the two of us looked.

“What gives?” said Tiffany. Breaking my thoughts. “I mean I’ve been trying to get your attention since Mr. Hope’s class”

“Tiff,” I said and sighed. “I’m not…”

“Tiff what the hell!”

And speaking of Jess.

My sister came stomping over. I say stomping because that best describes how she left and entered a room. Walking down the hall was apparently no different. Jess always had this presence that made people notice. Me, I tended to blend in and disappear. The best she could ever do to blend in was keep her mouth shut.

Jess was in top form today, wearing her trademark scowl. She seemed to scowl at everyone nowadays. Even her friends it seemed.

Tiff looked confused. Staring from her to me and back again.

"That’s my dweeb of a brother,” she said, grabbing her friend by the arm and dragging her away.

They laughed a moment later---probably at my expense---before heading off down the hall.

It was just as well, Jess infuriated the hell out of me when she was around.

Like I said, we used to be really close. It was fun to have someone who looked almost like you. The pranks and games we used to pull on people were a blast. As we got older things changed. Jess got bit by the sports bug in middle school. Soccer and track mainly. Her priorities began to change and her free time was taken up with practices and tryouts. She started to become aggressive and overly competitive too. It was hard to hang out with her when all she wanted to do was prove she was better than me at everything. So eventually I just stopped trying.

That’s when I found music.

Our sister Tracy used to be in a band in high school. She played lead guitar and was pretty damn good at it too. Before her senior year of high school though she gave it up to pursue theater. When she went away to college, she left all her music stuff behind. She’d been teaching me to play guitar for years. She let me use this old Fender she had from when she was younger. She surprised the hell out me though when she gifted me with her pride and joy—her Mosrite. The god among guitars, Johnny Ramone’s guitar. Well, not his actual guitar but you know what I mean. I remember when she bought it, how much money she had saved up for it.

‘The torch has been passed” she said with a smile and hug when she handed it to me.

I was eleven at the time. You could only imagine what a gift like that did to my eleven-year-old self-esteem.

It definitely had an effect on Jess. She was a bitch for the rest of the month over it.

Then again, she and Tracy had never really been close.

I now owned a fair collection of guitars---both acoustic and electric--- but the Mosrite held a special place in my heart.

A slamming locker brought me out of thoughts.

I looked to see if my sister and Tiff were still about but they were already mostly out of sight. I watched them as they disappeared down the hall before finally making my way to my locker. It was the end of the day, so the hall was slowly starting to drain from the congestion of students a moment before. Jess and Tiff were probably off to some stupid practice. I didn’t really care, to be honest.

I dropped my stuff off at my locker.

I gathered the few meager things I’d need for homework tonight then cursed when I saw the time on my watch.

I had my own practice I was going to be late for.

Damn it.

The guys were waiting and they looked pissed.

I rushed through the parking lot as fast as I could, though. I knew I was going to be late. Stupid Tiff, stupid Jess. I’d been getting a lot of shit from the two bozos lately about my tardiness. They kept questioning my commitment to the band. Hey, I was committed; I was more committed than either of them in fact. It was my idea for the band in the first place actually. It was actually Tracy’s idea if you wanted to get technical. After all, she was the one who gave me the guitar and who said that I had this edgy pseudo-punk/metal thing going on. It was just a shame my voice wasn’t as edgy. I could play like a beast apparently but I sang like a chick.

Sure I sounded like an angsty chick but a chick nonetheless.

It sucked too.

We were still without a lead singer, though.

So I guess you couldn’t really call us a band after all.

“Jeez dude, you’re killing our buzz,” said Steve as he opened the side down of his van.

Steve was our drummer. He was a pretty cool guy I guess. Short and round but very mellow. It didn’t matter what anyone did actually because they were always killing the buzz.

I dropped off my guitar and turned to Craig.

Craig was our bass player. He was one of the best ones around. You name it, he could play it. He had one of those ears you know. It didn’t take him long to pick up a tune as soon as he heard it. He called it his “Gift”. I had to look up at Craig because he was so tall. He was the complete opposite of Steve too. Thin and slightly emo, Craig could be a bit of a downer if you let him be. Whenever he wrote a song it was either about suffering or darkness. Steve and I did our best to reign him in as much as possible.

It didn’t help that he was a bit down as of late.

He’d met this girl. His Mystery Goddess. It was last month at the mall, he was working late and she apparently was a vision of beauty. Blonde, perky and totally into him.

A blonde walked by.

Craig followed her with his eyes until she was out of sight.

“That her, huh?” asked Steve with a laugh.

Steve was under the impression that the “Mystery Goddess” was also the “Figment of Imagination Goddess”.

Craig frowned.

“She’s real dude!”

“So was Santa Claus until we were like nine”

Steve started laughing then hopped into the van.

I looked at the girl Craig was staring at. I’d only seen her for a second but sighed.

“And that was Holly Weeks, you want to stay away from that one. I heard one of the guys in gym class talking, she’s obsessed with glitter, Hello Kitty, and MLP”

Craig and I both shuddered.

We both climbed into the van after that.

We all lived in roughly the same neighborhood.we were elite but rejects too. Just like me, the two of them opted out of St. Andrews---the prestigious rich school where most of our ilk went . Steve’s Dad was a lawyer and almost sent him to some military school in California to straighten him out. Thankfully he was able to talk the old man out of it. Craig’s Dad was a doctor like mine, unlike mine though he was a heart surgeon. He wanted his son to have a good education but at the same time understood the need for growth and exploration. So like my folks, Dr. Crane let his son decide.

Oh right, details.

Ok so here goes.

My Dad was a GP. Not the only one in town of course but one of the most popular ones. It helped that he used to be a big ball player back in his day. He almost made it to the Major Leagues but opted out of it for medical school. He really pissed off his Dad. My grandfather was one of those guys. He wanted my Dad---his eldest---to take over the family real estate business. Well, actually he wanted my Dad to play some major league ball then retire then take over the business. My Dad threw a wrench in the plans though when he decided he wanted to live his own life. Gramps got what he wanted though when Uncle Connor took over the family business last year.

Mom was a different sort.

She and Dad met in college. She was a carefree spirit that, well let’s just say if you grew up in the eighties, you knew her face. She was Krystal Klear. You know that flighty teen pop star. She had a slew of number one hits, including “Dime Store Dolly” and “No Thank You, Sir”. Mom was a chart topper but shocked the world when she quit it all to go to college. She fell into obscurity, got a degree in music and came back on the scene when she opened her own studio. She rebranded herself and Clearwater Records became one of the choice labels for young up and coming pop stars.

Dad marrying a former pop princess really pissed Gramps off.

Dad was disinherited but he didn’t really care. He had his own money. Not as much as Gramps of course but enough to live comfortably. It helped that Mom made quite a bit of dough too. Even with gramps snubbing, Mom and Dad did very well for themselves. Which of course only pissed off Gramps even more. He and my Dad were still on unspeaking terms. Hell, I only ever saw my grandfather at the holidays and even then it was a pretty cold affair. He was good to us kids but that didn’t really say much. We were the Black Sheep of the Flynn clan.

I didn’t mind one bit.

“Earth to Jay?” said Craig, waving his hand in front of my face.

Shit.

“Sorry, was zoning,” I said, blinking.

“No duh,” said Craig with a laugh. “So what do you think?”

“About what?”

This time, Steve laughed, Craig rolled his eyes.

“We were talking about a singer”

The main topic of contention as of late.

“You don’t think you could…”

“No!” I snapped.

This was the contention part. You see we’ve been going back and forth on this for a few months now. We had a great sound, Craig was cobbling together some songs while we blasted away on some covers. Steve killed it on the drums, Craig’s bass was out of this world and well not to toot my own horn but I’m a Guitar God. That was the problem, though. We were all sound. Neither of them could carry a tune at all. I could sing, I could sing really well. Better than well I guess or at least that’s what everyone used to tell me.

The problem was I could only sing like a girl.

Ok, time for another rewind.

My mother always wanted her children to be musically inclined. She started with Tracy of course. My sister has been playing the guitar since she was four. She took to it naturally. Mom got her lessons and my parents bought her all the guitars she wanted. Hell, they even converted the basement into a little studio. When Jess and I came along, Mom tried with us too. Jess didn’t do so well. I guess she’s wired a bit differently than Tracy and me. She tried. She tried really hard. She wanted to impress Mom but I guess she had too much of Dad in her. Mom tried too but the two of them really don’t have anything in common. So Jess failed. It’s not that Mom loves her any less but it’s hard to connect with your child when you don’t share the same interests. Jess fell in with Dad. The two of them fit together. Me, well I think you can figure that out.

Mom called me her little prodigy.

“Oh a voice like an angel”

“So darling too. You must be so proud”

Mom was proud too. I started my singing lessons at a very young age. Like Tracy with the guitar, Mom wanted more for me. Not that she pushed me. She just didn’t hold back on what she wanted. She knew I had talent too. They all did. Every teacher I had told me how wonderful I was. I could go anywhere with that voice of mine. I loved it too. It was something that my sister didn’t have. All our life, Jess and I were always compared to one another. Sure she had all this athletic talent but me, I could sing. I loved to sing too. I felt free and alive when singing.
Puberty changed things.

Not for the bad either.

You see unlike most boys; my voice didn’t really change. I’m not sure why. Well, I knew why actually. Low testosterone count. It wasn’t all that uncommon actually. It was the reason why, even at sixteen, I still resembled my twin sister a great deal. I was still pretty short, still had a slim figure and a slight frame. Then there was my hair, long, silky smooth and auburn. It was no wonder my sister and I were always mistaken for one another.

I stopped singing after my fourteenth birthday, though.

I did this Chorus concert where I was given a solo. Everyone loved me. There was a lot of clapping, everyone was on their feet. I felt like a star. Well apparently not everyone liked it. Afterward, on my way home from school some of my male classmates expressed their feelings to me. It’s hard to fight back when it's four on one. They kicked my ass pretty good. Like broken arm good. Dad wanted to press charges but I refused to name names. I didn’t want the retribution that followed. My parents weren’t happy but I didn’t care. I decided something else too that really upset them. I decided from that day forward that I was never going to sing again.

Craig was still staring at me.

I know what he wanted. They’d been asking me it ever since we formed Sonic Wavelength. Oh, that’s the name of our band, cool right?

“Just one time!”

“No!” I snapped again.

We’d had this conversation before.

“We need you” he whined. “We all know you could pull this off in your sleep. You have this killer voice, dude. You could rock if you tried. Imagine the chicks who would line up to hear those pipes of yours”

I scoffed. ‘The chicks won’t be lining up to do me. They’ll be lining up asking me how come I don’t wear skirts like the rest of them”

We’d had this conversation before too. They were like broken records, the both of them. They wanted me to sing, I told them no and then we’d start this tug of war all over again. It was getting us nowhere. What we needed was to find a real singer. I’d been trying to push them toward open auditions for a while now actually. I say pushing because both of them kept pushing back. The difference between them and me, though, I had a mega music producer as a mother.

I let that little bit settle.

I didn’t say a thing to them.

I got tired of all this back and forth, neither side making any headway so I decided to take care of it last night. How did I take care of it? Easy, I asked my mother for help. She sent out her feelers, got the ball rolling and as soon as we got to my house, we were going to see the fruits of Mom’s labors. She promised she’d organize us an audition with some of the best talents coming out of her office. She wanted to make sure we got the best singer that she could find. Actually, she said second best because of course Mom kinda agreed with the guys.

I wasn’t going there, though.

“Dude?” said Steve as we got closer to the house. “When did you guys get a motorcycle?”

I looked out the window of the van as we approached. Sure enough, there was a motorcycle in the driveway. From the sleek design and silver finish, it looked expensive too.

“Dude that’s a Kawasaki Ninja H2 R,” said Craig, clearly salivating.

‘I take it that means it’s a nice one?”

“Like 50 grand nice!”

Holy shit.

I couldn’t help but stare at the rather expensive foreign motorcycle currently in my driveway. More to the point, though, I wondered where it came from. I was no stranger to seeing the like in my driveway of course---what with some of mother’s clients and friends. I’d just never seen one without knowing who was the driver or knowing when said driver was coming over. Mom didn’t have any secrets and she didn’t like to spring uninvited guests unto us. So when a client or friend was coming to visit, she gave us early warning. Partially because one time Jess freaked out when teeny bopper sensation Brian Vogel was in our kitchen one day after school and also because of privacy. Mainly because of the “Vogel Incident” though, Brian actually filed a restraining order against my sister. Ok so that last part is false but if I was him I would have.

“So which celebutante friend of your Mom’s drives that thing?” asked Steve as he parked his van on the road.

I shrugged. “No clue”

We filed out of the van after that. While Craig and Steve unloaded their stuff, I made a beeline for the house. If it was someone famous, I wanted to make sure I got there first to cut them off at the pass. I didn’t want another “Vogel Incident” on my hands. Or a “Tara McGee Fiasco” when she showed up for my birthday. Tara was a friend actually. She and I used to do music lessons together. Whereas she went on to become this big famous country star, I stayed boring old Jordan. We still Skyped and emailed as often as she could, though. I mean hell she was my age. It’s not like she was this big superstar or anything.

Ok so she was but she was always just T-Bone to me.

I rushed into the house as quick as I could. I tossed my pack on the couch, left my Yamaha by the door. In the kitchen, I heard my mother talking to someone.

“JC, that you?”

"Yeah Mom” I called as I made my way to the kitchen.

“Good, I want you to meet someone”

As soon as I walked in, I saw my mother and this stunning blonde sitting at the kitchen table.

Well, Mom was stunning too I suppose.

The blonde, though, she was a head turner. She was all legs and boobs. Her hair was streaked red, she wore dark smoky eye makeup and this tight little top and skin tight jeans and well you get the picture. She was nursing a cup of hot cocoa and smiled at me when I entered.

“Jordan, this is Victoria Fairchild. Victoria this is my son, Jordan”

“Hey, there,” she said, still smiling. “My friends call me Torrie”

“Hey,” I said, trying to keep my cool.

I mean it’s not every day that someone like her is sitting in your kitchen.

“Torrie is here in regards to your singer problem”

And thank you, Mom.

“That’s cool. We really need the help. The guys are on their way in now probably. I’ll let you meet them then we can see what you got”

“Sure that sounds awesome”

I let her finish her cocoa before I made intros. As soon as I walked out into the living room with her, I thought the guys were going to drop dead. I mean it’s not every day that a girl like her bothers with peons like us. As soon as I made the intros, I thought the two of them were going to run each over in an attempt to shake her hand first. Torrie and I giggled over the stupidity of it all. Yeah, I giggled. What you want to make something of it?

“Guys," I said as soon as they recovered. “Torrie is here to help the band. She’s gonna sing with us today and see how it fits.”

They just dumbly nodded.

I led her down the stairs to the basement. Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumb Ass followed. I’ll let you figure out which one was which. I unlocked the recording room door and held it open for her. The smile I got from her made my day. It was clear what she was trying to do but I didn’t care. I wanted to breathe the same air with this Goddess.

“This is awesome,” she said, looking around the room.

Mom actually had the basement converted into a studio when she was pregnant with Tracy. It helped her work at home. She could bring artists here and not bother dragging them to her studio in the city or the record label in NYC. She was also convinced that her daughter and any future children would be musicians. The room definitely scored me mega brownie points with potential friends over the years. Unfortunately, all of the two friends I had were in the room with me.

The home studio was pretty much set up like the studios at the office.

Since our house was rather large, we have a pretty good size basement. The people who put together the room utilized the space pretty well. Most of it, of course, was taken up by the live room where the musicians sang their songs. Then there was the recording booth, a small iso room and a tiny area to sit and hang out. Along the walls were speakers and storage. Plus, a lot of records, Mom’s and clients. It helped sell things to potential talent. Mom liked to bring new clients here first. It was where she got to see them shine. It also made them less nervous. Some of the biggest artists laid out their tracks here first. It was a good thing the place was totally sound proof too because Mom has had some real loud ones here.

I told the guys to set up then went to get my guitar.

I kept my practice guitar down here with a lot of other instruments. Of course, mine were separate and locked away from the others. In total, I had ten guitars. Six Strats, three Yamahas and the Mosrite of course. I barely touched the Mosrite though. It was my pride and joy after all. In fact, it was the only one I actually kept in my room, usually under heavy lock and key. There was no way I was gonna let anyone get their grubby hands on it after all.

Torrie watched me unlock the cabinet.

“Those are yours?’ she asked when I retrieved one of the Strats.

I kept the acoustic and electric guitars in separate storage compartments. I played them all equally but some got more play time than others.
“I like the Fenders,” I said, taking the guitar out of its case. “They’ve got a nice sound.”

She nodded. “You play acoustic too?”

“Of course”

She smiled again. God this girl has to stop smiling.

It was intoxicating.

“Yo Jordo, you ready?”

It didn’t take us long to get set up. As soon as we did, we decided to run through the songs for Torrie. Craig was our chief songwriter. Because we were mostly a punk band most the songs---the ones we made him write---were fairly loud and insanely upbeat. We envisioned ourselves as a pseudo-Green Day so if you know the sound you know how it goes. He had about four songs at the moment but was currently writing a fifth. They weren’t bad but they weren’t anything to write home to Mom about either. Speaking of Mom, she totally kept her nose out of things. She wanted me to thrive or fail on my own. She was cool that way. Of course, she offered pointers here and there but nothing too critical and always after we were done.

She wanted to see me succeed after all.

It only took us about twenty minutes to go through what we had.

I couldn’t help but notice Torrie bopping her head along with them.

When we finished, she was smiling again.

“You guys rocked it,” she said then looked from each of us. “You think maybe I can hear one or two sung as well. You know just so I know what I’m getting myself into?”

We looked at each other.

Here it comes, our problem.

“Just one Jordan,” said Craig, giving me the pleading puppy dog look.

“Fine,” I said, caving. “But just one and only one!”

Torrie gave us a strange look.

I took a deep breath as Craig started in with the bass. God, what the hell was I doing. I counted it out in my head, waiting for my intro. First with the guitar then with the lyrics. I’d memorized them of course, we all did. It helped us know when our parts were needed and things. Like I said Craig wasn’t a bad writer it just wasn’t really my thing. I agreed to the band of course but I was overruled on the sound. I wanted something more pop rock and dare I say folk sounding you know like Jewel. Steve was all for metal. He was a big metal head. It was Craig who pretty much decided we were gonna go punk. Well, Craig and Steve actually because they could blend a little metal in to make it sound awesome.

The guys liked to overrule me when it suited their needs.

Except for the whole singing thing of course.

Speaking of singing, as soon as I started, Torrie gave me this look. I knew it well; I’d seen it many times before. It was the “holy shit is that coming out of his mouth” look. It was the same look I got on my first day in the Chorus back in middle school. It was also the same look that every music teacher I ever had gave me. Hell, even Tara gave me that look when she first heard me sing. She’s the professional too. There was something about that look, though, something that made me come alive. I’d lie if I didn’t say I loved to sing. I really did. I felt like me when I was singing. The problem was I was still afraid of what might happen if well people got the wrong idea. I was a guy who sung like a girl and who looked a bit like one too.

There were a lot of assholes out there you know.

Hell four of them broke my arm.

Torrie gave me the look throughout the whole song. When I finished she was still giving me that look. She was smiling too which was suddenly contagious because I started to smile too. She surprised me a moment later when she hugged me.

“You made me a little wet” she whispered in my ear.

Holy shit.

She pulled away and rubbed her hands together like Mr. Burns.

“That was epic,” she said then took the mic from its stand. “My turn now”

We started up again and of course, Torrie killed it.

I smiled because of course, she was awesome.

I felt a little pang of jealousy too.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF

by:

Jordan and his sister, Jess, are twins, some think identical because they look so much alike. They used to fool a lot of people when they were younger but the differences became apparent as they got older or did they?

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Author's Note:Like I promised before here is Ch.2 on Monday. From now on, every new chapter of this story will be posted on Mondays. This is a Jess centric chapter, told from her POV. Each chapter will alternate. I'll let you know if that changes in the Author Note of the perspective chapter. I most forewarn people about a few things. One there is a Non-transgendered tag for this chapter. Because well I don't really get into much of anything like that here. At least not this chapter. Another thing, Jess's narrative is a bit separate from her brother's, she has her own story she goes on. That doesn't mean that there won't be some crossing from time to time. Its something new I'm gonna try here. I hope it works and I hope people will like it. Oh the biggest thing is, she's a major bitch. A lot of people aren't going to like her lol. Don't judge her too harshly though. I'd like to thank ashleigh for all the editing and proof reading help

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2.

Jess

“Blah, blah, blah, Blah”

Mr. Norris had one of those voices. The man could drone on and on and all it ever really sounded like was noise. I hated his class. I hated the way his monotone seemed to make everyone want to shoot themselves. I hated the way that he didn’t really notice how boring he was. More than anything, though, I hated it was my last class of the day. I had more important things to do than sit here and listen to him bore away the hour with a Math lesson that I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand.

Well, maybe not everyone.

I looked over at Lacy Peters.

She was that girl.

You know that little stuck up snot who spent all her school time with her lips firmly planted on the teacher’s ass. Ok, so that was a bit harsh. Lacy was a good person. She was just so damn annoying too. I wouldn’t say I hated her but I did hate how most teachers graded on a curve. Lacy was one of the ones that threw off that curve a great deal. Well, not the only one of course.

Jordan helped.

My dweeby “little” brother. Hey, we might be twins but I was born two minutes before so that makes me older. As the older sibling, I was supposed to be hard on my brother. I think it’s in the rulebook or something. It wasn’t always like that, though. At one time, he and I used to get along pretty well. I’m not sure when things changed, though. It wasn’t like one day I woke up and decided to hate him. He didn’t just wake up and turn into a dweeb overnight either. It was this gradual thing.

Puberty had a lot to do with it too.

Puberty had not been kind to Jordan.

We were twins. Almost identical all our lives. It was fun when we were younger. We could mess with people because it was always hard to tell us apart at first. I say at first because Jordan could never keep it going for long. It was our subtle differences that gave us away. For one thing, he’s really quiet. I wouldn’t say shy but he had this meek way. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word “No” and he’s always letting others push him around because of it. I hate to call him a wuss, but it’s hard not too when well…yeah, he’s a wuss. It only got worse as we got older. Whereas all the boys around him were getting taller and stronger, he pretty much stayed the same.

A sixteen- year- old brother was still not supposed to look like his sister.

Ok so he didn’t have boobs or things like but he still had my face. He had my hair too. We had this coppery blonde hair that hung to our backs, a slight wave too. I used to love it when we were younger because I could braid his hair and put bows in it and things. It was like having a sister. As we got older, though, it stopped being so cool. I mean he’s still not supposed to have that hair. He was supposed to cut it, shave it down to a buzz or something. His skin wasn’t supposed to be that soft either and his voice, don’t even get me started on that voice. He sounded girlier than I did.

I mean he’s my brother. He’s not supposed to look and sound like my sister.

God was cruel to Jordan.

In a way, he was cruel to me too.

We had the same head but I was a little rougher around the edges. My voice a bit huskier, my skin tough from sports. I had a boyish figure too. Very little hips, flat as a board. He might have looked and sounded like a sister but I wasn’t supposed to look like a brother. It didn’t help that Jordan got all the talent too. He was a top notch singer and the way he played the guitar was out of this world. Sure I had sports but what good was kicking a ball around when your brother could put the likes of Taylor Swift to blame. I tried to sing like him but apparently, musical talent only struck some parts of my family.

In that respect, I was the black sheep.

Baah.

“Ok class,” said Norris, glancing at the clock. “I want you to do problems sixty-five through one hundred in the back of your book. If you have any questions, email me”

The bell rang a second later.

Mr. Norris started to say something else but most of the class was out the door.

Including me.

I rushed into the hallway, falling into step with the horde.

TGIF.

This week has been totally boring. The only good thing about it is today. I’ve been waiting all week for today. Today was soccer tryouts. I know what you’re thinking and you’d be correct, yes tryouts are usually the previous year. They were too. Except well there was an accident last week. It was during the fall parade. Every year the soccer boys and girls fundraise for a float. Well, this year was no different except the float was poorly made. Halfway down Main Street, something went wrong and the float collapsed. Two of our girls broke their legs, another broke her ankle. Two of the boys got out of it with broken limbs too.

Boys’ soccer was going to recover. They always did. Us girls, not so much.

Coach Ross felt it only fair that we redo tryouts to fill the empty slots. We only had three alternates---Claire, Britney and myself. This horrible tragedy was my chance. I got screwed out of being on the team last year and being an alternate was insulting. The coach knew I was the best one on the team and when I told her so she got pissy. Said the reason I was made an alternate was because I needed to drop the ego and be a team player. As if I’m not a team player. I mean I did let Tiff take the number nine for her jersey. Everyone knows the best soccer players have number nine. I mean that’s being a team player, right?

Speaking of Tiff…

I saw her running down the hall, trying to catch up with someone. Looking a bit ahead, I saw the back of my brother trying desperately to get away from her.

Not again.

I picked up pace.

Tiff caught up with him as he was approaching his locker.

I heard her: “What gives, I mean I’ve been trying to get your attention since Mr. Hope’s class?”

Idiot.

I loved Tiff to death. She was my BFF. She was, however, the dimmest bulb I’ve ever met. Most commoners had problems telling me and Jordan apart. Tiff should have been a top notch above the rest. I say should have been but like I said, she’s kinda stupid. She only made up for her low IQ on the field. She was one of the best scrimmagers on the team, and on the track, she was a natural sprinter. In the classroom, a piece of chalk was smarter. Ok, so that’s harsh. She was actually pretty smart but she was just dense when it came to certain things.

Like apparently telling the difference between a boy and a girl.

To his credit, Jordan was trying to set her straight.

He was fumbling it again, though.

“Tiff’ I said, annoyed, “what the hell?”

The Light Bulb Goddess looked from me to him then back to me.

“That’s my dweeb of a brother!”

I grabbed her arm and dragged her away.

Tiff laughed. “He should really get a haircut.”

I laughed a bit too.

Jordan turned away from us and went to his locker. I couldn’t help but watch him for a few seconds, though. God, could he be any more obvious. Well ok, he probably didn’t notice but his look screamed attention. I don’t think he intentionally meant to be androgynous but with his hair and slight build, he did it without realizing it. It didn’t help that he tried to hide it either. Hiding it only made him look even more androgynous. I mean seriously---a zip up hoodie, faded blue jeans and high tops. He was just screaming girl. Not to mention his hair. He did this thing where he let part of it hang over his right eye?

Idiot.

“So I’ve got some news,” said Tiff as we stopped at my locker. “Mondo bad.”

I rolled my eyes. Tiff’s idea of bad news would be the Biebs and Gomez getting back together again.

“Ok, so what’s so mondo bad?” I asked, humoring her.

“Claire and Britney are done”

“What?”

That wasn’t bad news. That was horrible news.

“Well Claire’s Dad just got a transfer so they’re moving and Brit doesn’t want to be on the team without her”

“Skanks”

Ok so that was harsh but this was horrible timing.

There were only a handful of girls in the school who were even soccer worthy, to begin with. Besides Tiff who didn’t make the cut last year, that left only a couple of other contenders. Claire and Brit were shoe-ins for the main team. With them gone, there were maybe three or four other girls. Girls soccer took a mondo hit last year too when it was announced that the school was canceling the JV team. There just wasn’t enough interest in girl’s athletics at DCH. Most of the junior and senior girls decided to take their chances with intramural soccer at the community center. So that only left freshman, sophomore, and a few upper classmen stragglers.

Not a good sign.

I grabbed my gym bag from my locker, huffing as I did so.

“So with them out of the way, who do we have left?”

“Ummm,” said Tiff as we started walking. “Dana?”

“She’s doing track this year again”

Tiff was on the track team too but only did the outdoor stuff which was a spring thing.

It was the middle of October now. Soccer thankfully was an all-season thing. Indoor in the winter, outdoor in the spring.

"What about Carly?”

“You didn’t hear?” I asked, shocked. Tiff shock her head. “You haven’t seen her. Well apparently over the summer, Carly, and her fam went on a vacay to Mexico. She blimped out big time. Put on like twenty pounds or something. I saw her in the workout room the other day, crying as she was trying to burn them off. Jake broke up with her too. Totally tragic”

“Holy cow!”

“I know right”

We both had a good laugh.

Poor Carly though.

But more than that, poor Jake.

“Well maybe we can bring in someone else, you know from out of town?”

“Like who?”

“I heard there was this girl over in Prescott…”

I’d heard about her too. She was supposed to be this Soccer Goddess, a beast on the field. Christy something. She had great potential I suppose but I’d also heard she quit cold turkey too.

“And how do we get a Prescott girl here, huh?” I asked. “I mean that place is like what, fifty miles away or something?”

Tiff shrugged.

"From now on, only smart ideas please”

Tiff said nothing more. Which was fine by me because I needed time to think.

But if Brit and Claire ruined my chances of getting on the main team, there was going to be hell to pay for them.

When we got to the gym, there was a bit of a commotion by the front door.

I recognized the five or six girls left on the team plus a few others. It looked like they were staring at something on the door. Probably another message from coach. Coach Ross liked to do that from time to time. Usually, the memos told them to head out the field after changing, things like that. There was a similar memo last week, telling them about new tryouts.

I pushed my way through the crowd, getting a dirty look or two.

Janey Marx was currently reading whatever was there.

“Shit” she cursed.

The girls looked a bit shocked. Janey was one of those holier than thou types, she never swore. So if Janey was swearing than you knew it was bad.

I ignored it for a sec and took a look at the notice.

It was a computer printout but I could tell it was from the coach because she always called us her “Little Birdies”. The school’s mascot was a Raven. Coach thought it was cute, she thought it was cuter when we usually tweeted at her in response. It didn’t take me long to read what the coach had to say. At the end I found myself thinking the same thing that Janey put to words only a second or two before.

Shit.

“They can’t be serious,” I said, flabbergasted at what I’d just read.

“What’s up?’ asked Tiff, who was struggling to read past the gaggle of girls in front of her.

“Effective immediately” I read aloud. “Girls Soccer is canceled. I’m sorry my Little Birdies, Coach Ross”

There were groans from the girls who apparently didn’t get to read it yet.

Tiff cursed.

My mind was still going through the process. How in the hell could those bastards do this to us? I know it wasn’t the coach. She didn’t really have say in the politics behind it. She was young, barely older than Tracy. This was her first year here. Well, they actually brought her in over the summer to do summer school gym class. She met most of us over the summer during the first tryouts. She was here on a trial basis.

"I’m going to go talk to Coach to get to the bottom of this,” I said, making up my mind.

The notice was pretty cryptic.

There had to be more to it.

As I started away from the gym down the hall, I noticed I wasn’t alone. Tiff fell into step beside me then Janey. I heard the footfall of the others too. Solidarity. I felt a little proud about that. We didn’t have a team captain anymore. She was one of the girls who fell off the float. Our team was aimless and leaderless but if willing, I was going to fill that void at the moment. No one seemed to be objecting to it either.

The gym coaches had their offices down the hall from the gym.

We’d all been to Coach Ross’ a few times.

I stopped in front of her door, taking a deep breath.

“You got this, Jess,” said Tiff, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.

I knocked on the door. The muffled voice of the coach told me to enter.

The others stayed behind.

Opening the door, I found the coach at her desk. Like I said she was only a few years older than my sister so maybe twenty-five or so. She was wearing a track suit in the school colors of silver and blue, her long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her laptop was open in front of her but as soon as she looked up, we locked eyes. She sighed so she knew why I was there.

“Flynn, don’t start,” she said, exasperated.

"I don’t get it,” I said, dropping into the chair in front of the desk.

"I’ve been arguing with the Board and the Athletics director all morning and afternoon over it”

Well, at least she was fighting it.

“So what happened?”

“Molly,” said the coach with a sigh. "Her break was a little more severe than earlier thought, her parents are suing”

Oh shit.

Molly Wright was one of the strikers. A damn good one too. I’d heard what happened and I could only imagine how much pain she was in. She was near the back of the float, leaning against the rail when it gave way. She toppled backward off of it, both the rail and John Cooper landed on her. The wooden beam and the combined weight of Coop, I could only imagine.

“Her folks are on the warpath. Molly’s leg was fractured in several places. So they’re suing the school and the Coopers. The Board had a meeting and decided girls soccer was more of a liability to them. They canceled it last night, dropped the ball on me this morning.”

Damn them.

“What about the boys?”

Coach gave an “are you kidding” look. Yeah, I thought as much.

“The boys are state champions. They fill seats, they make money. Add this to the whole Hope Solo thing and Team US not getting gold over the summer and you can see how much the Board is interested in girls soccer”

I groaned.

Hope Solo was gonna tarnish girls’ soccer for a while after that.

Stupid bitch.

I used to have her poster on my wall.

Emphasis on the “used” to.

“Can we fight it?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do. They seem pretty made up about it, though. There will be an official inquiry into it but it doesn’t sound promising.” She sighed and stood up, walking around the desk. “I’m sorry it came to this. I was really looking forward to taking this team to the top”

I stood to face her and she gave me a hug.

She apologized again as I left her office. Tiff was the only one waiting for me. So much for solidarity after all. Coach hugged and apologized to Tiff as well. Then she went back into the office, leaving us alone.

"Well?" asked Tiff as I sighed heavily.

“Stupid Molly’s parents sued the school”

"That sucks”

“It gets worse,” I said, starting down the hall. “The board got their panties in a twist and said girls soccer wasn’t worth the trouble so they canned it. But the boys…this is bullshit!”

Tiff was silent for a moment then spoke up.

“Why don’t we try out for the boy’s team then?”

“What?”

She was pointing to one of the bulletin boards on the wall. There were a bunch of different notices and fliers on there. One of them was a flyer for boys soccer tryouts.

“It's not unheard of you know” continued Tiff “I mean girls play on boys’ teams all the time right?”

It wasn’t unheard of but I knew Coach McGuire. He was a bit of a hard ass. One of the chauvinistic pigs who thought women should be in the kitchen and not on the field. I’d had a few run-ins with him before. He used to coach intramural soccer for younger kids. He raised quite a stink when there were a few girls on the team. But because the teams were mixed, he ended up losing his job. I mean it was community run and him being there was on their dime. He took it to the City Council and everything. I can’t even figure out how a dickhead like him got to coach the boys’ team.

I guess it just goes to show who you know.

The question was, had the coach mellowed in age?

“C’mon,” said Tiff, jangling her keys in my face. “Let’s get out of here”

I nodded.

I’d figure something out and call her later.

We lived in a cul-de-sac, the center house with two houses on either side of us. All the houses in the development were large and McMansionish. I’m sure you’d seen the like before. Thankfully we all had huge yards and lots of space between us. I’m not sure what my Dad was thinking, to be honest. There was nothing wrong with Pine Crest Acres I suppose but every house looking the same was pretty tacky. It didn’t help that we were living near a bunch of dweebs. Thankfully for me, Tiff lived nearby or else I would have run away from home a long time ago.

Pulling up to the house in Tiff’s teal blue Versa, I couldn’t help but groan when I saw the white van parked out front.

Great, the Moron Squad was here.

Tiff made a face when she saw the van too.

“You want me to stay?”

I was about to say yes when I noticed the motorcycle. Shit. Looks like Mom had a visitor too? Maybe it was Brian again? I looked over at Tiff and I couldn’t let her there if Brian was there. She’d freak more than I did. Ok so to be fair I didn’t freak as much as Jordan said I did. But it was Brian Vogel.

“No Tiff. I don’t want you to catch whatever they’re carrying”

I climbed out of the car.

“I’ll text you later about tomorrow,” I said, closing the door.

I waved as she drove off. As soon as she was out of sight, I bolted for the house. As soon as I got inside, I shouted for Mom. Then I noticed the studio light on. Jordan and the Dweebs were probably downstairs playing their “music”. If you even wanted to call it that. Basically, the three of them sat around jamming, cobbling together noise that they claimed was music. Ok, so it pains me to admit that my brother was good. Not quite on par with Tracy but he was still pretty good. It still pissed me off that he was better than me, though. Well, it was for losers anyway so what did I care?

“Honey why must you always shout?” said my mother as she came down the stairs.

Mom was in her late forties but didn’t look a day over forty. She had long auburn hair like me and Jordan. Unlike ours, though, hers was streaked with gray. It was the only thing that showed her age, though. Mom took really good care of herself. She jogged every morning, drank healthy smoothies every day and went to the gym at least three times a week. Because of all that, she looked much younger. To be fair, though, Dad was in pretty good shape too. It was hard to believe both of them were almost fifty.

My parents had Tracy about a year or two out of college. I don’t think they were ever expecting to have other children, to be honest. Not that they didn’t want me and Jordan but I think we surprised them. Tracy was six years older than us. I think she was the only one who was thrilled by the prospect of having younger siblings. She was in her senior year at State now, pre-med. She was going to follow in Dad’s footsteps.

I thought about doing the same though I think I want to try sports medicine.

“I’m sorry Mom,” I said, following her into the kitchen.

I noticed two empty mugs at the table.

“It's not Brian,” mom said as I stared at one of the mugs.

“What?”

‘The motorcycle” Mom said, clearing the table. “I know you were itching to ask about it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

She laughed. “Well if you must know, it’s a singer for your brother’s band”

I scoffed. “So another Dweeb for the Dweebs”

“I wish you wouldn’t call you brother a dweeb. You two used to be so close once”

“Yeah when we were five”

Ok so not quite. Jordan and I started to drift apart in middle school actually. I’d be lying if I said it was all him. We just lost interest in one another. He started his music thing and I naturally rolled into sports. It’s not like I didn’t try to get him interested. I dragged him to a bunch of tryouts and things. Dad tried too. Jordan was just never really interested. No offense to my brother but he’s always been a bit of a Momma’s Boy. It didn’t help that Mom was always there pushing him too. Ok so Jordan did have talent, hell a lot of talent. When he opened his mouth, it was like angels were flying out of it. It was this amazing voice. It was just too bad that he sounded more like Taylor Swift than Trent Reznor.

Mom put a plate of cookies on the table. Not homemade but I didn’t care.

I dug into them.

“How did tryouts go?”

“They didn’t,” I said, a mouthful of cookie.

“Honey, chew”

I swallowed. “They canned the team Mom”

“What?”

I nodded. “Stupid Molly. She apparently really broke her leg, like really bad broke it. Her parents sued. The Board freaked so they canceled girls’ soccer”

“Poor Molly” Mom said sadly.

I scoffed. “What about me?”

“Poor you too,” Mom said sarcastically, giving me a half hug.

Whatever.

Mom was such a parent sometimes.

I had eaten a few more cookies and was halfway through eating another when I heard the commotion on the stairs. Great here comes the Dweeb Squad. Steve and Craig were up the stairs first. Steve made a play for my cookies but I swiped them away. Nice try lardo. A moment later, I heard a girl laughing. Followed quickly after by her and my brother coming up the stairs. Holy shit. This girl she was…what the hell was she doing with them. Her boobs were bigger than my head and her outfit! did she paint it on? She and my brother were laughing too. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard him laugh.

When they got up the stairs, the girl stopped and stared at me.

“Holy shit, you’re a clone!”

Ha ha.

Bitch.

Jordan rolled his eyes. “Jess, this is Torrie. Torrie, that’s Jess.”

“Hey,” I said, still holding my half eaten cookie.

“Oh, JC, your brother is cute”

Brother as if.

Jordan and the guys laughed.

“I’m his sister,” I said, pissed.

“Oh,” she said, slightly embarrassed. “Well girl, you really need to moisturize”

I felt like giving the skank the finger. Instead, I just finished eating my cookie.

“Well JC, I gotta jet. Call me and we’ll hash out details” she gave my brother a hug then kissed him on the cheek.

Where the hell does she get off calling him J.C.?

That’s a family nickname.

I was totally flabbergasted that someone like that would be friends with my brother. What’s worse, before she left the kitchen, the bitch totally ganked one of my cookies. I almost decked Trailer Trash Barbie but she bolted before I could react. I was still sitting there with my mouth open when I heard the revving of her motorcycle.

“Dude she totally burned you,” said Steve with a laugh.

“Fuck off fatty!”

“Jessica Diane Flynn!”

Shit, I forgot Mom was still here.

“Sorry Mom,” I said then grumbled. “Stupid skank. I’m gonna bust her in the mouth the next time I see her”

“She’s right you know honey,” said Mom with a sympathetic look. “You really should moisturize more”

I groaned, slammed the plate on the table and stormed out of the kitchen.

Stupid Bitch, stupid Dweebs, stupid Mom.

I went into my bedroom and slammed the door.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF

by:

Jordan and his sister, Jess, are twins, some think identical because they look so much alike. They used to fool a lot of people when they were younger but the differences became apparent as they got older or did they?

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Author's Note:Its that time again everyone, Monday and a new chapter. We're back to Jordan again. We get to meet one of the main characters of this tale in this chapter---Tara. She's an interesting person because of the strides she makes to get things in motion. You'll see what I mean a little bit later. There's a few other characters introduced in this chapter as well, one of which will make more appearances. The story sorta pushes ahead slowly at this point. Lingering on the first day---Friday---and the Saturday that follows for a few chapters. I might tweak it a bit because it feels like a lot going on in a two days. I'll figure it out when I get to posting the next few chapters lol. I'd like to thank ashleigh for all the editing and proof reading help, also wish her a fast recovery because she's currently in the hospital.

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3.

Jordan

Jess slamming the door was like a thunder clap.

Mom stood there staring at us for a few seconds before sighing and saying, “I have to go up there and take care of that don’t I?”

“You want me…”

‘No, it’s my job” she said with a groan then mumbled as she walked away. “Why couldn’t your father be home…”

As soon as Mom was gone, my friends broke out into laughter. I couldn’t help but smirk a bit too. Then I found myself laughing a bit too. Jess was always a bit of a drama queen. She was also used to being the center of attention. I could only imagine what went through her head when she saw Torrie. Not only that but when Torrie thought she was my twin brother, God that was priceless. Very few people were able to take Jess down a peg but Torrie did it like a master. The greatest thing about it all was that Torrie didn’t even realize she was doing it.

We didn’t sit around to wait for Mom to come back.

We had a few things to discuss so I led them to my room.

Ok, so quick rundown of things.

This house had a total of six bedrooms. The master bedroom, my bedroom, and Jess’s bedroom were all on the second floor. Then there was two spare rooms downstairs. The guest bathroom was downstairs too. The main bathroom was upstairs along with two ensuites, one connected to the master and the other connected to Jess’s room. I didn’t really care about having my own bathroom to be honest. My bedroom was bigger though because it was over the two car garage. Plus it had the little door leading to the attic. When I was ten, Dad had the attic converted into a hang out room for me and the guys.

I know what you’re thinking. I said this house had six bedrooms.

Ok, so the sixth wasn’t actually in the house.

Dad had this fascination with classic cars. So about a year or two ago, he built a detached garage to store them. He currently had two in there with his others at an offsite storage garage. When the car garage was built so too was the studio apartment above it. The apartment was where Tracy stayed when she was here during the holidays. It was a pretty epic space. It had its own bathroom and direct access to the large in-ground pool in our backyard. Jess had been extremely pissed when the folks built the place for Tracy. My sister was at that teenage girl phase of her life where she wanted her total independence. She tried convincing Dad to let her live out there when Tracy wasn’t but Dad didn’t go for it. He said and I quote, “there is no way that I’m letting my teen daughter live alone and away from adult supervision”. I think it was the first and only time Dad ever told her no.

Jess liked to call me a Momma’s Boy.

Well, she was definitely a Daddy’s Girl.

“You know,” said Steve as we walked into my room. “If your sister would just pull that stick out of her ass, she might be hot”

Craig and I rolled our eyes.

“How long have you been crushing on her again?” asked Craig, dropping himself into my computer chair.

Steve flushed a few different shades of red.

Craig and I had a laugh at his expense.

Steve got Craig back a second later, though. “Well at least the girl I’m crushing on is real!”

“Fuck off” snapped Craig, throwing one of my magazine’s at him. “She is real!”

This time Steve and I laughed at Craig.

That’s when the two of them started in on their “No she isn’t” and “Yes she is” back and forth argument. Seriously, you’d think we were all still in elementary school. I let them argue. I took my laptop off the computer desk and plopped down on my bed. Logging in, I checked my email. Most of it was crap. There were a few things of interest, though. I was on a mailing list for the local bookstore, telling me when new manga came in. I was also a member of this site that sold and traded guitars. I got an email from both, the bookstore one was promising, the guitar one not so much. The most promising email though was from Tara.

Tara was coming home. She’d be here until after Halloween.

Which was epic.

Tara was the missing member of our motley little crew. Up until last year, that is. Unlike me, she never stopped the whole singing thing. Mom knew the kind of talent she had and didn’t let up until Tara agreed to sign with her. Mom wasn’t one to sign country singers but Tara had one of those voices that could not only fit country but other songs as well. Tara topped the charts with her first solo, “Love Me”. A CD quickly followed and it didn’t take long for her to go on tour. She’s been on tour for the last two months or so. The tour it seemed was now over and she just got back home last night.

“Tara’s home,” I said excitedly.

“Oh yippy!” said Craig, sarcastically, clapping his hands like a moron.

Neither Steve nor Craig seemed to get along with her very well. I mean we all used to be as thick as thieves but after Tara made it big, well they got a bit jealous. Not that they’d admit it of course. I think they were just a little bit annoyed that Mom didn’t see much potential in us as a band. Don’t get me wrong, we were pretty smashing. But without a singer, we were just a sound. Mom tried to get us some paying studio gigs, laying background music, that kind of thing. The guys didn’t want it, though. They wanted the whole package deal. Like me, they tried to talk Tara into singing with us but it wasn’t really her thing.

So lots of resentment toward her.

A moment later, I got a text.

HEY JACY, DITCH THE ENTOURAGE AND COME HANG WITH ME.

It was from her.

And yes, she really calls me Jacy.

It originally started as a joke. My older sister and I have always been really close. Well everyone in my family already calls me “J.C.” of course. Tara just took things one step further. She used to call us “Tracy and Jacy”. Just for laughs of course. Tracy thought it was funny, me not so much. Well regardless of what I thought, the name seemed to stick with Tara.

I texted her back quickly.

SURE, JUST GIVE ME A FEW, T-BONE :P.

My T-Bone nickname for her, well that was just to piss her off.

“Hey guys,” I said, after sending the text. “Go away now”

Steve and Craig groaned.

“Let me guess, Little Miss Country Music Princess has beckoned you?”

“Man you’re so whipped!”

All three of us laughed.

“Seriously, though, leave now”

They rolled their eyes and groaned. I followed them down the hall and down the stairs. When we got to the living room, Jess was moping on the couch. She glared at all three of us but we, of course, ignored her. It’s not our fault that Torrie owned her. She’d get over it. I walked them to the door and practically pushed them out of it. They knew I was only joking around with them though because they laughed when I did it. As soon as they were gone, I turned and made a beeline for the stairs then stopped to talk to Jess.

“Hey Tara and I are going out, wanna come along?”

Ok, so I was being nice.

She gave me this look.

“Hmmm, Mets game or third wheel?” she said, making a mock scale with her two hands. “Yeah, I’m not going to watch you crash and burn all night”

“Instead, you’re gonna watch the Mets do that,” I said with a laugh.

She threw one of the throw pillows at me.

I laughed as I dodged it and ran up the stairs.

Dad was coming in as I was going out. I nearly collided with him going out the door.

“What’s the rush, sport?”

God, I hated that. Dad always called me stupid names like that. “Sport”, “Buddy”, Champ”. Gag me with a spoon. Not that I didn’t love my father or anything, I did. He was a great father. Better than Steve’s dad that’s for sure. Dad always went out of his way to make sure we had our own space but at the same time was there if we needed him. It’s just, well, he was a baseball player, and he had this way about him. He was the kind of father who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, you know the “ole chip off the old block”.

That was never me. Dad tried but he knew it wasn’t either.

I think it hurt the hell out of him too.

To be fair, though, he was trying to be the best father he could be. My grandfather wasn’t much of one and Dad’s grandpa, well he wasn’t really around much either. Dad was practically raised by his uncle. Uncle Ben was the best but he was that kind of guy---my Dad’s kind of guy.

“Tara’s home,” I said in a rush. “I’m gonna go hang out with her a bit”

Dad gave me a look. It was the look.

Mom knew we were just friends. But to Dad, a boy and girl couldn’t just be friends.

“Does your mother know?”

I nodded. “I asked, she told me to be home before ten”

“Ok then, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said with a chuckle.

I rolled my eyes as I headed out the door.

When Jess and I turned sixteen a few months ago, Dad had already bought us a car. I said a car because he only bought one. Jess and I were meant to share it. It was a metallic blue 2016 Ford Focus. It was ok if you liked that kind of thing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the kind of thing we were hoping for, though. Dad knew that too but he also knew that there was no way he could afford my sister’s corvette or my mustang. Well, he could but he refused too. He also only got us the one car because he wanted us to work on our sharing skills. Everything was a lesson to Dad. If we wanted our fancy cars, we were to go out and get jobs and get them ourselves.

So Jess and I came up with a system. Well, one that fell into the rules that my father already laid out. She and I rotated the car on weekends. If however one of us got a job then the one with the job got priority. If both of us got a job---unlikely because Jess is a lazy slob---we were to alternate usage like on the weekends then give the other a ride to and from work. Those were the rules of sharing. The rules of the car itself were a little tighter. Neither one of us could drive it after eight at night, we weren’t allowed to let others drive it and we couldn’t drive it to school. Dad’s nurse Brenda was married to a police officer and the stories he could tell about stupid kids and their cars, especially related to school.

I pulled out my cell, texting Tara to tell her I was on my way.

Oh yeah, big rule: no cells while driving.

That one, of course, was a no-brainer.

She sent me a reply, asking to pick her up, shooting me the address.

Yes, I know where my best friend lives but as of a year ago, it used to be a trailer park.

Tara and her Mom were from Kentucky. She moved up here when she was eight, after a really messy divorce. Her mom was a beautician. Up until a year ago, she made ends meet at a little salon on Main Street. Then Tara got her recording contract. Now Tara’s mother owns the place. I did say Tara was a pretty famous country singer right? In fact, she was nominated for several Best New Artist awards. She hit it big. With the money she started to make, she was able to move her mother out of the trailer and into a nice three bedroom house a couple of blocks from my own. Not quite Pine Crest Acres but still pretty nice.

It only took me about five minutes to get to Tara’s.

Tara was sitting on the porch swing waiting as I pulled up.

There was a look of confusion on her face before she recognized me.

I had one seeing her too.

Sure I’d been seeing her for the last year or so but seeing and believing were two different things. The girl coming toward my car was not the same one that I grew up with. Sure she was the same of course but she looked completely different. When Tara left home, she was a slightly overweight girl with glasses and muddy brown hair. The girl walking toward the car was none of these things. Sublime Records---her label---had done a complete makeover on her. First gone were the glasses and brown hair, in their place sparkling green eyes and long flowing auburn locks. She’d lost a great deal of weight too, maybe thirty pounds or more. She’d clearly had a fashion consultant as well because the skinny jeans, cowboy boots and tank top was not her usual style.

It was definitely a nice change.

It was a recent one too.

Of course, I’d been watching her interviews on TV and she did have a music video but the Tara in those was not the Tara I saw before me. I couldn’t help but smile at the Tara that I was seeing now. She was practically glowing, the confidence oozing off of her. This was the friend that I always knew was hiding inside of her.

“Look at the shiny wheels,” she said, a hint of her Kentucky twang coming through.

When Tara moved here her accent was pretty thick. The kids used to harass her nonstop over it. As time went on, though, the accent started to fade away. By the time we got into middle school it was all but gone. Sure growing up here for the last several years helped but Tara always told me she could turn it on and off at will. I mean her mother never lost her accent after all. Apparently being a country star now meant that the accent was back.

“Look at the Shiny Tara,” I said as she climbed inside.

She gave me a big hug.

“Forget about me, look at you,” she said, running her fingers through my hair. “Still silky smooth like I remember. You haven’t cut it either”

I blushed. Tara always loved my hair. She once told me it was my best feature. We spent many a day in her room, her brushing it and styling it in a bunch of different ways. She didn’t really have any girl friends growing up. Most of the girls didn’t want to associate with the hefty country girl. So I tried my hardest to be the best boy and girl friend that she could have. I’m not ashamed to say that I let her braid my hair often nor that I’d worn makeup many times. It’s just the kind of friendship we used to have.

“So where too?”

“I thought maybe we’d pop into Leo’s for a bite then grab a movie or something if you want?”

I nodded. “As long as we can get it done before eight. Dad doesn’t like me driving beyond that”

Tara looked at her watch. It was going on five now.

“Well, maybe just Leo’s then?”

Leo’s was the local teen hangout. It had the best pizza in the world as far as I was concerned. It helped that the owner loved Tara. She was the only thing he talked about. In fact, there was one wall of the restaurant devoted to her. It was kinda surreal actually. Leo seemed to collect every scrap of paper and every article that she was mentioned in. I called it Tara’s Wall of Shame. She and I often had a few good laughs about it on Skype. This would be the first time she was gonna see it in person though so I think she was kinda excited.

“So,” I said as we drove. “How goes the whole country singer thing?”

“Eh,” she said, shrugging it off. “It's just a hobby”

We laughed.

“So how goes your music?”

“Mom found us a singer!” I said rather excitedly. “She’s really good, has this Avril sound thing going on”

“That’s great” she said just as excitedly. “I’d hug you but I don’t want us to do a Paul Walker or something”

Harsh but true. That was Tara’s sense of humor by the way. She didn’t mean anything by it. She was always a bit on the morbid side, though. In another life, I knew she could have been one of those morbid, “life is worthless” emo kids.

Tara’s humor masked other things though too. I knew her well enough to know what she was really thinking. Like my mother, she’d been pissed I quit singing. Singing used to be my life after all. It was definitely Tara’s. The two of us used to spend hours in her bedroom singing along to Taylor, Katy, and a few others. It used to consume us. Things change, though. When I just up and quit, Tara actually cried. We had a huge fight over it and she told me she was never going to talk to me again. Well the “not talking to me” lasted for about a week. She came back---crying again---and apologized. She still told me I was being an idiot but I was her best friend and she’d support my decision.

That’s when I started pushing her, though.

Tara’s singing career actually started when we were fourteen.

With pressure from both Mom and I, we got her to sing in this little talent contest the school was putting on. When Mom saw the reaction people had, she knew the potential. She signed Tara and got the ball rolling. Last year, Mom made some arrangements with Sublime records, Tara’s current label. Sublime handled more country acts, something Mom wasn’t really keen on. She loved Tara but also knew there was nothing more she could do for her. Tara signed a one-year contract with Sublime. They put her on the fast track. It didn’t take long for her to record her first single and hit the airwaves. In a week, Tara took the nation by storm.In the months that followed, she filmed her first video, did another single, a CD then hit the road on tour. The tour had finished its first leg a few nights ago.

“So what’s next then?” I asked as we pulled onto Main Street.

She shrugged. “I don’t have to be back in the studio until December. The tour doesn’t pick back up until March. The label has me doing some CD signings and things, you know the promotional crap but I made it clear that I wanted to spend my off time here”

“So school?”

“You betcha,” she said with glee. “No more tutors for a bit. I can’t wait”

‘You might want to drop the twang” I said, playfully mocking her accent.

She gave me a fake look of disgust. “Whatever do you mean, Rhett?”

Her Scarlett was spot on.

We both laughed.

We pulled up to the pizza place to find it packed as usual. We also found a large bus with her face on it parked outside. I gave her a look, she laughed.

“The band is still in town for a few,” she said “I guess they took me up on my offer of free food”

When I pulled up alongside it, I noticed a few photogs hanging about as well. Tara groaned, clearly noticing them as well. We both knew this was going to happen. She and I discussed it a great deal before she left actually. We both had pretty much the same opinion on the matter---we hated them. Tara though didn’t want to be one of those celebs. You know the kind of who punches them in the face or throws her cell at them. So we did a bunch of mock scenarios, me playing the paparazzi and her well herself. In the end, we decided it would be best if she was nice to them. You know stop to take a few photos, laugh at their jokes, become friends with them.

From what I could tell it seemed to work too.

The press was very kind to her.

So were they apparently.

As soon as we got out of the car, they were on us. They were really polite about it, though, surprisingly. They snapped a few pictures but didn’t push.

“Who’s your cute friend?” one of them asked, taking a few pics of both of us.

“This is my BFF, J.C,” she said, throwing her arms around me. “My best buddy in the whole wide world”

“Give us a big smile sweetheart,” one of them said, sticking the lens of his camera a little too close for comfort.

I tried to oblige him as best as I could.

I was a little annoyed at the “sweetheart” thing, though. Clearly like several other morons, this guy thought I was a girl.

They took a few more pics. Tara knew them all by name and seemed to know about them as well. She asked about their families, their friends. She even posed a bit for them. It was all really cool. Then she asked them to respect her privacy which they did and we went into the restaurant. True to their word, I watched as they got back into their cars and started to drive off.

Wow.

As soon as we walked into Leo’s, all eyes were on us.

I wanted to crawl into a hole.

Tara was, of course, used to it, I was not.

“Hello Dover Creek!’ she shouted, we caused a lot of people to laugh.

As soon as the initial shock was over, though, everyone went back to their food. Someone like Tara wasn’t that big of a draw around here. Partially because she was just Tara here but mostly because half the kids in here were worth more than both of us combined. That’s the perks of living in a town where one of the most prestigious private schools in the country was just down the street a ways. Looking around the crowded place, I saw some kids who had more than six figures to their name. You got used to it growing up here. Usually, there was a lot of contention between them and us but not in Leo’s.

He wouldn’t allow it.

His number one rule was “leave the attitude at the door or your face is on the floor”

Tara pointed to one of the larger booths in the corner.

I noticed it was already well occupied.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me over, waving as she did so.

“Guys this is J.C.,” she said as she made intros. “J.C., the guys”

The guys in question were actually a mixture of guys and girls. Six altogether. I was surprised so many of them fit in the booth. The girls---Angie, Cara, and Trix---were Tara’s backup singers. Angie was a brunette, Cara a blonde and Trix was Asian. Her dark hair streaked with purple. She looked like she could be fun. The guys were her band. Terry was the bassist, Mark was on drums and Chuck was the lead guitarist. I sized them up. They looked like a good bunch. Not all that different from me and my crew though a little less punk and more wholesome. I locked eyes with Chuck, sizing him up. Tall, dark haired and chiseled. He had that Clark Kent from Smallville look about him. Very homegrown and American. I felt a pang of jealousy looking at him, to be honest. Guys like him rubbed me the wrong way because they reminded me of what I lacked.

Chuck stared at me too I noticed.

They made room for us to sit.

Tara pushed in over with the girls, Chuck slid over as much as he could to make space for me. It bothered me that the small space he made was enough for me to sit.

I hated being so short and small. Ok so five seven wasn’t short by any means but when your father was six three and most of the guys around you were six feet or over, you start to get a complex. Chuck had to be at least that or more.

Leo came over a moment later. Though Italian, Leo was about as American as they came. In his forties and barrel-chested, he was the nicest guy around. He liked to ham up the Italian for his customers, though, putting on a big phony accent and all that. He marketed this place as an authentic Italian eatery, there were Italians flags and knickknacks all over the place. The seat cushions and curtains were red, green and white and on the walls were several framed photos of various places in Italy. Behind the counter, he had framed photos of family and friends.
Then there was the Tara wall, his pride, and joy.

‘My beautiful Principessa” he said, hamming it up for her friends.

He winked at her which all of them noticed but didn’t seem to care.

“Leo,” she said, standing up and giving him a big hug which of course the big man graciously returned.

They started talking to one another in Italian. This was a new one to me. Tara used to work here part time to make ends meet. To help her Mom and things. It’s one of the reasons that he had the wall devoted to her in the first place actually. That’s the kind of guy Leo was. I never knew she knew Italian though.

Tara sat down laughing a moment later.

“Can you get us a couple of larges?” she said, in English this time.

He nodded and left.

I gave her a look.

“I had some free time on my hands, thought I’d learn the language” she shrugged it all off like it was no big deal.

We all laughed.

Me, only because it felt like I should.

The others laughed because it seemed to fit.

These were her new friends, the ones she’d been spending most of the year with. At first, you could have called me jealous. Tara was my friend and I was up until last year, pretty much her only one. Now there were these others and plenty more too. I’d seen the news, the tabloids and of course facebook. Tara had this whole other life now. She had friends and she went places and did things. She did it all without me too. I hated all of it. I was happy for her of course but it felt like we were drifting apart too. Sure we talked almost every night but she had changed so much too.

Even now as she laughed with these people---sharing in jokes and funny stories---I couldn’t help but feel a tad left out.

“You’re not like her,” said a voice and I realized Chuck was talking to me.

‘What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Tara is so outspoken, confident and a people person, you’re…”

I interrupted him. “She wasn’t always like that. She was a lot like me once. People change”

‘I’m not saying it’s a bad thing” he said with a smile. “It's nice actually. You being the way you are I mean. It’s refreshing. Most people in my line of work, they’re different”

I didn’t like where this conversation was going. I already didn’t like the way he was looking at me. It creeped me out. I needed to change the subject and fast.

“So what kind of guitar do you play?”

It was the right change of topic. Chuck it seemed liked to talk about guitars. I think I surprised him though when I not only knew what he was talking about but started talking about mine as well. I didn’t feel so left out anymore. We talked for quite a while about them actually. We talked through the arrival of pizza and in the eating of said pizza. Chuck was a pretty cool guy when he wasn’t trying to put the moves on me. He knew the things I was talking about too. It was kind of nice to talk mano y mano with another guitar player. Craig knew guitars too but our conversations always turned into how the bass guitar was better. Chuck just talked.

It was pretty cool.

“Sorry are you a singer too?’

“No,” I said, brushing some of my hair behind my ear.

“Bull shit,” said Tara.

I didn’t even realize she’d been listening.

“Ok so maybe I was once but only a little”

“You little liar,” said Tara with a laugh. “J.C. is a bitching singer. That’s how we met actually. In a music lesson. Jay rocks it."

I blushed.

Leo chose that time to return with the check and the discussion was thankfully dropped.

Tara insisted on paying for everything. None of us complained. Then she surprised Leo by insisting on paying for the food of everyone in the place. She told him to keep it a secret and just tell people that food was on the house. It was pretty awesome and generous of her. Even more so because half the people in here were our classmates and most of them used to hate her. The feeling was mutual from her end too. Tara though was that kind of person.

As soon as she finished paying, we called it a night.

It was going on seven thirty now. I was pretty shocked because I didn’t realize we’d been here for almost three hours.

Time flies I guess.

“How long are you guys staying in town for?” asked Tara as we were saying goodbye to Chuck and company.

“A few days maybe. Why?” asked Angie.

“Well, there’s this cool little teen club here in town. Tomorrow night they do this thing, I was wondering if you guys wanted to meet us there?”

The girls were game. So was Chuck. The other guys not so much.

They were overruled, though.

I was a little overruled myself actually. The club was called The Grasshopper. It was fairly new. It was made for the St. Andrew kids, though. Sure townies went there but the place was geared toward a richer clientele. Because it was a teen club though they weren’t allowed to serve alcohol so that was a plus I suppose. Tara it seemed was keen on going. It was built while she was away and she’d been dying to check it out. She wanted to make a big night of it too. She’d already called my cousin Cherry. Cherry and her roommate Dee were game. So were a few of her school friends.

I was being dragged along because reasons I guess.

“I’m sorry,” she said when we were halfway to her house.

“About what?”

“You were uncomfortable. I just wanted everyone to meet. I talk about you a lot and well, I wanted them to meet this awesome amazing person who I’ve known for all my life”

“I had fun,” I said and sorta meant it.

“No you didn’t,” she said with a laugh.

Ok, she had me there.

‘It was different. I’m not used to all that many people”

She nodded. We drove the rest of the way to her house in silence. She was thinking about something, I could tell. I could see it on her face. I knew her well enough to know when something was on her mind.

She didn’t open her mouth again until we were in front of her house.

“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” she asked, playing the friend.

She always could tell when something was bothering me.

“It's nothing”

“You’re lying,” she said, I nodded. “We’ve known each other for a while now. I know when you’re not telling me everything but I’m not going to pry. We don’t have that kind of relationship”

She wasn’t the prying friend. I respected and loved that about her too.

She was concerned for me, though. I loved that about her as well.

“It's nothing big, just something I’m dealing with”

She nodded and we hugged. I said good night. We made arrangements to meet for lunch before hanging out later tomorrow night. I stayed out in front of the house until she was safely inside. Then I drove the rest of the way home. I got there just in time too. Dad was sitting on the couch, waiting. He smiled when I walked through the front door. I dropped my keys on the table next to the door and retired to my room. I had some homework I wanted to get out of the way. I would have done it tomorrow but seeing as Tara was preoccupying my Saturday with her crazy plans, tonight was as good as any to do it.

Before starting, though, I made sure to lock my door.

With it locked, I took off my coat and stripped off my shirt. The itching had been driving me crazy all night. I turned to the mirror, naked down to my waist. Hanging on my chest, for the whole world not to see, were my two foreign bodies.

My breasts.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF

by:

Jordan and his sister, Jess, are twins, some think identical because they look so much alike. They used to fool a lot of people when they were younger but the differences became apparent as they got older or did they?

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Author's Note:Sorry for the late posting of this chapter. Today was rainy and gloomy and it was making me lazy lol. I was dragging my feet getting this chapter ready to post lol. This is another Jess chapter.

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4.

Jess

The sound of a large belch woke me up. A few seconds later it was followed by another belch. The belching kept coming over and over again. Groaning, I rolled over and slapped at the alarm clock, sending it clattering to the floor. What monster sets an alarm for Saturday morning? Sitting up, the belching still going on, I rubbed my eyes. Right, I’m the monster. I reached down and shut the infernal thing off, putting it back on the bedside table where it belonged. The clock was a gift from my parents. They wanted the sound to be something offensive so I would be repulsed and spring out of bed to shut it off. It worked for a few days before my body acclimated to it.

Now I found it almost peaceful.

Yeah, my parents totally didn’t get me.

I rubbed more sleep out of my eyes, as I stumbled through my room to the bathroom. Half in a stupor, I remembered why I set the alarm in the first place. I needed to get up and get ready for tryouts. It was eight am now, that gave me enough time to shower, eat and get out to the school before anyone else. It was also hopefully enough time to sneak into Jordan’s room, grab some of his workout clothes and get out before he noticed. Oh right, the plan. Well, it was pretty simple really. If Coach McGuire saw me as even partially boy then I might have a chance. I knew it was a long shot but I couldn’t just give up now.

It wasn’t fair.

The stupid school board and their fucking double standards.

The school made the cheap float. Coop was the one who fell on Molly too.

The school should own up and accept responsibility.

So why did we other girls have to suffer because of it?

Thinking about it wasn’t going to get anything done. We needed action, not thoughts. So I was acting. If anything my little stunt today would prove to these people the lengths we girls are willing to go to do what they want. I wanted to play soccer. If that meant humiliating myself in front of a bunch of boys to do so then so be it. I was willing to take one for womankind if it meant sticking it to the school and showing them how stupid they truly were.

But first a shower.

Things were a bit different when Tracy used to live with us. First of all this room used to belong to her. Right before she went off to college, though, Dad had the detached garage built for his car collection. Well, the ones he liked to keep close by anyway. With that garage came the apartment above it. I won’t lie, I was a little peeved when she got her own place. I mean Tracy was barely home as it is anymore. It wasn’t fair that she got her own place while I had to live under the same roof with my parents and the dweeb. What’s worse, now she was going to be home even less. Tracy met this guy---Paul---about a year ago and things were getting pretty serious. He was a pianist I guess. My parents suspected him to propose any day now.

And yet, the apartment is still hers.

How fair was that?

Ok, so I lost my train of thought?

Oh yeah, the room.

Well after Tracy moved out, I got her room. Before Jordan and I used to have our rooms downstairs. Now they’re guest rooms. When Tracy moved, I got her room and Jordan got to move into the bigger room down the hall. There were only two ensuites in the house. The one attached to this room and the one with my parents’ room. Dad wanted me to have my own room because I was a girl and I needed my privacy. To compensate he let Jordan have the bigger room with the attic access. Then he went and converted that attic space into this cool rec room for Jordan and the other dweebs. Once again I got the short end of the stick.

Thinking about it just pissed me off more.

So time to distract myself.

Walking into my little bathroom, I took care of the morning business first. Had a pee, brushed my teeth. Looking into the mirror, I saw the girl staring back at me. Ok the girl was me but I was hard pressed to see it. I’d been feeling kinda funny about it lately. Sure I saw my reflection every day in the mirror but something about it just didn’t feel right. I’d been feeling kinda off since puberty actually. It didn’t help that I had to take these stupid pills either. There was nothing more embarrassing than having to take hormones.

You see Jordan and I were very late bloomers.

Puberty is supposed to start at a certain stage in a young person’s life. For girls its earlier, for boys its mid-teens. Unfortunately for me and my brother, it never came. My father---putting on his doctor’s hat---took us to a variety of specialists to discern the problem. It turned out that both of us had very low counts. So to counteract the problem, we were given hormone treatments to help kick start things. Due to the nature of our condition, we were given a larger than normal dose of the stuff. It worked too, at least for a time.

I started to notice something wrong about eight months ago.

Most of the girls my age had figures. Me, I was pretty boyish looking still. My boobs were barely there and my hips, well let’s just say that I had no shape and leave it at that. That wasn’t all either. I was starting to grow hair in places that girls shouldn’t have hair and it was thicker too. My voice sounded different too. I was hungry a lot as well. I’ve always had a bit of an appetite of course. But being an athlete I’ve been able to burn it off pretty quickly with vigorous exercise. Lately, though, I’ve been eating like a horse. I was really irritable for no reason too. I know people thought I was a bitch and I didn’t really care about that. What I did care about was constantly feeling like I wanted to put my hand through a wall.

Take yesterday for instance.

That girl---Torrie---what she said shouldn’t have set me off like it did. I was really pissed off, though. I could have taken her head off. Then for Mom to make the same comment, I was furious. After storming up to my room, I calmed down and realized I was being stupid. Torrie and Mom were right too. I really did need to moisturize more. I needed to do more than that actually. My skin felt rough and oily and the zits, don’t even get me started. No amount of over the counter products seemed to help either. It was like I was at war with my body and my body was winning.

“Not today,” I said to my reflection.

I grabbed my pill bottle, shook a couple of the little greenish bastards into my hand and popped them quickly. I swallowed them without water. I grinned at my reflection then grabbed my other pills.

I decided to fight things my own way.

I found this site online that sold breast enhancement pills. I know what you’re thinking and you’re probably right but I have to try. I was getting sick and tired of wearing inserts and pushup bras. I started taking these supplements about four months ago and I was starting to see some results. I’m not sure who these MerTech people were but they sure sold good shit. Maybe in a couple more months, I could ditch the bras and booblets.

After taking my second set of pills, I gave the mirror the finger, stripped down and got into the shower.

“Mom, have you seen my practice clothes?”

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, a cup of coffee in her hand. Mom was the only one who got up this early on Saturday. I ignored the look of surprise on her face. I matched it with a hand on my hip and as stern a look as I could muster.

“Sweetie, what are you doing up this early?”

I made up a quick lie.

“Well just because there’s no soccer anymore doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. Tiff and I are going to the school to take advantage of Saturday Exercise”

It was something the school implemented a few years back. Every Saturday now, they opened up the school’s weight room and the gym for anyone who wanted to use it. Of course, they had to get permission beforehand and there had to be a teacher available. It was still a pretty cool thing. It was also a great cover. I didn’t exactly want to tell Mom the real reason I wanted my clothes. She’d never understand. My parents loved that I was so into sports, especially Dad. Dad also made it clear though that I wasn’t to go too overboard with it. He was afraid I might get too engrossed, put my entire life into it then be in the same situation he got himself into.

Thankfully he recovered from it but he didn’t want it to happen to me.

I knew what both of them would say about me wanting to play on the boys’ team.

I was being too obsessive.

The look Mom was giving me said it all, though.

“I’m sorry sweetie,” she said, setting down her mug. “They’re in the wash. I thought you were done with them for the week”

Damn her.

Ok, so it wasn’t her fault but still it was horrible timing.

“Just great. What am I supposed to do now!”

See what I mean. That came totally out of nowhere and I can’t stop it.

Mom gave me the “I don’t approve of your tone” look.

“Sorry Mom,” I said and meant it.

She nodded. Then smiled. “Why not just borrow your brother’s set, heaven knows he’s not going to care”

Dad had bought Jordan a set of workout clothes a while ago. Ok so they were just the usual t-shirt and running shorts but he got them from the sports store. Dad’s hope was that Jordan might take an interest in it. It was one of the Dad’s many attempts to try to connect with the dweeb. I told him it was a waste of time but that’s Dad for you. I don’t think he liked the idea that he and his son just weren’t on the same wavelength.

‘Thanks, Mom” I said cheerily then ran back up the stairs.

I tried his bedroom door first but it was locked. That was odd. Jordan never locked his door. Cursing, I went with plan B. Ok so the ensuite bathroom was all mine. Jordan wasn’t allowed to step foot in it, dad’s orders. The thing about it though was that it was actually a full bathroom, with two doors. One door led into my room and the other into his. So the bathroom actually connected our two rooms. Thankfully for me, he never even bothered with it. In fact, he used to have a bookshelf in front of it until Dad made him move it for fire reasons. Just in case of an emergency and all that crap.

True to my thinking, the door was unlocked.

I slipped silently into the dweeb’s room.

Jordan had a Dweeb’s room too.

Ok so that was harsh but it was hard not to see it. The walls were decorated with movie and game posters, there was a bookshelf crammed with all his dweeb books. His desk was littered with comic books and gamer magazines. He had shelves on the wall cluttered with action figures and crap like that. He had normal stuff too---bed, dresser, large flatscreen with game system. The odd things were the guitars. I could see at least two of them out. I know most of them he kept in the basement but he liked to come up here a lot and jam too.

The dweeb himself was on the bed, fast asleep.

I tiptoed inside, going to his dresser.

I had a pretty good idea where he kept the clothes. When my brother didn’t like something, he usually shoved it in his bottom drawer. There were years of bad Christmas sweaters, sports jersey’s, odd colored socks and other ugly clothes in there already. I found the workout clothes shoved way in the back, still in the plastic bag and with tags on them no less. I shook my head, wondering why Dad even bothered. We both knew how much athletic prowess Jordan had. Which was zero by the way.

What a dork!

I took the bag with me as I crept my way back to the bathroom. I stopped to take a look at him before leaving. My brother ceased to amaze me these days. Looking at him there---sound asleep on his stomach---you could see where people mistook him for a girl. His hair alone was enough to give people pause. Guys weren’t supposed to have silky smooth locks like that. His soft buttery skin, high cheek bones, and girly lashes didn’t help either. Don’t even get me started on those lips. What guy has lips like that? His body didn’t help things either. He was really slim and slender, with small hands and feet. He was half covered by his blanket but I knew what was underneath. There was very little muscle on that girlish frame of his and the way he moved. It was no wonder those guys beat the hell out of him after that chorus concert.

Ok, so I was really pissed about that, to be honest.

A bunch of fucking douche bags if you ask me.

I will say that I was a little surprised by his reaction to it all, though. I never actually expected him to quit singing. My brother and I might not have seen eye to eye on many things but his singing was something he was good at. I don’t care how much he was being harassed, he should have never given it up. That was the biggest difference between him and I. If there was something I loved, I would never let anyone tell me I couldn’t do it. No matter how much I was given shit for it. It was my thing and mine alone. Jordan didn’t have the backbone to stick up for himself and now he was miserable for it.

He was an idiot.

Thinking a little less about my brother, I slipped back into the bathroom and into my room shortly thereafter. I made sure the door on his side was securely shut. In fact, I made sure I’d never been there. I hoped I was stealthy enough in that regard. If there were any problems, I’m sure Mom would have my back. I mean they were clothes he wasn’t going to wear anyways.

Putting on his never worn clothes scared me a bit.

A girl was not supposed to fit into her brother’s clothes so well.

Standing there, looking in my floor length mirror, I couldn’t help but grimace.

Staring back at me was not Jessica.

It was J.D.

Ok, so a bit of confession time. When I was younger, I used to like to pretend to be a boy. I’m not really sure where it came from, to be honest. Before we got to kindergarten, Jordan was the only real playmate I had. He was a boy and we liked to do boy things together. Back then, he didn’t mind to throw the ball with Dad or rough house in the mud. It didn’t help that we both had short boy haircuts back then either. That’s actually where the nicknames J.D. and J.C. came from. Jordan’s middle name was Christopher. Mine was Diane. I’m not sure who first coined the names “J.D.’ and “J.C.” but for years that’s all we were.

Many people thought we were twin brothers.

No one actually corrected them either.

Mom and Dad always thought it was funny.

It helped that no one could really tell us apart back then either. We used to have a hell of a good time screwing with our family. We especially loved messing with our cousins, Cherry and Courtney. We would keep the charade going for hours with neither one of them knowing which one of us was which. Like they often say, though, all good things must come to an end.

In first grade, I met Tiffany. She was by far the girliest girl I’d ever met. For a long time, she thought I was a boy too. We actually shared our first kiss together. We could look back at it now and laugh but I remember her parents being pretty pissed at it when they caught us. My parents were called and all the parents had a long talk. My parents decided that they let the fun go on a little too long so things changed. Mom started buying me girlier clothes and she talked me into letting my hair grow longer. Tiff helped a lot too.

Things were good.

Then Jordan seemed to feel left out. It wasn’t before long that he started to grow his hair long too. By the time we were in second grade, his hair was just as long as mine. The confusion started all over again. We played the same games for a bit but it got old fast. Eventually, they stopped. Then Jordan started his singing lessons, met that hillbilly Tara and we drifted further apart. I can remember the exact moment of it too. We were standing for the bus, about to start fifth grade, when Jordan called me “J.D.” I remember it so vividly because he cried at my response:

“My name is Jess, not J.D. Get it through your thick skull, dummy”

Jordan actually ran home crying. Mom took him to school. I got a stern talking to afterward. I had to apologize for being a jerk even though I didn’t really understand what the problem was. Jordan got a talking to as well because he apologized too and never called me J.D. again.

It was the moment we stopped being friends.

“Hello again,” I said to my reflection, frowning a bit as I did so.

I stared at myself for a bit longer before heading out of the room and down the stairs.

“I’m taking the car,” I said as I grabbed the keys and went out the door.

I texted Tiff on the way out.

It was time for our A Game.

“Where are you?”

I was pulling into the school parking lot now. During the week when school was in session, you needed an authorized school permit to park here. I didn’t have one because Dad didn’t want us driving the car to school. On the weekends, though, no permit was required. The school’s facilities---weight room, pool, and gymnasium---were open to the public on the weekends. There were about ten cars in the lot when I got there. The only one I recognized was the one Coach McGuire drove. It was hard not to recognize the giant gas guzzling beast of a pickup he drove. Its most notable feature was the gun rack. When not teaching Gym class or coaching various boys’ sports teams, the coach was an avid deer hunting. Well, at least when it was in season.

Among the cars though was one I didn’t recognize.

Tiff’s.

When I pulled in and didn’t see, I figured she was right behind me.

“Mom caught me going out the door,” she said with a sigh.

‘You caved” I said with a heavy sigh.

Tiff’s lack of response said it all.

Last night we came up with a plan. The same one. We were both to tell our parents we were coming here for the weight room. Tiff it seemed cracked under pressure. It was nothing new for her. She was horrible at keeping secrets and even worse at lying.

“You didn’t tell her I was involved did you?”

“No, but you know Mom, she kinda figured it was your idea”

Shit.

It was only a matter of time before she called my mother.

I liked Tiff’s parents, they were awesome people. They were, however, some of the strictest parents I knew. They were also very conservative. I mean what parents freak out because their seven-year-old daughter kisses another girl? I mean we were seven, we didn’t know what we were doing. Of course at the time they thought their daughter was kissing a boy. They didn’t really freak until it was revealed I was a girl. They almost shipped poor Tiff off to a Catholic school the next town over. Thankfully my Dad was able to smooth things over with them. He also agreed that it would never happen again. It never did because well we were young and like I said purely innocent.

Her parents never really trusted me after that, though.

They didn’t even want to think it was their daughter’s idea. I was the tomboy who was trying to lead their baby astray. I still wasn’t allowed in Tiff’s room without the door being open. They did mellow some after my mother forced me to dress more like a girl, though. Mrs. Reynolds even complimented me on the change, especially when my hair started to get longer. Though to them, I was still the bad influence who was leading their daughter to Hell. Tiff joining the soccer team was my idea. Tiff wanting to get her ears pierced was apparently my idea too. Don’t even get me started about her dating. Last year, Ned Rogers asked Tiff to the Freshman dance. Being the good daughter she asked her parents for permission and not only did they flip out---she was too young---they actually blamed me.

I can only imagine Mrs. Reynolds reaction to her daughter sneaking off to join the boys’ soccer team.

Poor Tiff.

“So are you grounded?”

“Only for the weekend,” she said with a sigh. “Also, you’re grounded from the house for a month”

Nothing new there. After the Ned Incident, it was two months.

I loved Tiff to death but her parents were wackadoos.

“I’m sorry Jess”

“It’s ok,” I said and meant it too.

Hey, I’m not a bitch all the time. I knew she didn’t deliberately set out to get caught. It’s not my fault that Tiff had a weak constitution. Truthfully this was to my advantage. No offense to Tiff but she stuck out like a sore thumb. Unlike me, Mother Nature had been very kind to her. She was almost a C cup now and she had the curves to match. Her God fearing parents hated it of course but what could she do. Tiff inherited her mother’s figure and Mrs. Reynolds though a nut job was quite the looker. Before meeting her husband and finding God, Tiff’s Mom had been a bit of a wild child apparently. I know this because she and my mother used to go stomping about town together.

Though they were still friends, I don’t think Tiff’s mom ever really approved of my mother’s lifestyle.

I’d have to do this one without her.

“I’ll make the team for the both of us”

“Good luck”

I hung up after that, making sure to store my pink cell phone deep in my gym bag. Getting caught with a pink cell would be blood in the water to these guys. Especially to the very homophobe McGuire. To him being a girl was only a slight step up from being a “queer”. His words not mine. I had nothing wrong with it. Hell, my cousin and her girlfriend were awesome. The coach, on the other hand, was of that breed. You know that special kind of pond scum that stuck to everything and never seem to go away. How a man like him could even be in a position to teach youngsters was beyond me. Anything that was different was wrong to the Coach. He was that beer guzzling, gun waving, gay bashing asshole that everyone knew existed but pretended wasn’t really there. He gave the school championships and as long as he continued to do so, he still had a job. I was pretty certain that he somehow convinced the School Board that girls’ soccer wasn’t needed. He’d been trying to get rid of us for years because without us, his team would get the whole soccer budget.

Men like him made me sick.

I had no choice, though.

I wanted to play. I was born to play.

I made sure to walk as manly as I could toward the practice field. I wasn’t trying to fool anyone but I didn’t want to scream girl either. Tiff would have failed there too. McGuire would have taken one look at her and sent her packing. It didn’t matter how well she could play or not. Tiff could play too. All of us girls could. The coach would never see that, though. Our gender disqualified us in his eyes. A girl could be the best player in the school---able to run circles around his boys---and because she was lacking the necessary dangling bits, she was automatically a reject in his eye.

As I approached the field, I saw the guys assembling on the bleachers.

Most of the boys’ team was there. I say most because like us, they were down a few guys. After the float accident and losing two players, the coach made some cuts. He apparently took the disaster as a second attempt to purge his team of its dead weight. He dropped two more guys after that. Then he made the crazy announcement that everyone had to retryout in order to be considered for the team again. It was kind of unheard of but that’s McGuire for you.

Speaking of which, he was already in top form this morning.

Coach McGuire was a large bear of a man, over six five and build like The Rock. He struck a very imposing figure too with his bald head, barrel chest, and swagger. The coach was a former college linebacker, everyone knew that football was his real passion. After a busted knee, though, his shot at the pros went down the drain. I don’t know how he got into teaching and frankly, I didn’t care. After failing to secure the coveted football coach position, though, he settled for soccer. It was the closest thing to football he could get. He wasn’t happy about it either and he took that anger out on his players.

He was in the middle of a lecture when I dropped down next to one of the guys.

“Flynn!” he snapped, singling me out. “What the hell are you doing here?”

I gulped.

“I’m here to play soccer, sir,” I said, in the best macho sounding voice I could muster.

He eyed me like a wolf did a juicy sheep.

“We’ll see about that”

The tryouts started immediately after that.

Coach lived up to his rep as a hard ass. His first order of business was to weed out the “losers”. There were about twenty of us there to try out. Coach started us out with laps. Four times around the field. Two guys puked about halfway through. I heard him scream at them, telling them to “Get the hell off my field, you pansies!”. Another guy collapsed from exhaustion. As soon as the laps were done, it was pushups, sit-ups and jumping jacks. We lost two more. The coach didn’t get into the actual tryouts until two more guys were thrown out because they were “too soft”.

The coach didn’t let up.

He pushed us into drills as soon as the “losers” were gone.

And push us he did.

I thought Coach Ross was a slave driver with her drills but she had nothing on McGuire. He ran us through every drill imaginable and when we had enough, he made us do them all over again. Dribbling, attacking, defending, goalkeeping. You name it, we did it. He shouted at us the entire time too, calling us about every name you could think of. The guys from the team originally apparently had thick skin because the insults seemed to bounce off of them. A couple of the others, though, well let’s just say I’ve seen more teenage boys cry today than I’ve seen ever.
“Ok ladies, I’ve seen enough!’ the Coach finally announced after an hour of non-stop dribbling.

I was panting like crazy.

I wasn’t the only one either.

I looked to my left and saw Mark Riggins, bent over and panting just as badly. I knew Mark pretty well. We used to play on the middle school team together. It was a mixed team. Mark and I used to be co-captains. He was the only one I was afraid of right now. Partially because he kept staring at me throughout the whole ordeal. He knew, I could tell. He was a decent guy though so I’m hoping he was decent enough to keep his mouth shut.

“Now ladies, if I call your name, you’re on the team,” said the coach, holding his clipboard.

He’d been holding it this whole time, marking on it every so often as we went through hell.

I was in a fog while he called names. I knew I did well but it wasn’t good enough. The guys just had more endurance and power than me. As a girl, I knew it was a long shot. Hell, I actually thought McGuire was going to twig on me even before it started. I was just happy that he was too dense to see that I didn’t belong here. Well at least as far as he diluted mind went.

I was so in a fog that I didn’t hear him call my name.

“Hey that’s you,” said Mark, nudging me.

Blinking, I looked around in surprise.

Wait, did I just make the team?

The coach waved me over. I went rather reluctantly.

“You surprised the hell out of me Flynn,” he said with a laugh. “That doesn’t happen very often. I mean a weakling like you, you’ve never shown any kind of interest in sports before. In class, all you do is sit in the corner, on that damn phone of yours”

What the hell is talking about?

Wait, no…

‘You have guts, Flynn” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I’m gonna put you in reserve, though. It’s still a team position but you just don’t have the power these other boys have. I want you to prove to me that you can, though. You do that, I’ll swap you out”

I nodded numbly.

I was in an even bigger fog than before. Sure I made the team but not in the way I expected. I inwardly groaned, it all made sense now. No wonder the coach didn’t toss me out the moment I showed up. He didn’t think I was Jessica Flynn, he thought I was my dorky brother. Looking down at myself, I could see why. I was after all pretty boyish looking, added to the fact that I was wearing my brother’s clothes, my hair was pulled into a low ponytail and well I was my brother’s twin.

Damn it.

“Now why don’t you go hit the showers and we’ll talk more on Monday”

I nodded again.

I walked off the field, definitely not heading toward the showers. I was lacking something very important to shower with the boys after all. Shit, this was so fucked up. The moron thought I was a boy. Was he that blind or that stupid? Not only did he think I was a boy, he thought I was my dork brother. My dork brother who just made the boys’ soccer team. This was bad, this was very bad. I was in so much trouble. As soon as Monday got around, the coach was gonna know that I wasn’t Jordan. They’d want me to undress with them in the locker room before games and shower with them afterward. Not only that but I’d have to pretend to be my brother the whole time. All of that, of course, hinged on the fact that Jordan didn’t find out in the first place.

I know he’d come clean as soon as he did.

I was so screwed.

“Jordan!” shouted a voice from behind me, followed by heavy footfall.

I turned and saw Mark running toward me. At first, I panicked because I thought the dweeb was here too. That is until I realized he was talking to me. Shit, he thought I was Jordan too. Probably the whole time.

“Hey Mark,” I said, trying to play it cool.

Thankfully Jordan didn’t have one of those deep manly voices. The fact that my brother was so much like me might play to my advantage a bit.

“You were awesome out there,” said Mark, running a hand over his sandy blonde buzz cut.

Mark had great hair.

Hell, he had great everything.

I used to have a minor crush on him back when we used to play together. Even when he was this geeky, gangly kid with all those freckles. The freckles I was happy to see were still there. The rest of him though was quite different. Still tall but less gangly. Puberty had been kind to Mark as well. He’d grown out of that awkward dork stage and into a man. His shirt was currently off and his well-toned muscles glistened with sweat. I felt a tightness in my chest and twitch below the waist. I couldn’t help but stare at him.

“You ok?” he asked, giving me a concerned look.

“Yeah, just a bit rundown,” I said, recovering quickly.

Shit, I was checking him out and nearly blew it.

“I know what you mean. Mad McGuire runs us like that all the time. I’m used to it but you held your own. I didn’t think you had it in you, to be honest. In gym you just kinda well you know. It’s pretty cool, though. I thought your sister was the soccer star, though?”

I shrugged. “I got tired of her hogging all the spotlight”

“Cool,” he said, smiling. “Well, I gotta hit the showers now. I’ll see ya Monday at school”

He turned and bolted away.

My eyes drifted to his butt as he ran off.

Shit.

Not good girl, not good at all. My whole body was still tingling. Cursing, I turned and ran to my car as fast as I could. This was bad, all of this was bad.

What the hell was I going to do now?

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF

by:

Jordan and his sister, Jess, are twins, some think identical because they look so much alike. They used to fool a lot of people when they were younger but the differences became apparent as they got older or did they?

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Author's Note:Ok its Monday and its Ch.5 time. The story I think was building to this point, at least for Jordan. We're going to see some things here, he's going to realize some things about himself that he's been hiding or ignoring. I really like this chapter a lot too. Oh my plan is to have the majority of this story done by Halloween. I have a Halloween story planned in this "Just universe" which i'm hoping can tie into this one.

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5.

Jordan

“Jordan, sweetie. Did you take your pill?”

Mom was at the bathroom door, knocking gently.

The pills in question in my hand. I swallowed them quickly with a swig of water. The pills were supposed to help with my hormone unbalance. Which was kind of ironic all things considered? I mean if the pills were supposed to help then why did I have breasts? Staring in the mirror, looking at my naked chest, I couldn’t help but frown at what I was seeing. Boys weren’t supposed to have those. Well ok, technically they could have them but were they supposed to be like that? I’d done some reading on it of course. I knew all about gynecomastia and how some boys got it when they entered puberty. But I wasn’t like most boys.

Thanks to my imbalance, I didn’t start puberty until last year. Even then it was because of the pills. Jess and I were rare apparently. It took a battalion of doctors nearly two years to figure it out too. Then nine months ago, they decided that they needed to jumpstart things medically. So that’s where the pills came into play. Each of us was given a shot and then prescribed pills to help our bodies produce hormones of their own. The hope of the doctors was that the pills would kick start something in our bodies and push things the rest of the way.

Well, something was definitely kick started in me.

Though I’m not sure I liked the results.

“Jordan?”

Mom was still on the other side of the door apparently.

“I took them, Mom,” I said in a reassuring tone.

“Ok honey. Come down to breakfast when you’re done”

I waited and listened for her to leave. As soon as I knew she was gone, I left the bathroom. I bolted down the hall to my room. Locking the door behind me, I let out a sigh. It was getting harder and harder to hide things. The funny thing was I’m not even sure why I was hiding it. Dad was a doctor after all. I’m sure he could help me figure this out. I mean I was probably not the first boy he’d seen with breasts. According to Google, it was actually pretty common. Though most of the boys in the pictures I’d seen were a bit overweight and their “moobs” didn’t really look like mine. For one thing, they just looked like boys with well man breasts. Me, I looked like a prepubescent girl.

They weren’t getting any smaller either.

I didn't want to go to the hospital about it either.

I have this thing about hospitals. When I was younger, I was a bit sickly. When I was born, I was underweight and put in an incubator for about a week. Even after that, the doctors were concerned I might have problems. I was in and out of hospitals for a few years, getting a battery of tests. Many of them were concerned about the slight little boy who was rather thin and very weak. Thankfully by the time I started school, things evened themselves out. My fatigue went away and my grayish pallor vanished. There was some concern about a heart condition but when all tests came back negative, the hospital visits stopped.

I lived a normal life. Well, that is until this whole imbalance thing was discovered.

The thing about it though is that I developed this horrible fear of hospitals. I was scared that whatever happened to me back then would come back. The whole time I was there with the hormone thing, it took Mom holding my hand to keep me from hyperventilating. So you can see why I was so reluctant to tell them what was going on. As soon as they found out, it would mean more doctors and possibly more hospitals. I just couldn’t do that again. So this needed to go away.

That’s why I started taking two pills instead of one.

My hope was that a double dose of testosterone might make the bumps go away.

So far no such luck.

In fact, they looked bigger.

I didn’t know their exact size but I knew they were already starting to strain in one of Jess’s sports bras. Yeah, I wore my sister’s bra. I didn’t really have a choice anymore. They were that big. I knew from conversations I overheard that Jess was a 32 AA. I looked it up online, that’s a pretty small size. Like me, though, she had to use pills to jumpstart her puberty too. So it was only natural for her to be quite small right now. What wasn’t natural though was the fact that I was bigger. How do I know this? Well her sports bra wasn’t the only thing I tested.

Her tiny training bras didn’t fit me either.

Staring at the offending things on my chest right now, I wanted to cry.

That was another thing too.

I was doing a lot of crying.

Too much.

I was an emotional wreck all the time. I almost burst into tears last night at Leo’s. What with Tara having all new friends and things. The only thing that kept me from doing so was Chuck of all things. Thinking about it now though just kinda pissed me off. Were things supposed to be like this?

I stopped staring in the mirror and decided to get dressed for the day.

I went to my underwear drawer, reaching far into the back to get the sports bra I kept stashed there. It was the only one she wouldn't wear, pink. Mom bought them in a set for her but she refused to touch it. In fact, I found it in the trash. So I knew she wouldn’t miss it. I took it on a fluke. I was going to use it to tease her later on but fate it seemed had other plans. It was a good thing because I definitely needed it. Pulling it over my head the first time had been a pretty strange thing. Now I could do it without thinking but that first time I was scared at what I saw. I knew I looked like a girl. I knew I was a dead ringer for my sister. I didn’t grow my hair long to copy her like she thought. I did it for my music. I did it because I liked the way it made me look.

I think a small part of me liked being mistaken for her too.

It made me feel popular like her.

Shit.

Here're the tears again.

Wiping my eyes, I quickly pulled the bra over my head. I got it on like a pro. A master con artist applying his craft. Except there was no con involved here. As soon as the bra was on, I got the second part of my disguise. Online I read about some girls who used ace bandages to tie their boobs down. Usually, they were tomboys like Jess or girls who wanted to be boys. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I browsed through some of that stuff too. I was also very thorough when I did research in school for projects and things. My father always said, “if you’re gonna do something, do it right”. So I have always been one to cover all my bases.

So not only did I know about female to male transgendered individuals. I knew about male to female too. I also knew a great deal about those who were asexual, intersexed and everything in between. Like I said, research. I was conflicted about it all too. Especially about those boys wanting to be girls. I saw nothing wrong with them of course. In fact, they were by far the bravest people I’d ever seen. The girls wanting to be boys were too. My confliction came with myself. I couldn’t help but wonder if I might be like them as well? When we were younger and we pretended to be one another, I had no problems whatsoever slipping into the role of my sister.

Even after Jess started her new girlier lifestyle, I still pretended to be her.

Well at least in private anyway.

Did that make me want to be a girl too?

A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts.

Mom again.

“Honey, I have to go into the office. I’ll probably be there all morning and afternoon. Dad is off on the course, your sister is at the school. I left the bacon for you on the table. Will you be all right by yourself?”

I loved Mom but she treated me too much like a kid.

“I’m sixteen Mom,” I said with a bit of annoyance. “I’m not Kevin McAllister”

“Well you have my cell number”

I rolled my eyes.

One of these days Mom was going to have to let me grow up.

As soon as I heard her leaving, I realized that the binding wasn’t needed. At least not right now. I only ever bound them when I knew others weren't going to be around. With my family gone until the afternoon, I had the house to myself. That meant I could just wear the bra and not worry about having to hide. It was a pretty rare occasion. At school, I definitely wore the bandage and most of the time I did around the house too. I could get away with the occasional hoodie or baggy sweatshirt, though. It was getting easier now because of the weather changing. I couldn’t wait for Winter which was ironic because I used to hate bundling up.

I definitely hated sweaters. In fact, all of them were stashed away in my bottom drawer never to see the light of day.

Pulling a t-shirt over my head, I proceeded to put on a pair of shorts. I was getting a little fat too. Well, at least my butt was. I think maybe I might have to finally use those workout clothes Dad bought me. Maybe I’d even take him up on his offer to go running with him in the morning. I definitely did not like the idea that these shorts---which were baggy last year---were really tight now. In fact, they were even getting hard to button. Laughing at it all, I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and went down the stairs.

The house was all mine.

In the kitchen, I found Isis on the table, trying to steal my bacon.

Oh yeah, Isis is our cat. I didn’t mention her earlier because well she hates me.

She was one of those Egyptian cats. Mom spent a boat load of money on her. I didn’t really know the details because well I didn’t care. Dad and I weren’t really keen on her, to be honest. We both wanted a dog but Mom seemed to think they were too much work. At least that’s the excuse she used. I think she just wanted her stupid two thousand dollar cat.

“Mine stupid,” I said, pushing her violently on the floor.

She gave me a dirty look before bolting out of the room.

Ok so it might seem mean but the little Satan did a lot worse to me.

I had the scars to prove it.

Taking what was left of the bacon, I went to the living room and dropped on the couch. I grabbed the remote and found some good Saturday morning cartoons. It was still only nine, plenty of time to catch up on all my favorites. I lost myself in them. For the next two hours, I sat there like a vegetable, lounging about on my day of rest. I didn’t have to do anything or be anywhere until much later. I was so engrossed in my toons that I totally blanked when the door bell rang.

“It's open!” I shouted without thinking.

There was only one person it could be after all.

Tara.

It took me a second or two later to realize what that meant.

Shit, Tara and me like this.

I tried making a mad dash for the stairs but she was already in the house.

“Hey Jess,” she said with a little disappointment in her voice. “Is your brother around?”

Shit and Damn It.

Oh what the hell.

Shifting my weight---doing my best Jess impersonation---I turned around to face her.

“The dweeb is out with his dweebettes,” I said, mimicking her voice perfectly as well.

It wasn’t that hard actually. We sounded pretty close.

Tara gave me that look. It was the same one she always gave my sister. I hated to lie to her like this but I just couldn’t let her see me like this. The shirt I was wearing was white and the pink sports bra was visible through it. I didn’t really care when I put it on because well no one was supposed to be home. God, I’m such an idiot. I wasn’t ready to expose myself like this to my best friend.

“You mind if I wait for him?”

I opened my mouth to say no but found myself saying, “Who cares?”

Tara snatched the remote from my hand and went into the living room. I followed because well I really didn’t want to let her out of my sight. I also needed to get rid of her.

“Why do you do that?” she asked as I dropped down on the couch, as far away from her as I could.

“Do what?”

“Put your brother down like that. He’s not a dweeb. He’s awesome”

Thanks, Tara. I think you’re awesome too.

I almost said it as well but bit my lip. I was Jess at the moment.

I shrugged. “I guess I’m a bit self-centered and jealous”

She was too. There were a few other choice things I could say as well. I just knew Jess wouldn’t say those things about herself. Admitting she was self-centered, hell she did it all the time. She had one of those egos. She wanted everyone in the room to notice her and admitting her flaws was one of the ways she did that.

Tara smirked.

This was really awkward. I pulled my knees up to my chest in a feminine manner. I’d seen Jess sit like this more than once. I even found myself sitting like this from time to time. It was another one of those little feminine things I did without even noticing I suppose. Like sometimes crossing my legs or the way I brushed the hair behind my ear. These were the things that the guys would tease me about constantly. That’s the only reason I knew I did them. They would mock me mercilessly when they caught me doing it. Of course, I would always tell them that having a twin sister, you tended to pick up her mannerisms without even realizing it. I’m not sure if it was a lie or not but it fit because they always gave me sympathetic pats on the back after I said it.

We sat in silence for a long while.

I didn’t really have anything to say. Well actually Jordan would have had plenty of things to say but Jess not so much. My sister hated Tara. I think deep down she blamed her for ruining our bond. To be truthful, I think that bond was ruined long before Tara came on the scene. If I was being honest, I’d say Jess ruined that all on her own. Of course she’d probably never admit it. If you asked her, she’d probably say it was my fault. She tends to paint the past a little differently now. According to her, it was always me who wanted to pretend to be one another. In truth, it was actually always her. She was always the more aggressive one and could talk me into doing anything she wanted.

We were always brothers. She was J.D. and I was J.C.

When Mom and Dad put a stop to it, she found a new person to boss around in the form of Tiff. I will admit I hated Tiff for a long time. That changed when I found Tara. After she came into my life, I didn’t really care what my sister and her dumb friend did.

Speaking of Tara.

“You know I think I’m just gonna leave actually,” she said, getting up. “When your brother comes home, tell him to call me”

I nodded like a dumb idiot. I started to stand up with her when I realized that that was not something Jess would do. She wasn’t the polite one who showed our guests to the door.

Tara rolled her eyes and headed out toward the kitchen. She was almost to the door when it opened by itself.

In walked Jess in all her glory. Strangely enough, wearing my work out clothes.

I was so going to go down on her hard for sneaking into my room to take them.

Well later.

Right now, I wanted to crawl into the deepest hole and die.

“Jacy?’ asked Tara, giving her a weird look.

“Do I look like my brother, Hick Girl?”

I dropped to the floor so Jess wouldn’t see me. Tara snapped around, her eyes narrowing. She walked back into the room. Jess was already going up the stairs, grumbling about everyone being idiots today. I tried to make a break for the stairs too but Tara was faster.

“Oh no you don’t,” she said, getting a hold of me.

Me, I felt the tears.

Before I knew what was happening, I turned around and sobbed on her shoulder. Stupid crying, stupid everything.

Tara let me cry it out.

I never was one to cry much when we were younger. I did cry when my grandmother passed away, though. We were in sixth grade. Grams had been sick for quite some time. Cancer. Everyone knew that eventually, she was going to leave us. They’d tried every treatment that money could buy. My grandfather wanted to continue but she was done with it. She told him if it was her time then there was no use trying to fight it. So they made her comfortable at home. A week after her declaration, she was gone. I remember it vividly because it was the first time I’d ever seen a Flynn man cry. My father and his brother were besides themselves with grief. My grandfather---ever the stoic man that he was---fought it up until the end.

Afterward, Gramps took me aside and gave me one piece of advice:

“Jordan, my boy,” he said, putting on his businessman hat. “Crying is not something to be ashamed of. Every person cries. What you should be ashamed of though is letting others see you do so”

He was referring to an earlier incident. The only other time that I could actually remember breaking down. I was eight. Jess and I were goofing off in Uncle Connor’s backyard. They had this wicked jungle gym back there. Jess was trying to prove that she was better than us---meaning myself and my cousin Cherry. To prove her point, she was going to race each of us on the monkey bars. Gramps was watching us and he told me that a “Flynn man never backed down from a challenge”. So I accepted. Jess was always stronger and faster than me. Halfway through the race, my fingers slipped. When I hit the ground, I landed on my left arm.

I broke my wrist.

I remember that day for two reasons. One because I was bawling like crazy. The other because I’d never seen my mother so angry. Nor had I ever seen anyone speak to my grandfather in that manner. She ripped him a new one for being reckless and idiotic. My father and my uncle had their turns at it as well. Gramps later apologized for pushing me into it. He did, however, chastise me for crying.

I couldn’t help but think of Gramps and those two times as I sobbed uncontrollably on my best friend’s shoulder.

“Jacy?” Tara spoke softly in my ear. “Do you want to go to your room and talk about?”

All I could do was nod. She took me by the hand and led me upstairs. I felt like a small child being led to bed by his mother. When we got into my room, I made sure to lock the door. Fortunately, whatever crying fit I had a moment ago was gone. I wiped my eyes and sat on the edge of the bed. Tara stood there for the longest time, just staring at me. There was motive and method in that stare. I could see her eyes roaming my body, taking in everything that she saw. The more she looked, the more I could see she was calculating. Tara wasn’t an idiot. I think I mentioned that before. I could see it now. She knew something was wrong with me.

“You want to tell…”

I cut her off. “No, but I’ll show you”

Very slowly, I pulled the shirt over my head. Tara looked at the pink bra for a second. There was a hint of amusement on her face. That hint vanished the moment I pulled said bra over my head. The amusement vanished to be replaced by utter shock. I knew that face well. It was the same one I had when I noticed the itch in my chest was more than what I thought it was.

“Jacy are those?’

I nodded. “I thought it was a fluke at first. I looked it up online. Gynecomastia they called it. Boys get it during puberty”

She nodded. “Yeah, they talked about it a bit in Health class”

I inwardly groaned. I wish I had remembered that. Tara was always good with those things.

I nodded, fighting back the tears. “The only thing is, it’s supposed to go away with time. Tara, this started shortly after you left and it’s not going away. They’re getting bigger!”

That shocked look came back.

“Are you sure?”

I shot her a look of my own. The “Uh duh” look.

“What do your parents think?” she asked but knew the answer before she even got finished with the question. “Your hospital fear. You haven’t told them?”

“I didn’t want them to freak or worry. I still think I can get this to go away. I’ve been taking my pills. Hopefully, this will all clear up and it will be nothing but a laugh in a few weeks”

Tara smiled weakly at me. “Can you do me a favor?” she asked in a soft voice, I nodded. “Can you take your shorts off for me?”

Wait, what?

“Ummm”

“I’m not trying to seduce you dumbo,” she said with a giggle. “I want to see something. Something important”

Reluctantly I did as I was told. The short intake of breath from her a moment later was not promising. My shorts were now down around my ankles. I looked down, trying to see what she was apparently. All I saw were my fat hips and the slight swell of a butt that was in serious need of exercise. Tara didn’t say anything. Instead, she took a step forward and grabbed my hands. Very gently she moved my hands up my body to my breast buds then down, tracing my body until she stopped at my knees. At first, I had no idea what she was doing then it clicked.

Oh shit.

How had I not seen that?

“Light bulb right?”

I wanted to cry again. I managed to nod instead.

This was fucking mind blowing. It wasn’t just my chest. It was my body. My whole body. The worst part is that I noticed but was in denial or something. Of course, my hips were a bit wider and my butt was fatter because well it wasn’t really a boy’s butt anymore. I turned to my little wall mirror and took a step back. I finally saw what she’d seen. What others have probably been seeing for the last year or so? There was not a boy reflected back at me. I’m not sure when it happened or how it happened but the girl looking back was in a total state of utter shock. The only thing that told me I was still a boy was the small bulge in my boxer briefs. I say small because well I’d never really been all that big, to begin with. Now, though, it was definitely smaller. Had I noticed and ignored that too? Were there other things I was missing as well?

“How long have you said this has been happening?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, ten, eleven months maybe?”

“You’re sure?”

I nodded. “It makes no sense, though. I mean I’ve been taking my pills, in fact, I’ve been doubling up on them the last few months”

“Let me see them”

I went to my bedside table, opened the top drawer and took out the blister pack to show her. I only had a few pills left now. We were nearing the end of October. Halloween was little more than a week away. I was good on the pills, though. Dad had worked out a deal with the doctor. He prescribed them to Jess and I every six months. I still had two months worth of pills to use. Of course taking them twice a day was dwindling them down by half so well technically I actually had a month left. Give or take a pill or two. It was ok though because honestly, they didn’t really feel like they were working anymore. If anything, it almost felt like the pills were making things worse.

Tara was holding the blister pack, scrutinizing the greenish blue pill inside.

“200 milligrams?”

I nodded. “The dose was increased back in June. The doctors were concerned that Jess and I weren’t showing any visible results”

Tara nodded and handed the pills back.

I put them back in my drawer.

“I’m not sure but if you say they’re not helping, maybe you should stop taking them?”

I’d been thinking the same thing myself actually. I had planned on stopping this morning but with Mom breathing down my neck about it, well it was hard to do so. I hated lying to my mother too. Sure I was keeping all of this a secret from her but lying about the pills just seemed more severe. Ok, so my priorities are a little off at the moment. I guess the whole “girl body” thing was the bigger lie. It didn’t really matter, to be honest though because I was in it pretty deep right now.

“I know you might hate this but I really think we should tell your parents”

I nodded. I’d been thinking that as well.

I was just too much of a coward to do so.

I was afraid of what they might say or do. I’d read some of the horror stories online. I knew how some parents reacted to their children being different. I know Dad was a doctor and pretty liberal about things. Mom was super liberal about everything. I guess my biggest fear was them looking at me and pretending to sympathize and help but in truth were secretly disgusted by me. It scared me to death that my parents might reject whatever was going on and stick me back into the hospital. I definitely did not want to go back there.

There was another factor in all of this too.

The timing was just plain awful.

Mom and Dad had literally gotten married twenty years ago this month. In fact, next Friday to be exact. They’d been planning this super big trip for their anniversary. They’d been at it for months. It was only going to be for four days. Tracy was gonna take some time off school and come “babysit” us while the rents were away. The idea of me telling them all of this now. I just couldn’t imagine ruining their trip.

“Can it wait until after their trip?”

Tara gave me a long, hard look but in the end, she nodded.

“No, later, though. This is serious. You need someone to figure out what the heck is going on here and fast. It’s like you’re going through puberty but opposite”

We had a bit of a laugh.

It made me think, though.

We fell into a bit of silence after that, though. Neither one of us knew what to say. I could see Tara wanted to say something, though. I knew what she was thinking. It was the same thing I’d been thinking. It was that notion nagging at my mind since well long before all of this began. It started all those years ago when we first met and she mistook me for the “nicest and prettiest girl she ever met”. Of course, when I told her I was a boy she was shocked and didn’t believe. It wasn’t until after I revealed myself to her that she believed. Even then though she still treated me like her very best girl friend. It didn’t seem all that odd to me either. Even the slumber parties. We just felt like two friends doing what two friends were supposed to do.

But were we actually two girls the whole time?

“I’ve been thinking about something,” she said after some moments of silent reflection. “I’ve been thinking about it a long time actually. And I was wondering…”

I sighed. “You and me both”

She smiled awkwardly.

“You want to see?”

I was confused.

“See what?”

“If you and I are correct or not?”

A large part of me wanted to say “No way!”, scream it as loud as I could in her face. The small part of me, though---the more powerful one at the moment---she wanted to say yes.

It was ultimately her who nodded her head.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF

by:

Jordan and his sister, Jess, are twins, some think identical because they look so much alike. They used to fool a lot of people when they were younger but the differences became apparent as they got older or did they?

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Author's Note:I am no longer on track with this story as much as I used to be :(. I had the next two chapters already written but I hated the way they turned out so I deleted them. Now I have to completely rewrite both. So that's going to delay things quite a bit going ahead now. I hope to have Ch.7 completely rewritten by next week but I have a cold right now so things might be slow :(.

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6.

Jess

It didn’t take me very long to call Tiff as soon as I got home. I rushed right up to my room and told her everything. She congratulated me for making the team but…

“Wait, he thought you were your brother?”

She didn’t wait for me to reply. I could hear Tiff’s laughter on the other end of the phone. She laughed for quite a bit too. I almost hung up on the bitch. Then she fell silent. For a second I thought she laughed herself into unconsciousness.

“You done now?”

“I think so,” she said with a giggle.

“Good because I really need your help.”

“Ok,” she said, still with a bit of a giggle. She took another moment to compose herself. “The way I see it, you have two options. Both of them you’ll hate but I don’t see any other choice”.

“Lay them on me”

“Option number one, you quit the team”

“I really want to play. I mean what’s the point of doing all this in the first place then”

“You’re not playing, though. You’re reserve. The coach might put you in if he’s desperate enough but I can’t imagine that happening”
Reserve was basically the “you’re good enough but not that good” position. On the girls’ team being put on Reserve would have been an insult. Being put on Reserve for the boys' team---at least for me---was amazing. I knew I wasn’t as good as those guys. They were bigger, faster and stronger. The fact that I was able to keep up with them this morning was a shock. To quit now defeated the whole purpose of everything. I wanted to play soccer. Even if it meant warming the bench all season. I also wanted to stick it to the school as well. Even though they wouldn’t care, it was the principle of the matter.

“Smart ideas, remember?”

She laughed.

I know I was hard on her a lot but Tiff really was one of the smartest people I knew. She could be a little thick sometimes but she meant well. Tiff was actually a straight A student, way smarter than me. At DCH you needed to maintain at least a B average to be in sports. I barely made it most of the time. Tiff was an Honor Roll smarty. She just seemed to embody the dumb blonde stereotype way too well sometimes.

“Ok so Option Two is even crazier then,” she said with another laugh.

I sighed.

“Hey Bozo stop laughing and get to the punch line”

“Its real simple actually. They think you’re your brother so why not pretend to be him”

I had actually thought about that. Well for a split second. I say a split second because well it was the stupidest idea I’d ever heard. Of course, I’d done it many times but we were like six. It was easy for two six-year-olds---brother and sister---to pretend to be one another. It was all about clothes back then. We were pretty similar then too. Now though there were quite a few factors. For one thing, I had boobs and he didn’t. For another, he had something between his legs that I was definitely lacking. It would be pretty awkward showering and changing in the locker room without one of those. The most important thing about pretending to be him was him.

There can’t be two Jordans running around.

I laid it all out for Tiff.

When she didn’t laugh, I grew concerned.

“Tiff, I can’t be Jordan”

“Why not?”

“I told you why not dumbo”

“All that is superficial”

“How do you figure?”

“Ok so let’s break it down one at a time,” she said, putting on that thinking cap of hers. “One your boobs. I hate to break it to you Jess but they’re not very big”

“Thanks for the reminder,” I said, embarrassingly covering my little bumps.

“Its not a bad thing. All girls develop at different stages. It works to our advantage, though”

All of that was easy for her to say. Her’s were like C cups or something.

“I don’t like where this is going”

“Remember that movie from well a long time ago?” she asked “you know the one. With that group of girls from the 60s or whatever. Then it flashforwarded to when they were adults. Well, that girl in there, Christina Ricci’s character…”

I remembered. She and I watched it once at one of our many slumber parties.

I also knew what she was thinking too.

I groaned. “There is no way I’m wrapping myself like that!”

“I’m not saying wrap yourself. There’s not enough there to bind down actually. I’m saying we just get a tight sports bra and you layer your shirts. Maybe a tank over a tee or something. The illusion of being flat chested”

It wasn’t much of an illusion in my case. I practically was.

“Yeah well what about down below, Miss Smarty Pants?”

“We stuff it”

“We what?”

“We get a sock or something and stick it in your underwear. It’s all about the illusion”

The crazy thing was, she wasn’t talking crazy. I read this article online once for class about this girl who wanted to be a boy. It got me intrigued so I looked it up a bit. There were girls out there who did this kind of thing. Ok so not pretending to be a boy to join a soccer team but actually doing things like that to make themselves appear to be boys. Ironically enough there was also a movie about a girl who pretended to be her twin brother and joined the boys' soccer team as him. That actress who went crazy was in there. Amanda What’s Her Face.

“The rest of it is pretty simple. Its clothes and things. You can borrow your brother’s”

“You’re forgetting a few things,” I said, trying to state the obvious.

I could almost see her rolling her eyes when she spoke next.

“Ok so shower when you get home and change before you get to the field and after everyone else leaves”

“What about Jordan?”

“We don’t have to tell him”

“Umm I think he’s going to notice if there’s two of him around”

“Umm isn’t there technically two of him anyways?’ she asked. “I mean have you looked in the mirror lately? You know how often I mistake him for you and vice versa. Especially from behind. You two are practically identical. Especially with that hair.”

“And how exactly do we hide the fact that he’s on the soccer team? You know, from him!?”

“We don’t tell him”

“Umm Tiff, someone can’t be on a sports team and not know about it”

“He will technically be on the team. You’ll just be him. Look, Jordan doesn’t go to any games, right? He doesn’t usually follow the teams? I’ve seen him read the school newspaper. He usually browses the front of it and tosses the rest in the garbage. You said so yourself, you’re not actually going to be playing much anyways. Reserve means bench warmer usually. So you go to the game, sit on the bench and watch from the sidelines. There’s no attention drawn to you.”

“That’s really paper thin”

“Yes but still very doable”

I hated Tiff when she used her Tiff logic on me. Sure it was doable but it was also very dangerous. I’d get creamed by the school if they found out. I’d also get creamed by my parents. Not to mention how much Jordan would freak. It was absolutely crazy. The craziness of it all was exciting though too. It was like the prank of the century, well from a certain of view. It was also a huge political statement. The school was antiquated in their rules. There was actually a policy that stated that girls or boys were not allowed to play sports on the opposite gender teams. Even if there was no team for their specific gender. So no boy cheerleaders for instance.

It was a Title IX lawsuit waiting to happen.

This would be like me taking a stand for girls everywhere.

It also means giving the finger to the Board and especially to McGuire.

“Tiff, let’s do it!”

The next part of our plan hinged on my brother not being home.

I opened my bedroom door and called his name. There was no response. It wasn’t enough though. So I walked the few feet to his bedroom door and knocked. When he didn’t answer, I banged on it. Jordan hated it when I banged on his door. I waited a few seconds to see if he was going to come running to yell at me. When he didn’t, I knew I was alone. That meant I was alone in the house for hopefully a few more hours. Mom was known to spend hours at work on the weekends and Dad usually stayed at the club when golfing, sometimes for hours as well.

I had the whole house to myself.

I texted Tiff and told her the cost was clear.

While I waited for her to arrive, I went downstairs to get my workout clothes from the laundry room. Thankfully they were in the dryer waiting to be collected. The tiny running shorts and top were perfect for soccer practice. Except not so much for the boys team. In order for this to work, I’d still have to use Jordan’s stuff. Which meant I’d have to swap mine for his just in case. I knew the odds of him actually wanting to use said clothes were pretty slim but I couldn’t take that chance. Besides, I knew he never actually looked in the bag in the first place. He’d never know the swap had taken place.

The other clothes would be harder to borrow.

A knock on the door made me run down the stairs. I opened the door quickly, grabbed Tiff’s arm and yanked her inside.

‘That was quick” I said.

“You said hurry”

She was panting a bit so clearly, she ran here. Tiff only lived around the corner so it wasn’t much of a run.

I dragged her up the stairs and we used the bathroom to get entrance to the dweeb lair once again. My brother was starting to get paranoid or something. Did he think someone was going to steal something? Ok so steal something else. To be fair, he never knew I was stealing so I’m off the hook.

“This place is…”

I rolled my eyes. “Ignore the decor Tiff, we’re on a mission”

‘Right, sorry Captain” she said with a stupid salute.

“You check his closet and I’ll look through his dresser”

I didn’t want my friend rifling through my brother’s underwear drawer.

Hey, a boy needed his privacy.

“What are we looking for?”

I shrugged. “ A couple of shirts maybe, some shorts”

Definitely some underwear.

We needed to provide the illusion after all. His workout clothes were good but we wanted to have some backups just in case. The real thing we needed though was his underwear. I opened the top drawer, finding it full of rolled socks and boxer briefs. I grabbed a pair of each. Hopefully, Jordan wasn’t one of those OCD guys who would notice. Looking around the room, though, I could tell he wasn’t. He wasn’t a slob by any means but he wasn’t a neat freak either. There were clothes on the floor and magazines laying about here and there. Clearly, he wasn’t into organizing his junk.

‘Nothing good in here” said Tiff from the closet a moment later. “All of it is dress shirts and pants. Most of it though looks brand new”

“Probably is. J.C., doesn’t dress up much”

Ok, so I still called him J.C. from time to time.

I opened the drawer where he kept his pants. I knew I was never going to need to wear any of his jeans but I liked to cover my bases. I grabbed a pair. Everything I took I decided to replace with an item of my own. Well, not the underwear of course but the shirts, pants or shorts. It was an insurance policy. In case you know he noticed and asked Mom about it. They could ask me, I could pretend to look and see yes I somehow have some of his clothes. It’s actually happened once or twice before. Usually with shirts. Jordan had a lot of band shirts but he also had a lot of plain colored ones too. The fact that he wore a small or medium worked in my favor.

I swapped two white shirts with two white shirts and traded a pair of my jeans for his.

I think that was plenty.

‘Let’s go before we get caught” I said, making sure everything was left the way we found it.

Back in my room, I tossed my borrowed booty on the bed.

“You need to redecorate too,” said Tiff with a critical huff.

There was nothing wrong with my room.

Ok, so it looked a bit like a boy’s room what with the sports posters and trophies. Most of the posters were of female athletes, though. Hey, the walls were pink at least. I never was overly fond of the color, to be honest. It was one of the few hold over’s from Tracy’s time living here. This was once her room after all. Also from Tracy was the barely used vanity against the far wall and the floor length dressing mirror. In the other corner was a never used doll house. Most of my dolls and stuff animals were either stuffed in the closet now or in storage.

“Ok this is just a trial run,” said Tiff, taking charge. “Hop into the bathroom or whatever and put some of that on. We’ll see what we have to work with”

I groaned, suddenly feeling like I was in one of those TLC fashion shows.

I did as I was told, though.

I was glad she told me to go to the bathroom, though. Tiff knew me well. I always had problems dressing in front of other people, especially girls. I was very self-conscious about my body. Well, most teen girls were I think. It was different with me, though. Tiff and a lot of the other girls had gone through puberty when they were like eleven or twelve. I guess it wasn’t heard of to be a late bloomer. Hell Tracy was fourteen. It was a little weird when you were sixteen and still had the body of an eleven-year-old though. Thankfully the pills were helping a bit. I was taller now and I was putting on some nice muscle mass. My boobs and hips were growing too if a bit slowly. Ok so maybe only my boobs and only I think because of those enhancement pills.

I was at least a 32 AA now.

Small but getting there.

Mom and Tracy were a bit on the small side though too. Mom’s were currently a bit enhanced. She refused to let me do it to myself, well at least until I was eighteen anyway. She offered Tracy the same deal but my sister was happy with her 34 B. Tracy always said if she wanted them to appear bigger, there were ways to do that with surgery. Actually, in one of our rare sisterly bonding moments, she actually gave me the bra enhancements I currently used.

“You done yet?”

“In a minute,” I said.

I quickly stripped off my clothes, trying to avoid the mirror. Like I said, not a fan of my boyish body. I pulled on the briefs first. Should I be concerned that they fit so well? It was also fairly comfortable. I kinda liked the little bit of leg they had as well. I had thought about getting boy cut panties more than a few times. Unfortunately for me, Tiff and I did most of our shopping together. She has told me on several occasions that she is not going to be friends with someone who doesn’t wear real underwear. She was kidding of course but still made sure I wore the “normal” kind.

Pulling up the jeans, I was scared.

They fit really well.

Too well.

Shit.

Putting on one of the white tees, I finally turned to look in the mirror. What I saw scared the hell out of me.

Standing there, staring back at me, was Jordan.

Not the normal Jordan either.

A more boy looking one.

Tiff knocked gently on the door. She didn’t say anything though as she entered. I started to tear up a bit.

‘Its not fair” I said, sobbing.

She hugged me from behind. “Its ok honey. It will take time. You’ll get there”

I tried to stop myself from crying because Flynn’s didn’t cry around people. Except Jordan. He cried. Ok so only when he got hurt but still. I remember when he broke his wrist and grandpa was all like “Flynn’s aren’t supposed to cry” and grumbling. Mom ripped him a new one over it but grandpa just seemed to shrug it off. Then he got a little peeved at Jordan for crying at grandma’s funeral. The guy was an ass. Especially when he didn’t seem to care if I cried. I hate him for that. It was ok that girls could cry but not boys? Sometimes I begin to wonder how my father was ever raised by that man.

“You want to change back?”

I shook my head, wiping my eyes. “No, I’ve got this. We need to see to right”

She nodded, squeezing my shoulder a bit.

I left the bathroom with her and went to stand in front of my dressing mirror.

Boy Jordan was still staring back at me.

I say Boy Jordan because well real Jordan was only maybe Half.

I hate to be mean but it’s true. My brother and I didn’t get along but I promised myself to never say anything harsh to him about the way he looked. Sure I hated that he was prettier than me but I knew he had similar problems. He was trying to be a boy as much as I was trying to be a girl. We were both taking pills too. His boy pills were just as important to him as my girl ones were to me. We’d both get there, in time.
“So what do you think?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way?” she said with a sheepish grin. “But you’re kinda cute”

I feigned being offended. “Only kinda cute?”

She laughed. “Ok very cute”

She said that in a soft tone.

There was a look there for a moment, reflected back at me in the mirror. I’d seen that look from her before. It was gone a second later.

“You ok, Tiff?”

‘I’m good” she said, clearly forcing a smile.

Tiff was slow to open up about things. I knew she was suffering from something but I wasn’t going to pry. She’d tell me when she was ready.

“You think I could pull it off?”

She grinned wickedly. “I don’t know,” she said “Let’s go find out”

Wait, what?

She grabbed my arm before I could protest and dragged me out of the room.

Dad was actually coming into the house as we got downstairs. We nearly collided with him.

“Hi and Bye, Mr. Flynn,” said Tiff, still pulling me along.

“Where are you two going?”

“Out,” said Tiff again.

Dad laughed. “Ok have fun”

I was flabbergasted that Dad didn’t even notice I was wearing Jordan’s clothes.

I was even more flabbergasted that I wasn’t protesting more.

‘This is a really bad idea”.

We pulled into the parking lot. I slouched as low as I could in my seat so no one saw. I couldn’t believe I let Tiff drag me out dressed like this. If any one of our other friends saw me like this, I’d never hear the end of it. I’d be a total laughing stock at school on Monday.

“Stop hiding, it’s not like we’re at Leo’s”

True enough.

At Leo’s they were definitely bound to notice.

I made her take me to the Steamy instead. It was a local coffee shop, favorited more by some of the older kids. It wasn’t as crowded as Leo’s and they did make a really good frappuccino knock off. Tiff and I tended to like to hang at Steamy’s anyways. It made us feel cooler. Plus I wasn’t a huge pizza fan and Tiff always bitched about carbs. Tiff was always dieting or at least said she was. She was actually pretty thin. Healthy looking but thin. The only fat on her was in her boobs.

She had to practically drag me into the shop, though.

I would have dug my heels into the floor if I could. It was marble so, therefore, impossible.

She made us sit at our usual table. A two-seater near the window.

“Don’t move!” she ordered. “I’ll get us some fraps”

She left me alone. I wanted to kill her.

“Hey Jordan,” said a familiar voice.

I cursed. I forgot Mark worked here.

I turned and looked at him. He was looking very good today in his blue barista apron.

‘Hey Mark” I said, nervous as all hell.

‘I don’t usually see you in here and definitely never with Tiffany”

“She needs my help,” I said, lying quickly. “She’s got a thing for Craig. I’m trying to help her”

Shit, sorry Tiff.

‘That’s cool. Well, I gotta get back to the work. See ya Monday”

Mark walked off to wipe down the empty tables around us. I found myself watching him work. My eyes darted to his butt more than once.
Damn it.

Tiff came back with our drinks a couple of minutes ago.

“I saw that,” she said with a little smile.

“You saw nothing”

“Uh huh,” she said knowingly. “So what did Mr. Coffee Boy want?”

“Well to say hi to Jordan,” I said with a grunt.

“See, its working”

‘I guess so” I said “oh and FYI, you’ve got a crush on Craig now in case anyone asks”

‘Wait, what?”

“I had to explain what we were doing together. I panicked. It was the first thing I could think of”

“He’s the cute bass player right?”

“Yeah…wait…Eww Tiff”

I wanted to gag.

“What I like them tall, pale and mysterious”

I really wanted to gag now.

Then I remember something and laughed. “Well, you are his type. He has a thing for blondes apparently”

“Oh do tell”

I laughed as I told her the story I overheard the other day. “Apparently some blonde babe flirted with Craig at Teddie’s last month. Now he’s scouring the city looking for her”

We both had a good laugh.

We laughed about other things too. People came and went. Some of them from our school. No one twigged on me, though. Either they didn’t care or they didn’t notice. Like Mark, they probably thought I was Jordan. We did get one strange look from Rachel Brown. She was in a few of my classes and she sometimes sat with Tiff and I at lunch. The whole time she was there, Rachel stared at us. I tried to pretend I didn’t notice but I did. I told Tiff about it as soon as Rachel was gone.

“She didn’t think you were you. She would have said something otherwise”

“Then what gives”

“She was probably wondering what the hell I was doing here with your brother,” said Tiff with a laugh.

“Like Mark,” I said with a groan.

“Yep”

Crap. Rachel was a big gossip. I just knew come Monday there was going to be a rumor about Jordan and Tiff on a date at Steamy’s. This was bad, this was really bad. How the hell was I going to explain it?

Shit.

“Don’t freak out?” she said, clearly reading my facial expressions. ‘Let them think whatever they want. If someone asks me, I’ll just say it was the two of us and Rachel was mistaken”

Tiff to the rescue again.

She gave my hand a squeeze then had a laugh at my expense.

I joined in a second later.

I was still really scared though. This was all a little too intense. Specifically, because I’d been sitting here for over an hour---in my brother’s clothes---and I didn’t feel awkward about any of it. Sure they weren’t all that different from my clothes but I should have at least felt something. I mean I was pretending to be a boy and I was feeling fine about it? There was something really wrong about that. There had to be something wrong about that.

‘Can we go now?”

Tiff frowned. “Sure”

She took my hand again, this time not letting go until we got the car. I sulked the whole way home. When she dropped me off, I mumbled my goodbye to her. As soon as she was gone, I raced into the house. In my room, I couldn’t get out of Jordan’s clothes fast enough.

This was just too much.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF