Ash "the Flash" Johnson was an average kid. Went to school, played football, wanted to get into a career writing webcomics and teaching history eventually. His daily routine consisted of getting up, getting dressed going to school, and going home. He was so entrenched in his routine that there were some things he simply didn't notice.
Ash "the Flash" Johnson was an average kid. Went to school, played football, wanted to get into a career writing webcomics and teaching history eventually. His daily routine consisted of getting up, getting dressed going to school, and going home. He was so entrenched in his routine that there were some things he simply didn't notice.
This was a story I wrote on TG Storytime some time ago that never got finished. Well, I eventually bit the bullet and rewrote it from the ground up, added a stupid amount of new elements to the plot, and hey, it actually got finished this time. Part 1 is Days 1 and 2, Part 2 will be Days 3 and 4, Part 3 will be Day 5 (three parts), Part 4 will be Day 6 (also three parts), and Part 5 will be Day 7 and the Epilogue. I hope you enjoy.
I woke up to the sounds of birds chirping and an annoying reminder that I had to get ready for school manifested in the form of my twin sister banging on my door and yelling at me to get my ass out of bed. I sat up and yawned, then fell right back down and closed my eyes. “Go away, Laurie!” I shouted through the door. It didn’t take long for her to open the door and stand there, cross armed, with a glare on her face. “Go away,” I said more calmly.
“Dad’s been trying to get you up for ten minutes now, the bus is gonna be here any second!”
I covered my head with a pillow. “I went to school yesterday, why wasn’t that good enough?”
I heard her walk over to something in my room, pick it up, and then drop it on me. I found out seconds later that it was my bookbag. “Get up and get dressed. Like four minutes to bus.”
I let the bookbag hit the floor and pulled myself out of bed. I was still tired, but it was the hangover from last night’s drinking that was killing me. Four of us - Grant, Charlie, Wheeler and me - had gone out to the local bar after the shitty game we had. Luckily, the owner and dad were good friends, so he let us in and served us no questions asked. He also must have paid attention to the game, because he knew exactly what we were there for.
I had taken a shower before I went to bed, so I didn’t feel as though I needed one now. I quickly pulled my underwear on, my jeans, my shirt, my shoes, that stupid necklace I got sometime last week when we went shopping at the mall. I told Chrissie and Kathy that I didn’t need that, why hadn’t they listened?
Thanks to the haze my mind was in thanks to the alcohol, I didn’t even consider questioning why I would have bought a little heart pendant necklace on a small chain, gone shopping with Laurie’s friends, or acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if I thought anything in that moment.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked downstairs to wait for the bus with Laurie. Dad didn’t even look up from his paper, he just told us to have a good day. He was still looking for a job after he got fired from the plant just after Mom died. Lucky us, his unemployment checks were just barely keeping us from getting kicked out on the street.
I got on the bus and took my usual seat. Grant was already busy doodling away in his sketchbook, getting ready for our big webcomic debut. I had to admit, doing a TG comic wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it wasn’t too difficult to get into it once I did. The first character I’d dreamed up for it was the MC’s boyfriend, pre-and-post transformation. Making the character into guys before the change was my idea, since it seemed like an interesting one.
Grant was getting the design for the MC down, now. I’d just made him/her up the night before, while we were drunk. The pre transformation version looked a little too skinny for my liking, though. “Bulk him up a little,” I said, “he’s gay, but he's not scrawny.”
“He’s gotta look notably different because of the change.”
“The tits aren’t gonna be enough?”
“I don’t want him to look like androgynous, I want him to look like the kind of guy a jock would pick on.”
It would be a way to promote sympathy, I guess. Plus, Grant and I had suffered our own fair share of bullying from jocks back in middle school because we’d been best friends since kindergarten and because I was sorta scrawny. The bullying had been a part of the reason I’d joined the football team as soon as my freshman year started.
“Look, he’s gonna be hot when he changes, look.” He flipped a couple pages to where he’d started the designs for the girls. There she was, the MC, one Brenda Insert Last Name Here. (I hadn’t decided on last names for anybody yet.) I’d asked him to sorta base her on Laurie, so she was about five foot three, ninety pounds, with a decent pair on her. Long, wavy blonde hair and cheeks dotted with freckles. I figured since it was Laurie’s idea that the two of us actually pool our skills and do a webcomic, we’d dedicate something to her, so I asked Grant to base Brenda on her.
On the one hand, it was a little weird that he was calling my sister hot, and that I agreed with him. On the other hand, Brenda wasn’t really Laurie, so I could actually agree with no shame.
“So don’t worry about how scrawny he looks as a dude.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. You get those scripts I emailed you last night?”
He nodded. “Yep. First chapter’s pages are already done, all the way to the break up.”
That was impressive. I’d mailed him seventeen pages of script and all while we were both shitface drunk. I was starting to think I was the most drunk the night before. I was already wondering what Joey and Allana, Brian/Brenda’s best friends, would look like.
I caught Grant looking at my necklace for some reason. “What?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just, I drew Brenda wearing a necklace looked like that. How long have you had one?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. Last week, sometime.”
Something about that felt confusing, but I ignored it. I tucked the necklace under my shirt and got back to brainstorming chapter two of our comic.
“How can Ash ‘The Flash’ Johnson show his face in our school after losing that game last night?” Kathy Myers, Laurie’s best friend and editor of the school paper, asked me when I got to my locker. “Also, that ‘School Life’ story you're writing is late for today's edition, you got it ready for tomorrow?”
I pulled a half dozen sheets of paper out of notebook. “Here ya go.”
She thumbed through them. “Good. Y’know, when Laurie asked me to let you join the paper, I thought it was stupid to let a jock on board. You’ve actually been an awesome journalist, Ash.”
I laughed. “Yeah, because I’m not a jock.” I dumped my textbook for physics into my bag. “Be wary of the last couple pages, though. I was drunk last night.”
She nodded. “I know. Laurie called and told me you and your buddies were peeing on the football field.”
I just barely remembered that, which was better than not remembering. At least I could brush it off in a “So what?” manner.
“Hey, you're wearing that necklace,” she said. I looked down and realized that it was visible again. I wondered when I’d pulled it out. “I was there with you when you bought that, wasn’t I?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. Weird day?”
She continued to look at the necklace, then turned away. “Either way, it’s a pretty necklace. I told you that then, right?”
“You probably did. And you’re right, it is.”
“Yeah. Anyway, don’t forget to tell Grant that his strip for Friday’s paper needs to be in by the end of school today.”
I nodded again. “No problem, Kat,” I said, not even realizing that I used Laurie’s nickname for Kathy. A nickname only Laurie used for her, because Kathy wouldn’t let anybody else use it. She’d kicked me in the gut the last time I’d tried to use it, despite the fact that I’d known her almost as long as I’d known Grant.
She did nothing this time.
“Remember, last night was a disgrace,” Coach Brandt said, pacing in front of us like some kind of drill sergeant. “It was a disgrace, but it was not your fault. That fake-out play they pulled woulda fucked up anyone. They preyed on what your natural response would have been to that play, because they knew what their natural response would have been. They played us like goddamn fiddles and laughed at us while they walked out with a win that we trained for, that we earned!
“And the worst part is that every one of our other rivals out there will know how to play us because they saw that game. They saw what beat us. And now all those cocksucking wannabes will be ready to do the same thing, or to change it up so that it’ll beat us again. Well, we’re gonna put a stop to that, starting today!
“I’ve had Wheeler draw up some modified plays,” he said, taking the playbook from Wheeler, who was still wearing a wrapping around his leg after that fall he’d taken during the game. “These plays will be our counter moves to anything they can come up with to beat us. Starting today, we take back our wins from anyone who tries to cross us on that field!”
Everybody seemed pumped, but at the same time, we all knew that it was just Coach’s way. He had been a marine during the Gulf War, so he’d probably had a badass drill sergeant, and he carried that onto the field with him now that he was just a simple football coach and history teacher. I was hoping to get into the history teaching thing, myself, when I got out to college. History and writing were my two favorite subjects here, so I figured I’d take them further after high school.
That made me think about the webcomic. As soon as I got home, I would need to get coloring done, then I’d have to email them back to Grant so that he could get them up onto the URL we were paying for. Four days from now, we hoped to actually break into the webcomic business and start getting money put back for college.
“Johnson!” Coach shouted, moving in front of me.
“Yeah, Coach?”
“I’m keeping you out today.”
“What the hell, Coach?”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “Hold on, hold on, I’ve got a reason. You and Wheeler are both out today, you’re gonna work on studying last night’s game to see where exactly we went wrong and they got the drop on us. You two took the most hits last night, and Wheeler got his leg all cut up, so I figure you two were the most on point.”
I sighed. “Okay.”
“Good.” He grabbed my necklace and stuffed it down my shirt. “I told you about that before, no flashy shit on my field.”
“Yeah, Coach…” I said, my voice growing weak as I did. I coulda swore I took the necklace off when I got changed. In fact, I swore I hung it on that hook on the back of my locker door, just above that mirror I have in there. I definitely didn’t remember putting it back on after I got into my gear.
Something seemed off.
“There!” Wheeler said, pointing to the screen as he hit the pause button. I leaned in and tried to see what he was seeing. I didn’t like watching football as much as I did playing it. Playing football, somehow everything seemed easy to follow, it was all somehow laid out in a linear path. Watching it looked like a shitton of ants rushing to one spot, then to another, then to another.
I could easily tell which one of the ants on the screen was me. This was the final quarter, when they’d knocked Wheeler into the benches on the side and pulled their miracle play. I was the one with the ball, and I threw it for Pete Simons to catch, since he was closest to the goal. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, it looked like it should have been a routine play.
Then I saw it. The guy in front of me was doing a cheap fake-out, bouncing left and right in front of me in an attempt to make me confused and throw the ball his way. I’d seen through that pretty easy, though, so that hadn’t stopped me. It was Pete. While I was getting faked over on our side of the field, one of their guys was doing the same to Pete over by the goal. When the ball came sailing over to him, Pete went to his right to grab it when he should have gone to the left, and their guy was able to nab it the air and pass it off to one of their guys by the goal.
I sat back in my chair. “Those fuckers got Pete faked.”
Wheeler nodded. “And their guys knew when to expect the ball.”
“What the hell? Do they watch us practice?”
He shook his head. “I dunno, man. They had us down, though. Knew exactly what plays we’d pull.”
I took a drink of the soda I’d taken from Coach’s fridge. He didn’t mind, always offered one to the whole team every day after practice. The whole thing was putting me on edge. High school football can be everything to some people, even if it was just a fun game to people like me. The knuckleheads on North Ridge’s team were more the former, and wore it like a badge of honor that they’d not only won, they’d beat us, the Southside Roadwarriors.
“I’mma go tell Coach,” I said, standing up from my chair.
“I’ll keep looking through everything,” Wheeler said. He then turned to me and added, “Don’t forget your necklace, man.” He held it between his fingers.
“I don’t even remember taking this off.”
“It was probably getting to you. I swear I haven’t seen you take it off since you bought it.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
I got the feeling that wasn’t it, but I put it out of my mind. I dropped the empty soda can in the waste basket next to Coach’s office door and jogged out to the field.
He was standing on the bleachers, shouting out orders and plays. Everybody seemed to be doing pretty well. I tried to pick out Grant or Charlie in the mass of people, but I couldn’t. Yet another problem with looking at football from outside the game. “Get your panties up and run, ladies!” Much as Coach was awesome, I did wonder how some of the things he said to us on the field didn’t get him fired. “Johnson, whaddya got?” I didn’t even notice he’d seen me.
“Pulled a fake-out on Pete when I was throwing him the ball in the fourth quarter, just after the play that knocked Wheeler out.”
He groaned. “Smart sumbitches, have us lookin’ at you when we shoulda been lookin’ at Pete. Get Wheeler drawing up some plays to get around that.”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Good job, Johnson. You may just be the best quarterback I’ve trained at this school. You could go to the pros.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Coach.”
I dropped my bookbag on the floor beside my desk and turned my laptop on. The pages I needed to color were in my Dropbox, just like Grant said they’d be. I downloaded them to my desktop and opened up PhotoShop and got to work. It wasn’t easy, since Grant had used some pretty heavy shading on some pages. It made me wonder if we shouldn’t just do it in black and white, but then I shoved that idea out of my mind. Black and white webcomics were a dime a dozen, color would actually help us get some interest.
Laurie walked it at some point and hugged me from behind. “What’s goin’ on?” she asked.
“Just getting the color done.”
She pointed to Brian on the page I was working on. “What the hell is he so skinny for?”
“I said the same thing, but Grant said it would better this way.”
“Uh, nobody in high schools these days is that skinny.”
“I know. Gotta admit, though, he works well like that now that I see him with other characters.”
She pointed to Maya, Brian’s best friend. “Who’s the big titted hooch?”
“Maya, Brian’s childhood friend.”
“Why is she wearing a miniskirt and fuck-me heels?”
I shrugged. “Blame Grant, he drew her. I just described her as ‘Brian’s childhood friend’.”
“Please dump her after a few chapters. As your sister and the basis for your main character’s female form, I ask this one and only thing.”
I smiled. “And take away Brenda’s only female role model?”
“Introduce another one that doesn’t look like a stripper. Or at least clean her up.”
“I’ll talk to Grant. Maybe what she’s wearing can get turned into a plot point later on.”
“I will accept that and appreciate you as the best twin brother I have.” She let go of me and walked over to the doorway.
“I’m your only twin brother!” I shouted after her.
“Hence best! Oh, I forgot, nice necklace!”
I had forgotten about that completely. “Hey, Laurie, c’mere!” She walked back into the room. “Didn’t you buy this last week?”
She scratched at her chin for a moment. “Nah, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t wear something that flashy anyway.” She reached for my doorknob to shut the door. “That is much more your style. It’s just pretty, that’s all.” And with that, the door was shut and she was gone.
I sighed. Had I bought the necklace? And was it really my “style”? I seemed to remember buying it, and that I’d liked it, but at the same time, something just seemed off. Like why I would have gone to the mall with Laurie’s friends or bought jewelry. Maybe I really had, maybe I was just going nuts.
I finished up the coloring on most of the first chapter’s pages, then put my laptop to sleep. I needed a nap for some reason, probably relating to what little practice I got to put in after Wheeler and I finished up our investigation of the game. That and walking home. The school really needed a bus driver who’d work in the evening and ferry sports kids home.
I took off my necklace and hung it on the small desk mannequin on the corner of my dresser. My brain shut itself off as I did, otherwise I would have questioned its existence and why there appeared to be six other necklaces hanging on it.
I pulled off my shirt and pants and tossed them in the laundry hamper in the corner by my closet. I let myself fall onto the bed and slipped into sleep within moments.
I smacked my alarm clock to shut it off and sleep in a little bit more. Since when did I set an alarm clock? I generally woke up on time regardless. Meh. I must have been concerned I wouldn’t. I didn’t even want to open my eyes. I’d been having a weird dream that I sorta wanted to get back to because I wanted to remember it. I wanted to use it as the basis for a part of our webcomic. The damn birds were chirping again. Stupid birds.
After 20 minutes of not sleeping in, I slid out of bed and onto my floor. Yancy, our dog, walked into my room and started licking my face. It tickled a little, but I got to petting him and he calmed down some. I hurried him out of the room so that I could go take a shower.
As the water ran down my body I went to grab my razor and shaving cream. I didn't know why, because I usually shaved in front of the mirror. That didn't change, either. All I shaved in the shower was my legs. I felt better afterward, but I still couldn't figure out why I was doing it.
I went to shave my beard and noticed that what little growth I had was thinner, closer, like I hadn't had a full day’s beard growth at all. That seemed odd, but not unwelcome. I didn't look right with a beard, none of the men in my family had. I saw my grandpa with a beard exactly one time and he shaved it as soon as he could.
I walked back into my room, towel wrapped around my waist, and poked through my dresser for stuff to wear. I didn’t have a giant variety of stuff to wear, so I just grabbed a pair of briefs, a pair of jean shorts and a white tee shirt. I shut the door, dropped the towel and started getting dressed.
It occurred to me that Laurie hadn't started bugging me yet this morning. Something seemed weird about that, but I put it out of my mind. After I got my clothes on, I put my necklace and my charm bracelet on. I had a vague memory of somebody buying it for me, but then that memory faded and I grabbed my bookbag and hustled downstairs.
Laurie was already waiting downstairs, texting somebody. “You texting your boyfriend, or something?” I asked.
She stuck her tongue out at me. “No, are you?” She slipped her phone into her purse. “I was texting Chrissie about that party we’re throwing this weekend when Dad’s out of town.”
I’d forgotten about that. Granted, I had a whole school week to get ready for it, but that didn’t change how stupid I was for forgetting. I was in charge of the food, Laurie the drinks since that guy at the liquor store was sweet on her. I held out no hope that Dad would be completely unaware of what we were doing. Either way, it meant whatever extra booze we had would go to him. He’d calm down about it after that.
Laurie grabbed my wrist. “Cute necklace, cute bracelet. You're such a girl, Flashy.” She started giggling.
I pulled my arm away. “Shaddup. It's just a little jewelry, nobody bugs you about it.”
She giggled louder. “I know, dumdum, I’m just teasing.”
I knew that, too, but something about it stung deeper.
Mrs. Hastings walked around the room and collected our papers, then returned to her desk. “Your tests will be graded by tomorrow morning. The first ten A’s get a pass on the next assignment.”
I wasn't a big fan of advanced algebra, but it would look good on a future college application, and I was good at it. Assuming everything went as it usually did, I’d get my sixth pass this semester. I preferred writing and history, so I wondered if I was some sort of math savant to get all of it right.
Grant sat in the desk beside me and wrote something in his notebook. He tilted it toward me and I saw the note he wrote. How's the coloring?
I’d completely forgotten to update him when we were on the bus. I’d been too busy writing, he’d been too busy drawing. How had that slipped my mind? I wrote in my own notebook, Half done. Laurie doesn't like Maya.
Why not? he asked.
She hates how she looks. I’m working on her backstory to justify it.
Can I not just draw a hot girl as Brian’s friend?
Laurie said it was her only request since we based Brenda off her.
He sighed. He was about to write something, but Mrs. Hastings got started on the next lesson and so Grant stuffed his notebook back in bag and pulled out his textbook, like everybody else. I laughed inwardly. Sometimes I wondered how he got through middle school without me.
The cafeteria lady dropped a cheeseburger and a basket of fries that looked like pure grease on my tray and shouted, “Next!” Moments like these told me exactly how prison would probably be if I ended up there. I slid out of the line and Charlie came up behind me and went through the same treatment.
Wheeler and Grant were already at our regular table, looking through Grant’s sketchpad. I took my seat next to Grant, Charlie took his next to Wheeler.
“Dude, your sister hates the hot one?” Wheeler asked me.
“That shouldn't be a surprise. She called her a hooch.”
“Damn! So she dresses hot, what's wrong with that?”
I gobbled down some fries. “She is dressed like a slut,” I said. Was I actually defending the female point of view there? No, that wasn't it, I was just pointing out that Maya did look kinda whorey, that's all. Even Grant agreed, he just wanted to draw her that way.
I scratched at my wrist, slipping my bracelet off for a moment. I was starting to wonder what I’d been wearing it for, then I just put it out of my mind. I was wearing it because I liked it, of course. Why else would I be wearing it? Exact same reason I was wearing my cute necklace.
I slipped my bracelet back on. “I promised Laurie I’d tweak her history to give her a reason, it’ll give her more characterization than just the childhood friend.”
Grant nodded. “That's a bright side to it. Honestly, I didn't have anywhere to go with her.”
Charlie laughed. “You two taking the same side. That’s new.”
“Fuck off, man,” I said, through laughter. Before long, everybody was laughing.
But I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else to Grant taking my side. Something… Protective? Had to be for the webcomic, though, had to be.
I was about to get ready for practice when Coach stopped me. “You get the day off, Flash,” he said when I walked into the locker room. “I need a gofer today, and I trust you more than anybody else on the team.”
I sighed. “Two days out, Coach? My game’s gonna drag pretty soon.”
He patted me on the back. “You’ll be fine. You're the best one I’ve got here, that's why I can afford to stunt ya a little.” He handed me a stack of papers. “These are the plays I had Wheeler draw up with my own modifications. I need you to head to the library and get Ms. Appledore to make copies. We're gonna pass these out to everybody and get started practicing them tomorrow.”
I flipped through the papers. “That should only take ten or twenty minutes, what do I do for the rest of practice?”
He shrugged. “Head home. I don't worry about you, kiddo, it's everybody else I’m worried about.”
I sighed. “Alright. I’ve got an article for Kat that I’ve gotta write anyway, I’ll probably get that taken care of.”
Coach nodded. “Good. You're gonna go far, Flash. Once you end up putting football behind you, you’ll still have something to fall back on.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Coach. I’ll be back with these in a little bit.”
I turned and made my way to the school library. I’d always wondered if the school was trying to perpetuate the stereotype of jocks being stupid by having the gym and locker rooms on the other side of the building from the library. It wasn't like the school was huge or anything, but it was still somewhat stupid.
I walked into the library and saw Kathy at a computer, typing away at something. Good, I wouldn't have to look all the fuck over for her. I handed the papers from Coach over to Ms. Appledore, the librarian, then walked over to Kat, who didn't even look up. I saw she was doing something about the lack of variety in the cafeteria again.
“They won't listen,” I said. She jumped a little in her chair. “Sorry. But really, they won’t listen, the school probably doesn't have enough money for variety.”
“Still,” she said, regaining her composure, “we need more than just cheeseburgers and fries. Pizza, salad, something, but not just burgers.” She turned around and asked, “Why aren't you at practice?”
“Coach has me doing paperwork but I get an early release when that's done.”
“Yeesh. Is he trying to kick you off the team quietly?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. I damn near handed the team four games last year.” I sat down at the other computer beside her. “Besides, he likes me.”
She tapped the save icon on Word. “So what ya gonna do after school? Head home?”
I shrugged. “Probably.”
Her eyes lit up. “Come to the mall with me “
I chuckled. “What, is Laurie busy?”
“Yes, actually. She and Chrissie decided to go see Alien: Covenant at the Cineplex.”
“Laurie doesn't even like the Alien movies.”
“I know. But Chrissie wanted to see it and Laurie went along.”
I sighed. “Well, I don't have anything better to do until Grant gets back to his house, so, yeah, I’ll go.”
She surprised me by hugging me. I’d known Kat for years and she’d never hugged me before. At least, I didn't think she had. The feeling was vaguely familiar, but still foreign at the same time. After a moment the feeling subsided and I was hugging my friend, no different from a billion other times.
I should have known Kat would want to go clothes shopping, shoe shopping, makeup shopping, jewelry shopping. What surprised me the most was that it never bored me or even annoyed me. I didn't get to the point where I wanted to buy anything, but I just enjoyed hanging out with Kat and poking around the stores.
Until we got to the jewelry store, that is. There, I found myself looking at necklaces, wristbands, bracelets, ankle bracelets. I never looked at rings or earrings or the like, but I couldn't say that the idea repulsed me. I didn't even find anything wrong about it all, it was just happening. Something told me I should find something wrong, but I abandoned that thought and got lost in the accessory shopping.
By the time we were done, I’d bought a few new necklaces and a new charm bracelet that matched the one I had on, but with different charms. The whole time, I kept getting nothing but compliments from Kat, and kept returning them in the form of compliments on everything she bought.
The whole time, I realized she hadn't once tried to get me to buy her stuff. Granted, we weren't dating, but I remembered more than one time in the past where she and Chrissie had made me pay for stuff. I wondered what the deal was at the same time I was grateful, because I wouldn't have been able to spend the money on my stuff.
After three and a half hours of shopping, we found ourselves resting by the giant fountain in the center of the mall. My feet were hurting something awful, which was every kind of weird. I could run circles around the rest of the team but a few hours of shopping was painful?
I looked over my new bracelet and complimented myself over finding something that looked like it matched both my other bracelet and my favorite necklace. “That looks so pretty,” Kat said. She had been applying her new blue nail polish. I’d told her the pink looked better on her, but she wanted to try blue. Laurie’s favorite color was yellow, which fit her like a glove.
My mind started to drift to what color would look best on me. I had a weird desire to try Laurie’s yellow nail polish now.
“Thanks,” I finally said after my mind finally figured out where I was.
“I could never pull off flashy stuff like you do.”
I smiled. “They don’t call me ‘the Flash’ for nothing.”
“Still. You have a great eye for stuff that looks pretty on you.”
I blushed. “Thanks.”
She pulled her phone out of her purse and I was suddenly wanting one to hold all my stuff, but I threw that thought to the side. “Woah, it's like seven. I’ve gotta get home before my dad worries I’ve been kidnapped by sex traffickers. He's had that fear ever since he saw Taken.” She grabbed me by the wrist. “C’mon, I’ll drop you at your place.”
“Thanks for the ride,” I managed as she pulled me outside.
I walked in the front door and Laurie handed me my phone. I didn't even realize I didn't have it on me. Maybe I did need that purse. “Grant needs to talk to you.”
“Thanks,” I said as I took my phone from her. “How was the movie?”
“Ugh… I told myself there was a reason I didn't like the Alien movies, and seeing this one just prove it to me. How Chrissie can stand those things, I’ll never understand. Where did you go?”
“To the mall with Kat.”
She smiled. “Ooh, got yourself a girlfriend?”
I mock-laughed. “We were shopping.”
She poked me in the chest. “You’re lame. Call your boyfriend.”
I walked past her and said, “He’s not my boyfriend.” I walked upstairs to my bedroom, dropped my bookbag on the floor and set my bag of jewelry on my desk. After a minute of resting on my bed, I called Grant back. “How was practice?” I asked.
He sighed. “Tough. Coach had us run the track the last hour and a half. Where were you?”
“Shopping with Kat.”
“Oh. You two have been hanging more recently. You get your hair done? Get mani-pedis?”
I laughed. “Ha ha, dickhead.” Now I was wondering why we hadn't done that. Then I told myself to shut up. “Hopefully Coach doesn't shut me out tomorrow. Any of the new pages done yet?”
“Hold on a sec, I’ll email them to you.” I laid there waiting for a minute or three, then he came back on. “Chapter two is ready for coloring and lettering. We get chapter three done soon, we can get to posting.”
I sat up and watched an email alert pop up on my desktop. “Dude, how do you draw so goddamn fast?”
“I barely pay attention in class. I make up all my missed lessons by reading ahead in the textbook.”
I laid back down. “Well, it works for you. I’ll give you the chapter three scripts on the bus tomorrow.”
“I didn't know you had it done.”
“Yeah.” I started to fiddle with my bracelet. “I had a free period and got them ironed out. I introduced a new character, too, somebody who knows something about Brenda’s change.”
“I hadn't even thought of somebody like that. Guy or girl?”
“Guy, somebody I’ve implied went through the same thing.”
“Any idea what actually caused it?”
“No. Just magic. I was trying to think of a real cause, but everything seemed like a cop out.”
“We’ll, we’ll figure it out. I’ve gotta get dinner. Talk to you later, Ash.”
“Later, Grant,” I said as I hung up. I dropped my phone on my bed and stood up. I walked over to my computer and got myself working on coloring the pages for chapter two.
And found myself putting yellow nail polish on Brenda’s fingernails and wishing it was on mine.
Ash's life carries on in spite of the strange goings on.
“Hurry up, Ash!” Laurie said from outside the bathroom. I woulda said something back, but whatever I had eaten the night before had given me a diarrhea fit something awful. I wasn’t outright groaning, but nothing about this was comfortable.
When I was done, I almost wanted to step on the scale and weigh myself to see if I’d lost a visible amount of weight. It felt like I had, that was for sure. I decided against it, though. I had to get ready for school and Laurie needed her shower. I just splashed a little water on my face and then left the bathroom.
I walked into my room and grabbed my phone. There was a text from Grant.
Sck, wont be at scool, he said. He was probably shitting himself stupid, just like I was. Made me wonder what he’d eaten last night. Great, now I had scripts to get to him and no way to get them to him until I type them up after school. Maybe I could get them typed up in a free period.
I pulled off my sleep shorts and got busy getting dressed. As I was pulling on my socks, something seemed… Off. It took me a minute to place it, but then I spotted the bright yellow nail polish bottle on my desk.
I picked it up and wondered what it was doing there. Laurie liked bright yellow, so I imagined it was hers… But that didn't feel right. It wasn’t hers, it couldn't be. It wouldn't be in my room, and neither of us had gone into the other's room since we got up. That… That meant it had to be mine.
But I didn't remember buying it or having it the night before, or even when I got out of bed for my shit fit, so where the hell had it come from? The rational part of me knew I should take it to Laurie and let her have it.
A different part of me wanted to paint my nails.
Should I really listen to that part? It's not like I hadn't been the subject of schoolyard teasing before, and I was the star quarterback, so that might mitigate some of the bullshit. Or it could exponentially enhance it and I’d be the laughing stock of the school for a day or two before something else happened with someone else.
Neither Dad nor Laurie made any sort of remarks when I walked downstairs with yellow fingernails. With any luck, nobody at school would notice either, and I’d be free of any teasing. I didn't expect my day to be that easy.
Wheeler tossed me a football the second he spotted me walking through the school doors. I fumbled it a little, but didn’t drop it. He was standing next to Kathy, who was standing at my locker with her arms folded under her breasts and a look on her face that suggest I needed to be worried. I juggled the football a little then tossed it back to Wheeler and took a deep breath. This was not going to be good.
Well, at least I thought it wasn’t going to be good. She didn’t actually say anything to me as I opened my locker and pulled my books out. She instead kept staring at me, like she was trying to gaze into my soul, or some shit. Wheeler just looked like he wanted to burst into laughter.
“Okay, whaddya want, Kat?” I asked as I brushed my hair away from my eyes. I didn’t think my hair was that long. Huh.
“Your article, the one I’ve been waiting for, the ‘School Life’ one?!”
I shut my locker. “You mean the one you pulled me away from last night to go shopping?”
Her face turned red, and not just from the shade of blush she’d picked that morning. “Well, I…”
Wheeler finally broke. Almost everyone in the hallway turned to watch him fall on his ass. When he eventually stood up and composed himself, he said, “Oh… Oh man… That was worth it.”
Kat rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine, I deserved that. The point is, I need it in by this afternoon.”
I smirked. “Yeah, I’ll get on that. Probably get it through lunch.”
She nodded. “Great, that works for me.” She sighed. “Sorry for treating this like it’s your fault.”
I slapped my hand on her shoulder. “Don’t sweat it.” I ruffled her hair a bit. “You’re cute when you try to be intimidating.”
Her eyes turned pure steel. “Don’t do that again, missy.” For some reason, that passed me by. “See you at lunch.” She pushed my hand away from her shoulder and sauntered off, swinging her ass side to side. I just chuckled. Kat did love the attention, even if she looked embarrassed because of it.
Wheeler leaned against the locker beside me and whistled. “You could do worse,” he said.
“Shut it.”
“Coach ain’t gonna bench you again today, is he?”
I shrugged. “Beats the hell outta me. I hope not, I don’t wanna lose my game, y’know.”
He reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of Pepsi. “Not like you’re not the best player on the team or anything, so losing your game probably shouldn’t be too much of a concern.”
I took the bottle from him and took a long gulp. “It’ll always be a concern,” I said.
“And that, my friend, is why you’re the best player on the team.” He grabbed his Pepsi back and gulped down the rest of it. “Remember, you promised to give my little sister a manicuring lesson after school today.”
I nodded as he slung his book bag over his shoulder and headed off for his class. I laughed, then opened my locker again. Of course, I’d forgotten that I’d help Kelsey after practice. I had too much on my mind.
The library was mostly empty during lunch. There were maybe three other people, not including the librarians. Not much chatter, everybody was in different parts of the library. Stephan Wolffe was over by the graphic novels, poking around the manga; Emily Forsythe was on one of the other computers on the other side of the room; and Kevin Daly was sitting at a table flipping pages in what looked like a medical textbook. It couldn’t sound more empty in there if we were all dead.
The article went smoother than I thought it would, considering I also couldn’t keep the comic out of my mind. Hand in hand, I’d type up a sentence of the article, then write down some of the comic. Productive, but almost too productive. It worried me that I would eventually lose the inspiration.
Another couple paragraphs down on the article, another page written for the comic. At some point, I’d need to type those up and get them to Grant before the end of the day. I wondered how he was doing.
How you doing? I texted him.
He sent back, Puking my guts out.
The fuck did you eat?
Crappy burrito. My mom can’t cook for shit.
I chuckled. Any pages done?
Nah, too shitty today. You?
A few. Should have em typed up before the end of school today.
Don’t rush.
No problem.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket and wondered for a second why I had so much room in that pocket. Anybody with fast fingers could reach in there and grab my phone and I’d never notice. Or maybe I needed something else to carry my phone in. I dunno, the thought was a stray and I shouldn’t have let it take up so much of my time.
I got back to the article and realized I was just shy of Kathy’s appointed word count. I either had to chop some off to finish how I wanted or throw in a semi-hasty ending. Or, I could take a third option and ask Kat to make it a two part piece. She liked me, the odds were good she’d be fine with it. At that point, I wouldn’t need too much more time.
“Are you done yet?” Kat asked, surprising me. Then I remembered she’d said she’d be here.
“Just about. You averse to this being across a couple papers?”
Her hands were on her hips and her face was extremely unpleased. “You’re kidding? First I give you extra time and now you wanna split it?”
“Please?” I asked, putting on a look of false innocence and clasping my hands together like I was praying.
She took on a look of extreme annoyance, now. “Fine, but it better be done in time for next month’s.”
I snapped my fingers. “You got it.”
She smacked me on the back of the head. “For a jock, you’re such a dork.”
“Most secretly are.”
She sat down on the table beside the computer. “So, I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
I looked up from the computer. “What?”
“What are you writing in your notebook?”
“Oh, a comic Grant and I are gonna put online.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You two write comics?”
“No, I write, he draws.” I quickly wrote a note on the side of the page about a character based on Kat. An inquisitive, semi-nagging character who would probably be a character’s friend or maybe even the main character’s potential lesbian love interest prior to discovering her sexuality.
“Aw, that’s so cute.”
I felt myself blush, somehow. Why was us doing a webcomic “cute”? Except that it almost kinda sounded like it was. Why was I thinking that?
I ignored those thoughts and instead returned my focus on both the article and the comic. Just a few more words and I could wrap up part 1 of the article and the current chapter of the comic. The comic was the most difficult. Sometimes it felt as though I was writing myself into a corner, and needed to find a way to keep going.
At least I had Grant’s art to look forward to when he got the pages.
I poked around on my phone as I sat on the toilet. I mostly looked at webcomics, primarily TG webcomics, trying to make sure I wasn’t writing too many cliche scenes into ours. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, as so many TG tropes existed in every webcomic out there. El Goonish Shive in particular played pretty much all of them with every character it could, sometimes multiple times. We obviously had the easy ones, like the main character being dragged along to buy clothes or the obligatory beach episode (who doesn’t like seeing their gorgeous female characters in bikinis?), but we were also straying away from a few of them. Brenda wasn’t the hottest girl in the comic, nor was she completely disgusted by what was happening to her.
The main thing I wanted to avoid was Misfile Syndrome, as I called it. That was a good comic, but it dragged something fierce. We weren’t going to make ours any longer than it needed to be.
I sighed. Researching webcomics to write a webcomic could be exhausting at times, especially when you’re trying to avoid their cliches, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Grant and I were gonna make the best damn webcomic that we could, and even if we didn’t hit it big, we were gonna have our foot in the door with it. Though, personally, I wanted to hit it big.
I took a moment away from my phone and glanced at my fingernails, inspected them. The polish was still spotless, a very pretty looking yellow. For some reason, I felt like I should have been worried about something, but I didn’t know what. It was no secret that I wore nail polish, it never had been. Maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe I didn’t have any on my toenails. That must have been it. I had forgotten to paint my toenails.
I flushed, pulled my underwear back up, then my pants, then slipped my phone back into my pocket. I only had a few minutes left before football practice started, and I was eager to get out there. Hopefully, Coach wouldn’t bench me three days in a row.
Of course, he did just that.
Instead of being on the field running plays with the rest of the team, I sat on the bleachers with Coach. He had me running the stopwatch on the team, timing how well they did. They weren’t exactly doing great, but that didn’t mean much yet, as they’d only learned the plays five minutes before. I realized with a chuckle that we’d never really be good college players.
I stopped the watch after the fourteenth run, and Coach blew the whistle. “You’re the sorriest maggots I’ve ever seen running this field! How you get your asses out of bed in the morning amazes me, you’re so damn lazy!”
I always got a laugh out of Coach doing his drill sergeant routine. It was never a good motivator for this team, but it usually worked good enough with repeat attempts. Maybe it would work faster this time.
“Now pull your panties up and run those plays!”
I started the stopwatch again and relaxed in my seat. I should have been out running those plays with them, but I couldn’t deny the comfort of the bleachers. Hopefully I’d be back out there tomorrow, because I was sure my game would be way off. I couldn’t sit out four days and keep my nickname honorably.
I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I reached for it and saw a text from Laurie. heading 2 the mall dont wait up, it read. What the hell I was “waiting up” for was a question I didn’t care to ask. She had a habit of thinking I wanted to hang out with her friends when I really didn’t. I wasn’t sure if it was just some twin thing or her thinking I was more invested in her life than I really was. Hell, she’d probably try to pass it off as helping me research the comic when all she’d want me there for is carrying the bags.
ok, I replied. I then proceeded to nearly drop my phone when Coach shouted at the team again. “Kick off those high heels and move, pansies!”
I giggled, then reset the stopwatch. I was at least getting a whole lot of laughs.
“Now, remember, shaping the nails is as important as any other part of a manicure,” I said. Kelsey watched as I shaped her nails with a file. She was really paying attention, which surprised me, since I always thought she pretty much had Wheeler’s attention span, which was so short that a fire lived longer in the vacuum of space. This whole thing actually impressed me.
Wheeler looked bored but didn’t say anything. He was probably anxious for me to finish the lesson so we could hang out. We had plans to head over to Grant’s and bug the shit out of him. Part of me knew it was a stupid, juvenile thing to do, but the rest of me just wanted to have the fun of doing it.
“Okay,” I said, “you try now.”
Kelsey grabbed the file and set to work on the nails on her left hand, as I had been doing her right. I wondered for a moment why she wanted me to give her these lessons. Judging by how pretty her nails were to start with, she kept really good care of them. I couldn’t teach her much she didn’t already know, really. Then again, manicuring was a hobby of mine. Maybe it was one of hers, and she just liked talking to somebody who shared the same interest.
Wheeler leaned forward in his extremely comfortable looking armchair. “You guys done yet?”
Kelsey just smiled. “Nope.”
He groaned. “C’mon! Ash and I have shit to do!”
I giggled. This reminded me of how Wheeler and I met. Laurie and I had been arguing about something, and Wheeler just happened by and watched. Now, I was the one just watching a different brother/sister spat.
I glanced down at my watch. “Okay, Kelsey, you’re doing great. Just run me through everything I taught you, and we’ll call this lesson over and done with.”
“Right,” she said, then her bright smile was replaced by a concerned frown. “Um… Can you take me back through that?”
I sighed. Wheeler fell out of his chair. Kelsey and I both started giggling, then I asked, “What did you fall down for?”
“I! Don’t! Know!”
“What the fuck are you guys doing here?” Grant asked. He looked miserable.
“We got bored,” Charlie said. He’d met up with us on the three block walk between Wheeler’s place and Grant’s. “And besides, what are you doing that we can’t be here?”
“Damn food poisoning wiped me out, that’s what.” He downed a half a can of soda. “How was practice?”
Wheeler answered, “Coach kept Flash off the field again, for some stupid reason.”
Grant looked over at me. “What the hell?”
“Don’t ask me,” I said, “Coach does what he wants. It’s gonna screw me up when I’m back out there, though.”
Wheeler sat down on the edge of Grant’s bed. “You’re still probably better than the rest of us, though. Coach’ll bring you back when he thinks we’ve caught up.”
Charlie grunted out a laugh. “Yeah, like that’ll ever happen. We’re the shittiest team in the county.”
“Bullshit,” I said, “we’re fucking amazing with or without me. Coach is just being too hard on you guys.”
Grant laughed. “Yeah, we need it sometimes. We damn sure aren’t the best team in the county.”
Wheeler at some point grabbed a bag of pretzels that must have been laying around somewhere, because he was munching on them like there was no tomorrow. “We’re an awesome team, we just get saddled with facing off against better teams.” He almost threw a handful of pretzels in his mouth. “But let’s put that away for now and get to some Dynasty Warriors.”
Charlie groaned. “Oh, for fuck’s sake… No! Halo or no go!”
I knew I had some big dumb smile on my face when I looked over at Grant. He, too, had a big dumb smile on his face as he turned to me.
And I felt the weirdest urge, but suppressed it. Why the hell did I want to kiss him?
I heard my alarm going off what felt like an hour earlier than it should. I grabbed my phone and saw that it was going off at 5:45am, just like it was supposed to. Why did it feel so early, then?
I put the thought out of my mind and just turned my lamp on, then sat up. Thursday meant no football practice, which was good, since I'd probably be benched again anyway. It also meant I could get my article done. Sure, the part due today was already finished and I had a whole month left for part 2, but getting it done on time would actually be a big change for me.
I took my shower, dried off, brushed my hair… Everything I normally did, and yet something seemed off. I couldn't put my finger on it as I pulled my panties back on and went back to my bedroom.
After throwing a shirt on, I sat down at my desk and got back to work coloring the pages Grant sent to me last night. The page in question had Brenda pleading with her best friend about… Something. Honestly, I couldn’t remember, as I’d written that page weeks ago. I’d get around to remembering it when I got to the lettering.
I looked at some of the past pages and saw I'd constantly given Brenda darker colored clothes, kind like Laurie actually wore, but for some reason, that just seemed wrong now. When it came time to color her next days’ outfit, I'd make sure she wore some more colorful clothes. She wasn't an emo, or anything like that.
An hour or so into coloring, I heard my phone buzz. A second alarm? I didn’t remember setting it. Why would I only get up an hour before the bus came, anyway? But there it was, clear as day, an alarm set for seven o’clock. Weird. I wondered why I would have set it at all. Unless…
I got up and walked across the hallway to Laurie’s room, and sure enough, she was still asleep. She was clad only in her bra and boxers. “Hey, get up!”
She flipped onto her side, her back to me. “Go away, Ashley.”
I hated it when she called me that. Yeah, it was my name, and it was unisex, but it still sounded stupid. “C’mon, it’s seven.”
“Don’t care, get the hell outta my room.”
Dad just happened to be walking past as I was arguing with her. “Laurie, get your ass up now.”
She groaned, then sat up. “Fine, Jesus…” She looked over at me. “I see you’re dressed.”
I folded my arms across my chest. Yeah, I was standing there in just my panties and a shirt, but it’s not like it would take me forever to get dressed. Only like twenty minutes to both pick out my outfit and put it all on, and I was about to go do that. “Hey, I had to wake you up.”
She flipped me the bird. “Whatever. Just get outta my room.”
I just walked back to my room and set to work getting dressed.
Grant was already working on whatever page he was on when I got on the bus. It was always impressive to me how he focused on his work on the comic. The world around him was nothing compared to his art.
So, naturally, I dropped my bag on his head.
“What the hell?” he almost shouted through laughter.
“You were dead to the world again, man, had to knock you out of it.”
“Still.” He threw my bag back at me as I took my seat next to him. Did… Why did he smell different today? Was he wearing aftershave? “How goes the writing?” he asked.
I pulled out my notebook. “Almost done with this chapter, just gotta figure out the right ending.”
“What about… You were telling me about that lesbian thing you wanted to do.”
“Yeah, that girl based on Kat.”
“We haven’t introduced her yet, so how about we end the chapter with her introduction? That way Brenda has this character who never met her as a boy, but is super interested in her anyway.”
I liked that idea, honestly. “Yeah, let’s do that.”
“So, we have her…” he trailed off. “Um, whadda we have her do?”
I shrugged. “Uh, I think I had Brenda shopping for a swim suit, so having New Girl come in and admire her is a way to have her flatter and creep Brenda out.”
He nodded, an excited look on his face. “Yeah, and we'll make sure her friends aren't around for extra conflict.”
I jotted down our plans on the margin of my notebook. This was what I loved most about doing this webcomic, just the two of us hashing out ideas and plots. It made this whole thing fun, exciting even. We'd been friends forever, but working together on this thing was just great.
That urge I'd felt last night, to kiss him. I felt it again, for some reason. I wondered why I was feeling anything like this. I'd never considered that kind of thing before, so why was it running through my mind now?
Most important of all, would he mind?
What was wrong with me?
“Alright, everyone, I want you to put your pencils on your desks,” Mr. Krenzler said as he walked into the classroom. “You’ve all done that? Good.” He slammed his briefcase down on his desk. “Now I want you to put your notebooks on your desks.” Everybody followed his instructions. This was Creative Writing class, so it’s not like we didn’t have our notebooks on our desks anyway.
Benji Schneider asked, “Are we going to be tested on this?” I was sitting beside him and I wanted to smack him. Most everybody else just laughed.
Mr. Krenzler shook his head. “Not to worry, Ben, there will be no test today. There will be a challenge to you all, however. I want you to pick someone in this classroom and I want you to create a character inspired by them.” He smirked as he leaned back against his desk. “And for added challenge, I want you to pick a classmate of the opposite gender.”
I looked around at everybody else. Most everybody was annoyed at the idea of picking somebody of the opposite gender. Most likely, everybody was just gonna pick the person closest to them. Though, honestly, they still could. We were seated boy-girl-boy-girl.
Mr. Krenzler continued: “You have two weeks, and every class up until then is dedicated to this challenge, as well as whatever curriculum we have on the docket. However much you get written is of no importance, only the creativity, the wonder, the range of your story. It can be anything you like, as well, no judgments will be made for genre, so long as you keep it school appropriate.” There were many giggles from around the room, my own among them. As if any of us would do anything… Like he was insinuating. “You have fifteen minutes to pick someone, and then the writing begins!”
I looked around the room and tried to decide who to base my fictional character on. It wasn’t easy to pick, I was pretty much friends with everybody in the room. I was fairly certain I could easily mimic their personalities, and my descriptions were good enough for Grant to draw people exactly the way I wrote them, so that wasn’t a worry. I just didn’t know who to use.
That was when an idea hit me. Nowhere did Mr. Krenzler say we couldn’t pick two people, and he said we wouldn’t be judged on the genre we wrote in. I was already writing a TG webcomic, maybe a prose TG story would be just as easy to do. And since the comic was male-to-female, I could do female-to-male for the story. Sure, it’s technically not the “opposite gender” stipulation, since I was writing both, but at least the final character would be opposite of me.
Besides, it’d be fun to do a TG story for school credit. Be nice practice for my future writing career.
The girl the character would start out as would be… Tracy McMaster. Though I tolerated her, we weren’t exactly friends, because she was a bitchy cheerleader. Having a character based on her, all prissy and uptight, turned into a guy would be hilarious irony. Now to pick the guy… Benji was a stand-up kind of guy, though a little awkward. Turning the popular girl into an anxious mess would actually be a pretty good way to then have her/him break out of their shell and become a better person, maybe even more friendly.
I quickly opened my notebook and started jotting down notes, mainly about the before and after for the main character. I was starting to like this idea the more I thought about it.
“And the first one to get started is Flash,” Mr. Krenzler said with a hint of amusement in his voice. “This one’s got a career ahead of them.”
I felt myself smile at that.
I had no idea why, but changing in front of the other guys in gym class seemed… Weird to me that day. I didn’t understand it at all, but it’s not like anybody thought I was weird for deciding to change in a restroom stall. I wasn’t even the only one who did, as Charlie did the same thing, but he always did.
I slipped my gym shorts on over my panties, with this weird feeling like I was wearing the wrong shorts, but I knew I wasn’t. It was an easy feeling to ignore, though. I pulled my gym shirt over my head. My chest was kinda itchy for some reason. I'd need to deal with that eventually, somehow. Maybe… I dunno. I'd look it up online later.
I laced up my gym shoes and then mussed up my hair a little. I liked looking like I'd already had a workout before class started, made it look like I took class more seriously. Charlie did the same thing, but that was so that he didn't need to work as hard, or however the fuck he justified it. Charlie was a little more normal than Wheeler, but more of a goof than Grant.
“Dude, can you believe it?” Charlie asked as we both left our stalls.
“Generally, yeah, I believe a lot of things that don't sound like total bullshit.” I chucked some chewing gum in my mouth. “What ‘it’ is this, Charlie?”
“Swimming starts tomorrow, man. Girls! In bikinis!”
He had a good point. Until last year, girls had to either wear one piece bathing suits or cover up with a shirt. Last year, however, the gym coaches got tired of telling the girls to cover up, so the rule was tossed out. I remembered Laurie cheering, since she refused to buy a one piece she'd only wear for a week while she wore her regular bikini whenever we went to the beach.
The idea of bikinis during swim class this year was enticing. I was almost excited.
“Now that you mention it, that is something to look forward to. Who are you looking forward to the most?”
He scratched at his chin as if lost in thought. “Hmm… Amber Forsythe would look perfect in one. Maybe a nice blue one, since she wears light blue clothes most of the time.”
I nodded. “Yeah, she’d be great to look at. What about Kristie Deckard?”
His eyes lit up. He’d had a crush on Kristie since puberty set in. “Oh, man… I’d have a woody immediately, man. I’m having trouble keeping one down just thinking about her.”
I laughed. It wasn’t uncommon for us to talk about this kind of stuff, but for some reason, it seemed… Different. I couldn’t put my finger on what was so odd about our discussion. Maybe I was just thinking about other things. It wouldn’t be a surprise to me if I was thinking of either the webcomic or the story for Creative Writing instead of thinking about pretty girls.
Except that I didn’t think I was. I just thought I was, for whatever reason, uncomfortable with talking about other girls like that.
I didn’t know. I just pushed it to the side and tried to think about what kind of bikini I’d wear for swim class. Did I even have any? Maybe I should worry about that after school.
Charlie and I followed everybody else out into the gym, where Coach Brandt blew his whistle and shouted, “Alright, you limp dicks, get in your spots!” He meant our assigned “seating”, which was just a place on the gymnasium floor we were given for our warm-up exercises.
We were separated with boys on one side of the gym, closest to our locker room, and girls on the other side of the gym. For some weird reason, I felt like I was on the wrong side of the gym, like I should be sitting with the other girls. I wasn't sure why I felt this, but I worked hard to put it out of my mind as we did the warm-up stuff.
At least, I tried to. I couldn't quite get the idea that something was wrong out of my head, like I was in the wrong place, or… Or even the wrong person. I couldn't quite peg what was wrong about me or anything else, but the feeling refused to go away.
What the hell was up with me today?
“Not today, Flash,” Coach said when I got out onto the field, in my gear.
“C’mon, Coach, I’m losing my edge! Lemme play today.” I sounded somewhat like a pleading child, but at the same time, goddamnit, I needed to play.
He put his hand on my shoulder. “You’ve got what you need, but these SISSIES! can’t seem to get what they need. So, instead, I’ve got a little work for you to do.”
I sighed. “Fine. Whaddya need?”
He smirked. “Remember when I had you checking out recordings of the last game the other day? I need ya to go back over them one last time, make sure you didn't miss anything. Last call on new plays is today, that way we can get them in for tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Take Grant with you, he's still in the shit from whatever he had yesterday.”
I nodded again. Good. Grant and I could work on those plays and get some work in on the webcomic. I'd even explain my plans for that Creative Writing story. He'd love it. Plus, just spending some time with him would be great to me. Just the two of us.
I called Grant over from the field and he hurried over. A quick explanation and he was ready to go. Wheeler was looking at us kinda funny as we left the field.
We took our gear off in the locker room, changing back into our regular street clothes. As I stood there in just my shirt and panties, I caught him taking peeks at me. “What?” I asked.
He blushed. “Oh, uh… Nothin’, man.” He then turned to face away from me. “Yellow looks pretty on you, by the way,” he said so quickly I wasn't really sure he said it.
Pretty? Me? I felt myself blush.
I crashed on my bed and breathed a sigh of relief at being home after such a weird day. The weirdest thing about it being that I really couldn't tell what was weird about the day. Everything was completely normal, but nothing was normal at all.
I heard my phone buzz. A text, or a game notification, or something. I reached into my back pocket and pulled the phone out. A text, it seemed.
From Grant.
I felt myself blush, for whatever reason. He wasn't in the room, he couldn't see me. He was my best friend, why was I so… So nervous about this? We texted each other all the damn time. What the hell was wrong with me?
hey got 3 more pgs done he texted. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was almost worried it would be something else.
send em over & ill get to coloring I sent back.
u busy tmrw nite? he asked.
Why did he ask that? What was… What was he going to ask if I said I wasn't busy? What the hell was going through my head right now?
I shook my head, needed to drive away the crazy or the stupid or the whatever the hell. no I responded.
wanna c a movie?
I felt my heart racing for some reason. A movie? The two of us? What was even playing? sure I answered.
I agreed to go to the movies with a guy. With my best friend. This wasn’t something new, but it felt so very different now that it was crazy. Why the hell did I feel like something had changed between us when everything was exactly the same? What was so wrong with me?
An hour or two later, after some coloring and some writing and then brushing my teeth, I slipped into my nightie and dropped onto my bed. I stared at the ceiling in the dark for a long time, not sure what had really happened. For whatever reason, going to the movies with a guy I’d gone to the movies with a hundred times before was suddenly different than it ever had been. This was nothing new, and it was completely new.
I felt my dick stirring in my panties, signaling that I was aroused. Aroused! Aroused by going to the movies with Grant! What was wrong with me? Why was this such a big deal?
My chest started to itch again, so I let my hand move away from my cock and scratched at my chest. There, something to take my mind off of Grant for a little while…
But only a little while.
I reached for my phone on my night stand, tapped the calendar app and set a reminder for “Movies with Grant” on tomorrow night. I even left a little heart emoji beside Grant’s name. This was a big deal. I may not know why, but I knew it was, and I had to treat it like it was.
I was going to the movies with a guy, and that was huge.
Ash's unique experiences continue to change everything.
I woke up and felt just a little bit of awkwardness. Then I remembered that I was going to the movies with Grant after school and awkwardness was replaced by a genuine feeling of excitement. I felt a stirring in my panties, but I decided against jerking off in favor of getting ready for school. Specifically, I needed to hop in the shower, and then get my outfit picked out.
I pulled the covers off and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I stretched and yawned at the same time, clearly still fighting off fatigue. I tugged at the hem of my nightie as I stood up. A part of me wondered if I should wear something a little more… Enticing, I guess was the word? Something at least a bit more special than plain clothes. I dunno. I’d figure it out when I went to get dressed.
I walked down the hall to the bathroom, shut the door behind me and pulled off my nightie and my panties. Something seemed a little off about me, but the thought faded quickly as I stepped into the shower and felt the nice warm water cascading over top of me. It was a feeling I’d never really paid any attention to, but it was so wonderful that I couldn’t understand why I’d never given it any thought before.
After washing my hair, I reached for my shaving gel and stopped just before spreading it on my face. Why would I be shaving my face? I didn’t grow hair on my face. Weird. I instead started applying it to my legs and armpits. I took my razor and started to shave carefully, so as not to nick myself. It wasn’t difficult, but I’d been doing this for years. Laurie could stand to shave her legs every once in awhile, but she almost always wore pants anyway.
Besides, Chrissie had told me once that she liked Laurie’s hairy legs. I couldn’t exactly understand that, but I guess Grant did look more… Rugged? I guess. It wasn’t really something I thought about on other people, I just knew I hated having hairy legs, so I shaved. Same with my armpits. It was nothing that I really gave much thought to.
I dried off and wrapped a towel around my chest. After that, I blow-dried my hair and tied it into a short ponytail. I’d always wanted to grow my hair out some, kinda like Laurie did. I never understood why she had such long hair. It made her look weird. It was just her style, I guess.
On the subject of Laurie, she stumbled into the bathroom as I stood there checking my face in the mirror. She was wearing nothing but a gray shirt with a hole in the stomach and a pair of matching boxers that probably only matched by accident. Her hair was a disheveled mess and actually looked shorter than I remembered it. “Jesus, I thought you were done,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “Almost.”
“Well, hurry up. I’ve gotta take a piss.”
“Whatever,” I said as I turned back around to the mirror. I noticed the beginnings of a zit on the side of my chin. I groaned at it, annoyed by its very existence. I liked having clean skin, and this was a very important day for me, so of course I get a zit today. I saw in the mirror that Laurie hadn’t left yet, and was looking at me kinda funny. “What?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I dunno. Just… Y’know, I really don’t know what’s up right now, but something feels like it is.”
“You’re just out of it because you’re up early,” I said. And she was. It was rare for Laurie to be awake before seven thirty, but here it was just about six twenty-five and she was awake.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” She walked over to the toilet, dropped her boxers and sat down just as I was leaving the bathroom.
I tossed my nightie and panties into my hamper and then the towel followed closely behind. After that, I grabbed a fresh pair of bright orange panties and a light orange tank top. My chest was still weirdly sensitive, just like yesterday, but not as uncomfortable being touched by my shirt. Maybe tank tops were the way to go until whatever this was finished up.
I plopped into my desk chair an worked on more coloring. If we were lucky, the first three chapters would be finished before we decided to launch the site. Then we'd have a good buffer zone of content for regular updates. I didn't want us to need to start scheduling breaks until it was absolute necessary. Nothing bothered me more than people with irregular updates.
My text ring went off, a pleasant melody that I'd heard on the radio one day last week while coloring. But it wasn't just for anybody's texts.
It was Grant!
I let my hair out of the ponytail for whatever reason. We were just texting, not like he could see me or anything. That made me wonder if he wanted to FaceTime, but I put the thought out of my mind. I was being stupid and too… Crushy.
hey i got some ideas i want 2 run past u
kewl go ahead I texted back.
so i started drwing this guy in the bkgrnd of a few panels and i rlly kinda like drwing him
I was interested. ok
at 1 point hes staring at brenda lk hes got a crush on her is that ok?
Hm… We’d already decided to make Brenda’s friend her love interest, but there was nothing to say we couldn’t have her try out other options. We were already going with that lesbian girl based on Kat for a love triangle sort of thing, maybe a love square wouldn’t be too much escalation.
how many pgs he in so far?
um 9
Wow. I wondered how many pages he’d added, because I didn’t think I’d given him that many more pages that he hadn’t drawn yet. I was excited about new scenes to write based on his artwork now. I wondered if there were any other characters I could pick out of the background like that.
lemme c the pgs I texted.
Not five minutes later, an email notification popped up on my browser. Grant really did decide to draw more pages than I’d written, because he sent me about thirty pages that didn’t correspond with my script pages. Either he was really getting to love the comic, or he just found a tangent he didn’t want to pass up. And, honestly, that made it a tangent I didn’t want to pass up, too.
I looked over the black and white penciled artwork and found the character he was talking about. The guy looked to be in the background of most of the pages. When he was colored, he’d probably have dark red hair, maybe a bit of a tan. He was clearly checking out Brenda like he had the hots for her.
Somewhat surprising me was Grant’s choice for Brenda’s outfit. I hadn’t described what I wanted her to wear for the first couple chapters, we’d discussed having her trying to wear boy clothes for the first few days and then transitioning to girl equivalents of boy clothes soon after as she discovered that boy clothes just weren’t designed for her body. The outfit he had her in on these pages, however, was a sleeveless turtleneck sweater and a checkered skirt with knee-high boots. It was a cute outfit, but I wasn’t sure she’d wear it so early in her transition from thinking of herself as male to accepting herself as female.
whats with brendas clothes? I texted.
another idea i had he responded, since weve got maya wearing sexy clothes she would try to get brenda to wear some early on
I rolled my eyes. Maya had been Laurie’s idea, a girl who wore the skimpiest outfits imaginable. I’d been trying to get Grant to change her looks up for days now, but he liked the idea that Allana would be the more conservative kind of friend who didn’t show a whole lot of skin while Maya would be the one trying to get Brenda to show as much skin as possible.
It didn’t help that he’d also vetoed my request to tone down Maya’s chest. Brenda was a C-cup, Allana a B-cup and Maya was a DDD-cup for whatever reason. Grant was just really focused on making her look like a hooker. I guess it was probably some “don’t judge a book by its cover” kind of deal, because aside from trying to steer Brenda too far into femininity too early, Maya was Brenda’s best friend. She’d been the first person that Brenda went to after the change. So, I guess her having at least a little influence over Brenda’s clothes would make some sense.
Still. I wish Grant would make her a little less like a hooch.
so what do you think of the guy? i was thnkin his name wld be gray btw
It wasn’t a bad name. Made me think of Fifty Shades of Grey, but I doubted this guy had a BDSM dungeon in his basement. Unless…
hes nice to look at I sent with a wink emoji.
figured youd say that he responded with a kiss emoji. I giggled at the possibility that he thought I had a crush on this guy.
you decide what movie yet? I asked.
figured wed choose at the theater
Hmmm… Seemed to me like he just didn’t want the responsibility of choosing what movie to watch. Or he just wanted to be cute and romantic. I liked the second one more.
gotta get ready for school I texted. see u there
He sent back see u 2
I set my phone down and felt a warmth spread throughout my body. I couldn’t wait for the bus to show up, because Grant would be there. I just imagined cuddling up beside him while we worked on the webcomic. And then would come the movie later, where we’d be sitting beside one another in a dark theater. It would be so very wonderful.
A part of me wondered why I was feeling this way all of a sudden. Grant had been my best friend almost my whole life, we’d known each other longer than I could remember, and yet only now did it seem like I had this big crush on him. What was up with me? Was it just some weird reaction? Had I seen him every day for years and only just now realized that he was kind, warm and attractive?
Then I realized that that was obviously exactly what it was. He wasn’t the first guy I had the hots for, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. Though, honestly, I wouldn’t mind if he was. He had been my best friend the majority of my life, and if I ended up with him for the rest of it, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“Are you texting your boyfriend?” Laurie asked. I spun my chair around and saw her standing there, leaning against my door frame in a pair of ratty blue jeans and a loose tee-shirt. “That’s just adorable.”
I blushed. “He’s not my boyfriend!” I then meekly added, “Yet…”
She laughed. “Whatever. I’m ready before you are, y’know.”
“It takes you like two minutes to get dressed!”
“And it takes you fifteen or twenty, point is we’ve got about twenty minutes until the bus gets here and you can sit with your boyfriend. You probably wanna get ready.”
Shit, she was right. I quickly pushed her out of the room, shut and locked the door and attacked my closet like a monster. I pulled off my tank top and pulled on a light orange camisole in order to keep my shirt from irritating my chest. On that subject, my chest seemed kind of… Puffy. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I didn’t feel outrageously uncomfortable, so I just ignored it. Next, I grabbed a light red long sleeved shirt with a V-shaped neckline. I wanted something so that my necklace could touch my skin and still be visible. A pair of blue jeans that looked about as ratty as Laurie’s were pulled over my hips, the difference being that these were supposed to look torn at the knees, while hers were just old and she didn’t like buying new pants. Last came a pair of flip flops.
I slipped on my necklace and adjusted it so that it would land at the edge of my shirt’s neckline. I then grabbed a pair of diamond stud earrings I hadn’t worn in forever and slid them into the holes in my earlobes. Grant had asked me yesterday why I hadn’t worn those for so long, so I figured I’d treat him with them today. I glanced at the clock on my phone. Less than ten minutes. Not as long as I’d like to take planning an outfit, but I looked presentable and cute, and that was all that mattered to me. I grabbed my book bag and then ran downstairs to wait on the bus.
When Grant saw me, his eyes lit up. He looked me up and down, and then quickly scooched over in the seat to let me sit down. There was something in his eyes, something like he didn’t exactly know what he was looking at, but then he probably realized he was looking at me.
“Hey, Ashe,” he said as I parked my ass in the seat.
“Hi.”
“What did you come up with for Gray and Brenda?”
I pulled out my notebook. “I was thinking about this big relationship thing where we’ve got Yelena - ”
He cut me off. “Yelena?”
“Yeah, sorry, the lesbian girl based on Kat. I just came up with the name a little while ago.”
“Yelena. I like it.”
I felt myself blush. “Yeah, so I came up with this thing where Brenda’s got this triangle of people around her who are really attracted to her. Yelena, who doesn’t know that Brenda used to be a boy; Joey, who’s known Brenda since her days as Brian and is deeply in love with her because of who she is; and Gray, who moves to town and is just a general purpose ladies man who’s attracted to Brenda because she’s not throwing herself at him.”
He nodded. “Okay, so I assume we’re not gonna have her hook up with Yelena, because her orientation doesn’t change during the transition and she was already into guys as a guy.”
“Right. And she won’t be into Gray, but he’ll be trying his damnedest to win her over.”
“Yeah… We’re going head first into her and Joey ending up as the alpha couple?”
I nodded. “Uh, duh! They’re fucking adorable together, why wouldn’t we have them end up as a couple?”
He laughed, then, without my noticing, he put his arm around me. “Fine, fine. They are a cute couple. Right now, Gray’s just in the background, when will we actually introduce him?”
I looked through my notes for the upcoming chapters, trying to find a place we could organically introduce Gray. I couldn’t easily find one, so just added him in on the margin of one page. “Right there, chapter… Six, when Brenda’s at least a little more comfortable in her skin and then he comes in and she starts having some lapses.”
He ran his index finger across my notebook, reading what I’d written. “Okay, so until then, he’s a background player. I can draw a few characters in the background at school gossiping about something, and you could write them talking about him.”
I nodded. “I like that. It’s good foreshadowing. Should we do the same thing with Yelena?”
He rubbed at my shoulder. “I think she should just come in at some point, no build-up. We can introduce her at the end of this chapter and then you can write her into some scenes in the next one.”
I scribbled that in the margin of the page I was on. “That can work. She doesn’t need to be heavily involved right away, so adding her into scenes she wasn’t in won’t be too difficult.”
He sort of hugged me close to him. It felt really good, and I didn’t want him to stop until we got to school. Hell, I didn’t really even want him to stop then. I just reached up and gave him a peck on the cheek. It surprised him, but I could tell it wasn’t uncomfortable to him.
And then he hugged me closer.
Wheeler seemed to be looking through me, or something, when we got to school. I wasn’t entirely certain what was going on there, but it quickly subsided. “Hey, you guys aren’t… No fuckin’ way!”
“What?” I asked. “He finally asked me out last night!”
Charlie appeared from out of nowhere. “About time, man!” He smacked Grant on the shoulder. “So, what are you two doing to mark the occasion?” He put his hand on my shoulder. Had I always been a full head shorter than him? Duh, of course I had. Stupid me. “Think Coach would actually let you play today?”
I giggled. “Please, I just watch. Football is way too rough for me.”
“Yeah, but then you could say you’re on the same team as your boyfriend! Bet you’re a better player than him, too.”
Wheeler put Charlie in a headlock and pulled him away. “Hey, now, hands off! Ash is Grant’s yard line now, let him get at least one field goal before you start flagging a pass.”
As demeaning as it really was, it was still kind of cute that they were referring to Grant scoring with me in football terms. Boys would be boys after all, and at least they were comfortable talking like that in front of me. Then again, these guys had been my friends for years, so it almost was like I was just one of the boys.
It made me think for a brief moment that I should be one of the boys. I mean, I was a boy, right? I had been since the day I was born, about two and a half minutes after Laurie. Why did it suddenly seem so strange that they talk about this kind of stuff around me? Shouldn’t I be joining in with these crude innuendos?
But something told me that was wrong, that I wasn’t that kind of boy. Honestly, the idea that I was even a boy at times felt wrong, like I shouldn’t be one. Maybe I wasn’t one, really. After all, I did have the hots for a cute boy, a boy that was taking me to the movies after school.
No, I really wasn’t a boy, and I didn’t understand why I even thought that I was.
I saw Chrissie and Kat waving to me, so I waved back. “See you boys later,” I said to the guys. I gave Grant a little peck on the cheek before walking away, and he gave me a corresponding pat on the ass. I wasn’t entirely sure we were really at that stage of our relationship, but honestly, this relationship was such a long time coming I may as well let him have that one early.
The girls gave me weird looks as I finally caught up to them. “Are you dating one Grant Harrison?” Chrissie asked, a hint of gossip in her voice.
“Uh, duh,” Kat answered for me. “Those two have been BFFs forever, it’s about time Grant finally asked Ash out.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Are you saying you’ve got a problem with it?” I asked.
Chrissie shook her head. “No, but now the school’s top jock is dating the school’s top reporter.”
Kat seemed offended. “Hey! I run the school paper!”
“Yeah, but you have Ash do all the work!”
I giggled. “She’s got a point,” I said.
“That’s what a good editor does!” Kat nearly screamed.
I put my arm around her shoulder. Not in the intimate sort of way Grant did with me, but in a friendly way. “Hey, you’re the best editor we’ve ever had.”
She pouted. “Good. You better see it that way.”
“So,” Chrissie said suggestively while clasping her hands in front of her chest, “how about this party tomorrow night?”
Shit, I’d forgotten all about that! Laurie could have reminded me when she barged in on me texting Grant this morning, but would she? Of course not! She was just the worst brother a guy could have sometimes.
I composed myself and answered, “My dad leaves at about noon today, Laurie and I are heading out to get the stuff after school.”
Oh, crap! After school! I’d have maybe an hour or two to buy party stuff before Grant and I went to the movies!
“Shit, I need to go find Laurie…” I whispered.
Chrissie’s face lit up. “Can I come?”
I sighed. “Yeah, you can.”
“Lemme get this straight,” Laurie said as she pulled books out of her locker, “you want my permission to go to the movies with your boyfriend instead of getting the stuff for the party we’ve had planned for two weeks?” She slammed her locker shut and leaned against it. “How the hell are we supposed to get the drinks if you’re not there to flirt with the guy at the liquor store?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t flirt with him! He’s just sweet on me.”
She made some odd motion with her head. “Whatever.” She took a long look at Chrissie, and I could tell that the two of them probably wanted me to leave. “Okay, fine, I’ll get the drinks, you go smooch your boyfriend in a dark movie theater.”
Chrissie elbowed me. “Look at that, you got permission! My brother never lets me kiss my boyfriends at the movies.”
Laurie wrapped her arms around Chrissie’s waist. “Hey, your brother likes me, remember?”
I just sighed. “Okay, you guys go do whatever it is you wanna do. I’m gonna go spend time with my boyfriend before class starts.”
“See you at lunch!” Chrissie exclaimed with big wave.
I waved back, with this nagging feeling that there should be something off about Chrissie referring to Laurie as her boyfriend.
Grant was busy drawing the webcomic when I got to Art. Mr. Yates hadn’t arrived yet, so nobody was really doing anything class-related. I slid into my seat beside him and gave him another little kiss on the cheek. “What was that for?” he asked, his tone amused.
“Do I need a reason?”
He smirked. “I guess not.”
I pulled my notebook out of my bag. “What page are you on?”
He flipped through the binder of scripts that he had. “Chapter… Four, page eighteen.”
“Oooh, I like this one.”
He gave me a look that said he wasn’t surprised. The page in question was Brenda and Joey on a Ferris Wheel, having been tricked to being there together by Allana, who knew there was more than just mild attraction between the two. This wasn’t when they actually started their relationship, but it was a catalyst that would lead to it.
There was a clicking sound from the hallway, getting closer. Not a second later, a woman I'd never seen before walked into the room. She was a good six feet tall, but then I realized she was wearing heels. Maybe in her upper 30s, lower 40s. Bright red-orange hair, and piercing blue-green eyes, with a winning smile. She was dressed in a dark red dress that would be better suited to a ballroom than a classroom, with a navy blue half blouse left unbuttoned over top of it.
“Good morning, class,” she said, “it's a pleasure to meet you all. My name is Mrs. Morfran, and I'm your new Art teacher. I'm told Mr. Yates found better prospects elsewhere, but I don't know much more than that, so I can't really tell you anything.” She wrote her name on the dry erase board at the front of the room. “Now, I know this isn’t the start of the semester, but it's our first day together and I have but one question for you all.” She wrote in big letters on the board, under her name, How many of you are artists?. She then spun back around to face us, and the smile on her face turned into a shit-eating smirk. “Well?”
Grant raised his hand, as did a couple others.
She shook her head. “No. None of you can be considered artists quite yet, because none of you have found beauty.”
I didn't understand that at all. Beauty was a sub --
“Beauty, as you all should be aware, is subjective. In the eye of the beholder, as the old saying goes. While this is very true, the path to beauty begins with one very important step: Change.”
I was starting to wonder if Mr. Yates was going to run in here and save us from this crazy lady who'd hijacked his classroom. Seriously, what the hell was she getting at?
“True art is change. Transitioning one thing - say, a blank canvas - into another - an image, perhaps?” She very quickly took three markers and began to do… Something. I couldn't really see from where I was sitting. Eventually, she stepped away from the board and my jaw almost hit the floor. Where was once blank white space was now a very detailed flower, made to look kinda like it was made with watercolor paints. “Transform what's before your eyes into what's in your heart.”
Okay, crazy or not, Mrs. Morfran was very much a legit art teacher. How she did that with three markers in so little time was… Jesus, I didn't know how to describe that. I suddenly felt like my meager drawing skills weren't going to be enough to pass the class.
Hell, Grant's art was amazing and he might not even be able to pass now… Shit…
Art just got way more interesting than it had been.
I walked into the locker room and saw everybody getting ready. Swim class, finally! I’d been waiting since the semester started for this, just as an excuse to wear the bikini I bought at the beginning of the school year. I knew Chrissie was just as excited as I was, and we’d picked mirrored sets.
“Yo, Ash!” Kristie called. Chrissie was standing beside her, and the both of them were already in their bathing suits. Kristie’s was a very simple black and white set, in sort of an X like pattern. Her top was black on the left and white on the right, while the bottoms were white on the left and black on the right. “C’mon, we’re almost ready!”
I giggled. “Jesus, the boys aren’t gonna be out there any earlier than we are, gimme a second!”
“Still, girl, hurry up!”
I sighed. Kristie could be a little… Well… She kinda had a school slut reputation, but I knew better. She dressed the way she did to lead guys on, only had half as many boyfriends as people liked to claim she had. Plus, she had a huge crush on Charlie, so any guy she had dated was just a warm up for the one she really wanted.
I pulled off my clothes in the restroom stall just off from the locker room. I didn't know why I did that, but I always had. I was really self-conscious when I was younger, and I guess I just never grew out of it. Nobody criticized me for it, thankfully.
I slid the bottoms on. Pink and white horizontal stripes were the design, going from top right to bottom left. After that came the top, which was easy thanks to being a clasp rather needing to tie it together. Once again, the pattern was pink and white stripes, but here they were making a V shape. The stripes on the right went top right to bottom left, the stripes on the left went top left to bottom right. It served as a kind of attention marker, in a way. And it was cute, like me.
Like I said before, Chrissie's bikini was the mirror image of mine. We'd done that on purpose, because we bought them together. Her's was still pink and white, but her top had an inverse V shape, pointing up instead of down, and the stripes on her bottoms went in the opposite direction. Naturally, the similarities in our bikinis caused some heads to turn our way, but that was the point.
Kristie asked me, “Which guy do you think will look better in a Speedo?”
I smirked. “Well, you only have eyes for Charlie Wilkins, so he's obviously your choice.”
She turned beet red. “Hey!”
I continued as if I hadn't noticed her discomfort. “I’d havta say… I'mma go with my crush, Grant.”
Chrissie came between Kristie and I, throwing her arms around both of us. “Ladies, you're both wrong. Clearly, the hottest guy in a Speedo is Laurie.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ugh… Can you not say that again?”
The two of them just burst into a giggle fit until everybody filed out to the pool.
“C’mon, you pantywaists!” Coach shouted at the guys. I sorta winced, because Coach was loud when he yelled. He turned to Kat and I and said, “I hope you’re not writing down everything I say.”
Kat just giggled. “Don’t worry, only the good bits.”
I wasn’t even writing down anything he was saying. This article was about the team, not the Coach. He was still an important piece of it, so I wasn’t going to smear his record by bringing attention to the fact that he was relatively foul mouthed. Plus, not like anybody didn’t know.
Coach just nodded. “Good.” He turned back to face the team. “You girls need to move! Move like your boyfriends are waiting to hump you!”
I nearly choked my drink. Wow. I didn’t think Coach would ever go that far. He was much milder during Gym than he was for the guys on the football team. It reminded me of Ms. Hansen, the other Gym teacher who also coached volleyball. I'd had to do an article on one of her practice sessions, too, and she was brutal there.
I specifically kept an eye on Grant, for obvious reasons (wink wink), but I watched Wheeler and Charlie, too, to see how well they were doing. If I was honest, the team wasn't doing very well. I didn't quite understand why, since I knew the team was usually better than this. They also looked like they were down a player, but I figured he just ditched today or something.
“Your boyfriend is probably doing the best, y'know,” Kat said, with a hint of amusement in her voice. “He’s the only one that isn’t total shit.”
Defensively (these guys were my friends, after all), I said, “Wheeler and Charlie are doing just fine.”
“Well, yeah, but the team as a whole is just kinda… Yeah, not great.”
I leaned back in my seat. “It’s only been a rough couple weeks. They’ll be back to full strength soon.”
She sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. At least, they better be.” She nudged me with her elbow. “Hey, why don’t you tell Laurie to try out? Bet he’d do great.”
I honestly didn’t know why Laurie wasn’t on the football team. She loved to play football, and had with the guys for years. Of course, I’d played with them more than once, and I didn’t feel any need to join the team. Maybe Laurie just wasn’t interested.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I knew Grant’s would be in his locker, but I still felt the need to text him something funny about what I was seeing him and the guys doing. u look hot in ur uniform I sent, with a heart emoji after hot. He wouldn’t see it until after practice, but I was certain he’d get a good kick out of it.
I looked down at what I’d written for the article and realized I’d mentioned Grant way too many times. I mean, sure, if Kat was right, he was the best player on the team, but I’d written his name probably eight times, and the only player close to that was Tim Hyun, who’d been mentioned twice just because he’d been injured on the field six times this season.
Crap… I quickly crossed out his name a few times to cut down on how often I mentioned my boyfriend over everybody else. This was an article about the whole team, not just Grant. I was surprised I let myself do that, but then again, it was Grant I was writing about, so it made some sense. Maybe I could mention poor Tim a couple more times.
Coach Brandt shouted, “Alright you limp-dicked sissies! You’re makin’ me wish the cheerleaders were out here running these plays! We’ve got a game tomorrow and I damn well better see you kick ass on the day, understand me? Go hit the showers.”
Kat stood up. “What say we go bombard the players with questions as an excuse to go into the boys locker room?”
I smirked. “Hmm… Half or fully naked guys standing around for us to look at while we ask them questions about their practice… I’m game.”
“Tell me, Mr. Harrison, how it is you felt when the coach dumped new plays you were unfamiliar with on top of you?” I asked Grant, who was standing there with just a towel wrapped around his waist and an embarrassed look on his face.
“Seriously?” he asked.
I giggled. “Hey, this was Kat’s idea, and I just took advantage.”
Both of us glanced over in Kat’s direction, where she was half asking questions, half flirting with Tim Hyun. At one point, she lightly poked him in his probably still sore rib, and made him double over in pain.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Grant said. He sat down on the bench beside the locker row. “Um… To answer the question, Coach drops this kind of thing on us all the time, especially after a bad game. He’ll introduce plays that he knows we can do, even if we don’t know if we can do them. He never pushes us too far, even though he can seem a little… Abrasive. Sometimes he throws us really difficult plays when we’re not prepared to run them, but that doesn’t happen often.”
I quickly jotted down what he’d said. He was actually the last member of the team that I was interviewing. Kat and I each took half the team, though she seemed to purposefully leave Wheeler, Charlie and Grant for me. I’d thank her for Grant, but Wheeler spent the whole time trying ask me what Grant and I were doing to celebrate that we were dating while Charlie was pretty much just talking about girls he liked.
Suddenly, there were loud footsteps coming into the locker room that sounded like somebody dropping a sledgehammer on the ground every few seconds. I turned around and saw Coach and a much taller man standing behind him.
“Well, well, well… No wonder your team lost to us last week, Gene. They’re busy fucking girls back here.”
I felt myself blush. Even Coach wasn’t that bad.
Coach, thankfully, stood up for us. “Kathy Myers and Ashley Johnson, editor of the school paper and head reporter. You wanna suggest my boys are performing… Untoward actions with these two young ladies, Barry, you’re making a big mistake.”
Kat was suddenly beside me, nudging me in the elbow. When I turned to her, she kinda motioned toward the big guy with her eyes. I could tell she wanted me to ask him questions for the article, or maybe even to just ask him to shut up about us. I was kinda insulted that he said that about us.
Coach, instead, decided to introduce the guy to everybody. “Team, ladies, this is Barry Waters, coach of Weston High’s football and swimming teams. He came by to observe us on the field prior to our big rematch tomorrow night.” Coach turned to him. “And came by late.”
Mr. Waters folded his arms across his massive chest. “And what I see today is nothing!” he shouted with a hint of laughter.
I felt a surge of disgust for this asshole. Our team was fantastic, and they worked their asses off. Why the hell he thought he could come in here and call them nothing just sent me over the edge. “Excuse me, Mr. Waters, but like Coach Brandt said, you came in after they finished running their practice plays. You didn’t watch them work and sweat and tire themselves out. They’re not nothing, and they’re gonna whup your ass tomorrow night!”
The locker room fell so silent that I almost though a tumbleweed would roll past. I looked around at everyone else in the room. The guys all looked like they were about to shit their pants, Coach looked somewhat annoyed, Kat looked amused and/or impressed, and Mr. Waters looked like he was about to burst into laughter.
“What?” was all I asked.
Finally, Mr. Waters did burst into laughter. “This one’s got bigger balls on her than the rest of your team, Gene! Put her on the field and you’d probably win tomorrow!” He smacked Coach on the shoulder. “I’ll see you on the field, Genie!” He then turned around and walked out of the locker room, still laughing.
Coach sighed, then looked at me. “Good job, Johnson. I think you just gave us the biggest advantage we’ll have tomorrow.”
“I did?”
“Now he thinks we’re a bunch of wusses that need a woman to win our games. We’re gonna show him just how wrong he is!”
The team roared a cheering… Noise, I guess, that sounded like monkey grunting. It was a weird sound, but I felt like I'd heard it before at some time. I probably had, since the guys probably did it all the time. Plus, I'd followed the football team for the paper since freshman year, so I should have heard it more than once.
Guess on top of school journalism, school spirit was probably one of my strong suits.
I checked my wall clock and saw that I only had forty minutes until I had to meet Grant at the movies. Not a lot of time, but not too little to ruin anything. I just had to take a quick shower, choose a cute outfit and then call Kat when I was ready to go.
Laurie was off with Chrissie buying the stuff for the party, so I had the house all to myself until I left. The place was quiet, but that was to be expected. It was weird not seeing Dad watching TV, but he should be on a plane to Kansas for the weekend. It was the most time he'd spent out of the house since losing his job, and he was visiting Uncle Cletus, so it was for the best.
I quickly stripped down to just my panties and wondered for a brief second why that seemed odd to me, then quickly hopped in the shower. I had this second weird sensation that the water seemed warmer than usual, but I ignored it. I assumed it was just me feeling all hot and bothered or something. Nothing to really worry about.
My hair seemed longer, though. Weird.
I stepped out of the shower, dried off, and wrapped a towel around my chest. As I blow-dried my hair, there was a knock at the door. Was Laurie home already?
Dad answered my silent question by asking, “Ashe, is that you, honey?”
Oh shit! If Laurie came home with all the stuff for the party and Dad was still here…
“Yeah, Dad!”
“Where’s your brother?”
Great, I had to answer that question. “I think he’s on a date with Chrissie.” I had to ask, “Weren’t you supposed to be on your plane by now?”
“Delayed for some weird ass reason. Taking off at about six tonight.”
Six, was only an hour away. Granted, the airport itself was less than a half hour away, and it was tiny, so Dad probably wouldn’t need to wait too long to get on the plane. We only had a tiny airstrip with like three planes in total. This town wasn’t huge or anything.
I could use that to my advantage. The movie theater wasn’t too far from the airport, I could get a ride from Dad and wouldn’t need to call Kat. That would save me some of her annoying teasing, though I’d need to worry about Dad giving me “the talk” about how to deal with my boyfriend.
I opened the bathroom door and he was standing there, doing something on his phone. “Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?” He looked up from his phone and had this weird look on his face, almost like he wasn’t sure what he was looking at.
“Can you give me a ride to the movies?”
“Oh, seein’ something tonight?”
“Yeah. I dunno what yet.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Who are you going with, young lady?”
I reached around behind myself and grabbed my other arm. “Grant,” I answered, knowing my face was beet red.
“Really? Hmmm… Football player, your best friend… Have you two been foolin’ around?”
I’m pretty sure my face went from beet red to tomato red. “Dad!”
He laughed, then patted me on the shoulder. “Oh, calm down, honey, I know you better than that. Yeah, I’ll take you to the movies so you can spend a couple hours in the dark with your boyfriend.”
I smiled, threw my arms around him and almost squealed, “Thank you, Daddy!” I hadn’t called him “Daddy” in years. I felt like a little kid again, for whatever reason.
I hurried into my room and unwrapped the towel and let it drop to the floor. Getting him to take me to the theater would be another benefit, because then Laurie and Chrissie could get home while he was taking me, and then he’d drive off to the airport. This would actually all work out just fine, it seemed.
I opened my underwear drawer and rooted through my panties to find just the right pair. I found a cute pink pair and slid them up my legs. I knew exactly what bottom I was going to wear, so I quickly retrieved the little black miniskirt and stepped into it. Next I pulled on a pink bra. For whatever reason, it felt like I’d never worn one before, but I knew I had for years now, so whatever was wrong with me was something I’d need to deal with later. I grabbed an orange tank top out of my closet and dropped that over top of me, making sure it covered my bra straps well enough. Didn’t want Grant getting any ideas, after all. Last but not least, I slid my feet into a cute pair of bright pink flip flops.
Fifteen minutes left before we needed to go, I sat down at my vanity and started painting my nails. Yellow was my absolute favorite color, but today I wanted to go pink. Maybe it was just because I had a boyfriend, or maybe I just wanted a change for a day. Like Mrs. Morfran said, “beauty is change”. Grant, hopefully, loved me either way, though.
A little blush, a little eyeliner, some bright red lipstick, my makeup was finished and perfect. Next came jewelry. I put my cute heart necklace on, then grabbed a silver charm bracelet. My last piece of jewelry was a pair of heart shaped stud earrings that I bought alongside my necklace. I hadn’t worn them since I bought them, and this seemed like the best time.
I took a quick look in the mirror and realized that I hadn’t really styled my hair. It just fell in loose curls, just barely hitting my shoulders. I liked that look a lot, especially as the ends brushed past my shoulders. I wondered how long I’d had this sort of casual “style” without realizing it. I cursed myself for not noticing sooner.
I almost slid down the stairs, I was moving so quickly. I’d just managed to finish getting ready before Dad and I had to leave. I stopped in front of him and did a little goofy runway pose. I used to do that all the time when I was a kid. It’s how I got my nickname, “Flashy” Ashley. I’d just put on cute clothes and model them for Mom and Dad. I hadn’t done it for awhile, at least since Mom died. It made me miss her some more.
“You’re seeing a movie dressed like that?” Dad asked.
“What? I wanna look good for Grant.”
“Trust me, if he’s anything like I was at your age, he’s probably gonna be picturing you naked most of the time, anyway.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dad…”
He chuckled. “I’m just givin’ ya shit, honey, don’t worry about it. Now get your ass in the truck so I can drive you to your boyfriend.”
I just smiled.
I gave Dad a quick hug before getting out of the truck. He just gave me a pat on the shoulder and told me to have a good time before driving off to the airport. We just managed to miss Larry and Chrissie showing up at the house, and luckily they didn't pull any bags out of Chrissie's car.
I couldn’t remember the last time Grant and I went to the movies together, but this was a very different situation. Today, we weren’t just going as the best friends we’d been ever since we were kids, it was as a boy and a girl seeing a movie together on a date. As far as I knew, we were just seeing a movie, though I couldn’t say I’d be disappointed if we ended up going to dinner afterward or anything like that. It’d be romantic. And, honestly, romance was something I’d be very interested in.
Grant was waiting for me in the lobby. When he saw me, it was just like this morning on the bus, his eyes were so bright it was like he was seeing me for the first time. Actually, though, it was probably just him realizing that the girl in front of him was his girlfriend, not just a girl who was his friend. In a way, he really was seeing me for the first time.
“Hey, Ashe,” he said as I got closer to him, “you look… Wow…”
I giggled. “You’ve seen me in stuff like this before.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I know, but… I mean… This is the first time we’ve been here like this. It’s the first time you’ve dressed like that for us.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged myself close to him. “I didn’t dress this way for us. I dressed this way for you.”
He laughed. “Okay, that was kinda sappy.”
I kissed him and then lightly tapped him on the nose with my finger. “Hey, you lemme have a soap opera moment.” I giggled again. “Just remember, you’re gonna havta draw moments like this when we get Joey and Brenda together.”
He nodded. I noticed his hand was on my ass and I didn’t have any problem with it. “I guess you’re right.”
I smirked. “I’m your girlfriend, I’m always right.”
He rolled his eyes. “Already with that stuff, huh?”
I kissed him again. “Yup.”
He smiled. “I shoulda known. Well, how about we go decide what to see?”
The theater had this big billboard with the posters for the movies they were currently showing. It dominated one wall of the lobby, right behind the ticket booth. There were sixteen screens, though we didn’t get every movie that was out in our theater. It was mostly the big ones. There were some we’d already seen together, and I wasn’t really sure what it was I wanted to see.
“Um… Slender Man or The Meg?” I asked.
He scratched at his chin. “Are those really our only choices?”
“We’ve seen almost everything else already.”
He chuckled. “We shoulda started dating earlier this year, then.”
“Hey, you just needed to ask.”
He kissed my cheek. His lips were so warm. “I’m up for The Meg, how about you?”
Not like there was much choice. “I’m game for Jason Statham fighting a super shark,” I answered.
Like a classic boyfriend, Grant paid for the both of us, which was a good thing, because I didn't even realize I didn't bring my wallet. I coulda sworn I had my purse with me, though in my haste to leave before Laurie got home, I probably forgot about it. He even got the popcorn and drinks, too, which was an extra I wasn't expecting. I was so glad he didn't try the whole “cut a hole in the popcorn bucket and slip your dick through” trick on me. Wheeler once told me of a time he did that to his now ex-girlfriend Valentina Hodges. She converted to lesbian shortly after that.
When we walked into the theater, I was amazed. Friday night and the place was almost completely empty. It was us and another couple who were already busy making out in the third row. I wanted this to be a classic date, where Grant and I sat in the back row and we could cuddle as much as the crappy seats would allow.
Lucky me, he obliged.
The lights dimmed for the previews shortly after we sat down. I held my soda with one hand while Grant held my other. I don't know what it was, but there was something so… Unique about this whole situation, something I'd never felt before. Certainly I'd gone to the movies with other boyfriends, why did this feel so new and exciting? What was different about this one?
Then I realized exactly why this one was different. This wasn’t just some guy I saw with a good looking body and a winning smile, this was Grant. He’d been my friend for so long that this went beyond mere boyfriend/girlfriend like it had been with every other guy I’d dated. He’d always been sweet to me, and while this was our first real date, we’d always been close enough that people had treated us like we were dating. Hell, Kat was amazed this was our first date, because she thought he was my rebound guy whenever I was between boyfriends.
The lights finally went out and the logos (there were a lot of logos, like almost a minute of logos) went by. The theater still hadn’t populated at all, so it was still just us and that other couple that I swear had moved from making out to having sex, because I could hear something that sounded like moans.
I looked over at Grant and saw that he looked like he was about to fall asleep. He looked so cute like that, but I didn’t want him to fall asleep because I knew I’d fall asleep at that point. Instead, I took a chance I didn’t even realize I’d been wanting to take: I climbed on top of him and pressed my lips to his. He woke up with a jolt, but as soon as he realized what was going on, he grabbed hold of my hips and held onto me. I could tell by his “reaction” (if you know what I mean) that he had exactly zero problems with what was going on.
I gave Grant another kiss as he left me at the front door. He then walked back to his house and I enjoyed a wonder view of his ass as he did. The cool breeze blowing up my skirt then reminded me that I needed to get inside or else I’d probably stand there just thinking about all the making out we did during the movie.
Y’know, now that I think of it, I had no idea what happened during that movie. I was laying on top of Grant the whole damn runtime, enjoying his tongue mixing with mine. Oh, and I let his hands slip around places I probably wouldn’t have with any other guy on a first date. I felt he deserved a treat.
Larry was sitting on the couch watching TV, already drinking one of those beers he got with Chrissie this afternoon for the party tomorrow. “Jesus, you spent like fifteen minutes on the porch kissing,” he said, with a laugh.
“Who are you? Dad?”
“No, but you coulda texted me and warned me about that.”
“I was busy. I didn’t even know he was still here until I got out of the shower.”
He patted the couch cushion beside him, so I sat down. He then handed me a beer. “Well, we got lucky. And from the way you were watching Grant walk back to his house, you got pretty lucky tonight, too. Am I gonna be an uncle?”
I coughed and nearly spat some beer out. “Uh, we didn’t fuck, you asshole. It was a movie, we just made out for two hours and then he walked me home.”
“Hey, don’t act like it didn’t cross your mind.”
I legitimately couldn’t deny that. Letting Grant have his way with me wouldn’t have been the worst thing to happen to me, and hell, even being pregnant with his child wasn’t something I was completely against. Still, I was sixteen and that was way too young to be thinking about making babies with my boyfriend. “It didn’t, and that’s all I’ll say on the matter,” I lied.
He put his arm around me. Larry could be an asshole, but he was still a great brother. “If I told you that Chrissie and I have had sex in the movie theater, would that put you at ease?”
“Uh, no, and you haven’t.”
“But how would you know?”
“Because Chrissie’s my friend and I’d know if you two had sex anywhere, including the movies.”
“What if I told you I had pictures?”
“You don’t have pictures.”
He sighed. “You’re right, I don’t.”
“And besides, if Chrissie had had sex, she’d have blown up her Facebook about it using vague but obvious terms, like that time you two snuck out Biology to grope one another.”
He smirked. “Good times.”
“Whatever.” I gulped down the last of my beer without even realizing I’d drank so much of it, got up, walked to the kitchen and dropped the bottle in the trash. “I’m gonna go do some writing and then head to bed. Don’t forget, we’ve gotta get up early to get everything ready, since the party has to end before the game.”
He raised his bottle in affirmation.
I walked upstairs, then into the bathroom to wash off my makeup. After that, I went to my room to change from my skirt and tank top into a nightie. I tied my hair into a cute ponytail and sat cross legged on my bed. I figured I’d get about a half a chapter done on the webcomic and then some done on that story for Creative Writing.
As I worked on the webcomic, I realized about seventeen pages in that I’d created a new character that shared their name with the lead in my Creative Writing story. Huh. Looks like I’d accidentally created a shared universe between something Grant and I were doing for fun and a school project that I was just having fun doing. I wondered how he’d react to that. Maybe when we got the website set up for the comic, we’d set up a section for side stories I could write. I could come up with a whole town full of characters that each had their own story, kinda like Stephen King did with his stuff.
My phone buzzed. I grabbed it and saw that Grant was texting me that he’d gotten home.
c u tmrw big sexy I texted with a wink face emoji.
c u babe Babe! He called me babe! I felt butterflies in my stomach. Words couldn’t explain how excited I was that this new stage in our relationship had happened.
About an hour and a half later, I pulled my blanket over top of me, shut off the lamp on my nightstand and went to sleep thinking of what I’d wear during our party tomorrow. I’d even try to work it into the webcomic to make Grant draw it eventually.
Tomorrow would be a day to remember.
The changes take hold, but has anyone noticed?
Today was the day. Today was The Day. The Day when Larry and I passed from just being “The Johnson Twins” to being high school legends… Until somebody else throws a better party, that is. But we had at least a good while before that would happen, we'd be fine.
I hopped out of bed and took a good long look at myself in the mirror, for whatever reason. I dunno. I looked like I'd just gotten out of bed, what with my raggy blonde hair and one nightie strap having slid down my shoulder, nearly pulling the front of my nightie down with it. I quickly pulled it back up and knew exactly what I needed to do.
And that was take a damn shower. I reeked. I thought I took a shower last night after cheer practice and before the movie. I guess making out with Grant was a little more exertion than I thought it had been. Or maybe it had been my… Playtime just before going to bed. Either way, I needed a shower and this was the perfect opportunity to use the new body wash I got earlier that week. If I ever needed a reason to smell like flowers, it would be the party.
After a long, hot, soothing shower, I wrapped my towel around my chest and had a brain fart for a few seconds where I thought my boobs were bigger. That was a stupid thing to think, since they'd settled into their current size for like six months now. Then again, I guess it wasn't impossible that I was going through a little bit of a growth spurt. Either way, I was wrong, because once I got in my room, my bra fit just as it always had.
I decided on a simple white shirt that exposed my stomach but covered everything above it. Then I slid a pair of denim short shorts up my legs. Last but not least was a pair of flip flops, the same ones I'd worn last night. Next, I tied my hair into a loose ponytail that brushed my shoulders whenever I turned my head. For a second, I thought about changing to a sleeveless top, but decided against it.
There was a knock on my door, and Larry was standing there leaning against my door frame. "Hey, we've still got like three hours before people start showing up. What are you getting all ready for?”
I glared at him. “Were you standing there the whole time I was getting dressed?”
He shook his head. “No, but you really should close your damn door when you do that, because I almost walked in on you naked.”
I rolled my eyes. “So, what are you complaining about me getting dressed for?”
He motioned at his own state of dress, which was a pair of pajama pants and no shirt. “We’ve got hours to get dressed. I don’t get why girls need to do that so far ahead of time.”
I sighed. “Yeah, because you’re not a girl, doofus.”
“You have a point, but you could at least explain it.”
“We like to be ready.”
“Three hours beforehand?”
“I’d be ready twelve hours beforehand if I could.”
He shook his head. “Girls are weird.”
I smirked. “Not as weird as boys.”
As it turned out, I was the only one ready our party guests when they started showing up. Wheeler and Kelsey were the first to arrive. I was almost surprised that he brought his little sister along, but then I realized he’d probably been told to babysit her while their folks were out for the weekend. Kelsey was a good kid, though, not like I’d been when Larry and I were growing up. I was a wild child through and through.
Less than twenty minutes later, the house was full. We didn’t have an outrageously large house, but I didn’t think we’d fill it up that quickly. There was barely enough room to get to the door whenever new people would show up, and I was pretty sure at least every member of the football team that wasn’t my brother managed to accidentally (or purposefully) grab my boobs or my ass.
(Actually, now that I think about it, Larry might have also done it but his was definitely by accident.)
The place was so loud that I almost couldn’t hear the music. Larry had Charlie hook up a nice set of speakers for the music, and it had been loud enough that I hadn’t really been able to hear the people. There was so much noise I could barely hear myself think. If this was how most parties went, I’d be happy if this was our only one. It’d probably take Larry and I all day on Sunday to clean it all up.
I took a sip of spiked fruit punch and couldn’t even taste the beer. I wondered if Larry hadn’t put in the right amount. I was hoping to at least have a nice buzz going by the time the party got into full swing. If I knew where he’d stashed it, I’d pour some more in. If I could find him in this sea of people, I’d tell him about it. Maybe I’d just try and chug the whole bowl. I remembered a time that I was over at Wheeler’s place and tried to do that once.
I just barely heard the doorbell ringing over the crowd of people. Larry was too busy making out with Chrissie on the couch, with a couple other people making out on the couch beside them. That meant it was once again my turn to get the door. One of these days, I’d havta find a way to get him to own up to his responsibilities. He got away with a lot at school because he was the star quarterback, but that wouldn’t work with me.
Luckily, by the time I got to the door (and about seventeen separate instances of third degree fondling and one instance of a hand that was not my own trying to push its way into my shirt), I realized it was better that I answered the door. My heart nearly burst out of my chest as Grant stood there, a smile on his face and fashionably wearing a polo shirt and gym shorts.
“Hey there, handsome,” I said, adding as much flirt to my voice as I could. “You look lonely out there.”
He smirked. “Oh, I’m plenty lonely, gorgeous. Wanna let me inside where there’s plenty of space?”
I laughed. “Yeah, plenty.” I glanced over my shoulder at the mass of people. “Either way, get your ass in here and put your arms around your girlfriend.”
He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me close. “I’ll havta find her, first.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Oh, wanna do some exploring?”
“So long as you’re only saying this because you’re not drunk. I don’t wanna take advantage.”
I nearly broke out laughing. “Please, there’s more fruit punch in the bowl than beer right now. Larry must have saved most of it for after the party.”
“I think he offhandedly mentioned yesterday that he and Chrissie were going to go up to his bedroom and have a few before bed.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ugh, naturally. Would you do that with a girl?”
He kissed me on the nose. “I would never get you drunk if you didn’t want to.”
“I mean the whole drunk sex thing.”
“Oh, no. I’d rather remember having sex with a pretty girl.”
I kissed him on the lips. “Good boy.”
“Did you… Y’know…”
I shook my head. “No. That is a very big decision and as much as I’d love it if you were the first boy I’d have sex with, I’d rather wait until we were actually ready.”
“Second date?”
“Maybe third. Just to make sure.”
He kissed me again. “You got it, Ashe.”
“Until then, you’d damn well better hold me close and make sure yours are the only hands fondling me.”
“Have other guys been fondling you?”
“Hopefully on accident, but there have been incidents.”
He backed me into the house and shut the door behind us. “Let’s just deal with that by sticking to the wall and going around. I think we can probably kiss all the way from here to the kitchen by doing that, what about you?”
I smirked. “We can damn sure try.”
It wasn’t all that difficult to make out from one side of the house to the other by sticking to the wall. I was pretty sure Grant’s weren’t the only hands on my ass, but his were the only hands trying to get inside my shirt with very little in the way of resistance. I didn’t want sex just yet, but I didn’t have any problems with being touched.
By the time we made it to the kitchen, I was actually more than a little surprised with how nobody else had decided to use it as a make out spot. It wasn’t like the kitchen was locked or anything, all we really had was a swinging door that didn’t even latch. Granted, it meant that our little session of intimacy would probably be interrupted many times now that we had come back here, but that was no big deal, really.
I hopped up on the counter all the while our mouths were still tightly pressed against each other, his tongue entwined with mine. I couldn’t tell what it was that made this so… Different. I’d made out with boyfriends more than once, to the point that I had a bit of a reputation that I wasn’t sure I enjoyed. According to Larry, my cell number was scratched over at least four urinals at school with “For a good time call” above it.
But making out with Grant just felt so new, so fantastic, like it was my first time all over again. I couldn’t even figure out why, because Grant and I had been friends for so long that people thought we were dating in elementary school. Out of all of Larry’s teammates and friends, Grant and I had always been close. The fact that it took us until now to officially start dating was kinda crazy, really.
But I didn’t mind this feeling. I loved this feeling. It made me feel like a little girl having her first kiss again. I didn’t know if that meant anything, really. Maybe it just meant that Grant was The One, the guy I was destined to spend the rest of my life with. Kind of a stupid notion so early in life, really. My high school life alone had been filled with so many boyfriends that I could barely remember. I was pretty sure I’d dated most of the athletes from middle school onward, and they’d only ever been just that: boyfriends.
Grant, though… Grant felt like a lover.
Everything about being with him felt so romantic that I was pretty sure it had all been written down in one of those cheap romance novels that Chrissie liked to read. But I didn’t care, I didn’t care at all. Nothing. Not. One. Thing. Could ruin this moment.
Naturally, I was wrong.
Grant’s phone rang, ruining the moment for the both of us. He pulled away and sighed, then reached into his pocket and took the call. “Yeah? Oh, shit... Yeah, Coach, we’ll be there. Wait, how did you know…? Yeah, that makes sense.”
“What?” I asked.
He hung up the phone. “I forgot there was a game tonight. And Coach heard about the party from Tim Hyun. He never could keep his mouth shut about this kind of stuff.”
The door to the kitchen burst open and Larry, in the process of buttoning his shirt up, came in nearly exhausted. “So, I dunno about you guys, but I forgot we had a game tonight and Coach heard about the party from Tim.” He glanced back and forth at the two of us. “Were you two…”
I rolled my eyes. “Kissing, that’s all.”
He smirked. “Yeah, I’m sure. You may wanna put your top back on, sis.”
I looked down and saw that he was very right about that. Despite wearing a bra and both guys in the room knowing what I looked like wearing a bra, I felt the need to cover up, so I did, with my arms. Larry just left the room laughing his ass off and then shooing people out of the house.
I looked over at Grant. “Did you do that?”
He shook his head. “No, but I havta say, I did not mind.”
I felt myself smile. “Did you… Y’know… Cop a feel?”
He smiled. “Yeah, but so did you.”
I was starting to feel the effects of that punch by the time I got on the field in my uniform. The boys were all lined up, Coach berating them for forgetting about the game. Honestly, I don’t know as I’d forgotten the game, but I didn’t remember it being in the middle of the afternoon.
Either way, the rest of the cheer squad and I were ready to get started once we were called out. I shook my pom-pom in my face for a second to try and clear the cobwebs out of my head. Something seemed… Off about this. I couldn’t really tell what, though. Like I said, what little alcohol I managed to squeeze out of that punch was probably starting to get to me.
Chrissie was next to me, adjusting her top. “Gawd, I can’t wait until this is over with. I wanna get home and get into something a little more comfortable.”
I rolled my eyes. “By a little more comfortable, are you talking Larry’s bedroom?”
She looked both shocked and amused. “Hey! Is it my fault your brother is a cutie pie?”
Kristie on the other side of her laughed. “Please, babe, you almost let him do it right there in the middle of the party.”
I acted prissy. “At least I went into the kitchen with Grant.”
Amber, to the other side of me from Chrissie, patted me on the shoulder. “Yeah, but I popped in there to grab a soda and almost tripped all over you two.”
I hadn’t noticed that at all, but I also hadn’t noticed when my shirt came off in that whole ordeal, so it honestly wasn’t a surprise. It was more of a surprise that Amber was even there, because I thought she wasn’t gonna come. “Yeah, we were kinda… Yeah.”
“Were you actually gonna… You know?” Helena asked.
I blushed. “Uh, no! I’m not ready for sex right now.”
“Yeah, but you and Grant are so cute together!” Kristie almost screamed.
“Still, I wanna take it really slow with Grant. He’s… He’s so special to me, I don’t just wanna jump into bed with him as soon as possible.”
Amber nodded. “That’s the smart thing to do.” She smirked. “I mean, you two have been dating for so long that his balls must be ridiculously blue by now.”
I smacked her in the back of the head. “Hey! We’ve only been dating for two days!”
Helen looked like she was about to lose it. “Yeah, officially, but you had to notice that Grant hasn’t dated anybody else since freshman year. He’s probably been waiting for the best time to ask you out.”
I had to admit that I hadn’t noticed that. Had he really been waiting this whole time just to find the perfect way to ask me out? I sorta felt like a bitch for never seeing that. “Really?” I asked.
Kristie looked shocked. “No way, you didn’t see it? Girl, he picked you as the model for that comic he’s been drawing.”
“I knew that!” I folded my arms under my breasts. “After we decided on the story, he went around asking girls if he could use them for her design.”
Chrissie shook her head. “No, he didn’t. He didn’t ask anybody.”
I blinked.
“He didn’t actually want me to tell you this, but… You were the only girl he ever considered using for the comic. At first, he said it was because you were writing it, so he wanted to make it sort of like a… Um… Tribute? I guess?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is homage.”
“Turn off the writer brain for a second, Flashy,” she said with a smirk, “the point is that you were the only girl he ever wanted to draw. The boy loves you.” She giggled. “You’re almost living a real life romance novel.”
The rest of the squad just made an Oooooooooooooooooooooh noise that just made me feel even more embarrassed than I had been when I realized my top was off when I was alone with Grant. I almost wanted to hide, but I knew it was all good-natured. The squad was my best friends, they obviously cared that I find a guy I could fall for.
”And now, geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet ready for the beautiful Trumbull High cheerleading squad!”
I sighed. We’d spent the entire warm-up period just talking about my love life. “Alright, girls,” I said, “let’s get out there and get everybody excited.for the best game of the season. The guys will kick ass this week, and it’ll be because we got ‘em there!”
The game ran over by about twenty minutes, but once all was said and done, our team beat the other guys 23 to 3. It was such a complete change from last week that I almost wondered if the guys had been replaced by a different team while we weren’t looking. You’d never think our team would be able to do that with a slight buzz.
After we changed out of our uniforms, we waited for the guys in the hallway outside the locker room. I realized then that all of us were dating football players. I’d never noticed that before, but we were. It was weird, in a way, but cheerleaders dating jocks was kind of a stereotype. Not that I saw the guys as jocks, or at least not the way the trope usually goes. Unlike on TV, none of the guys were dickhead bullies or that kind of thing.
I wondered if I should write an asshole bully into the comic. He could just start off as a minor character and become more important later on. Hopefully Grant wouldn’t mind, but I’d ask him first. Maybe he’d have some ideas for that sort of thing.
When the team finally came out of the locker room, joking and laughing about something or another, Grant’s eyes lit up right as he saw me. “Hey, Ashe,” he said as he put his arms around me, “you and the rest of the squad were great before the game.”
I blushed. “Thanks. You guys kicked ass out there today.”
He smirked. “Anything to see you out there in that little skirt.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hey, now, you get to see me in a little skirt whenever you damn well want.”
Chrissie, clutching Larry’s arm like she was holding on for dear life, just whistled. “You two should really get a room.”
Larry added, “And please, keep it down when you do.”
I coughed out a sound that either meant I was laughing or scoffing, or some mixture of the two. “Like we’d ever do that with you across the hall.”
“Whatever. You wanna pick the party back up where we left off before this whole thing?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I just wanna go home and spend some time on the couch with my boyfriend.”
“Only if there’s room on that couch for doubles,” Chrissie said.
“Uh, no,” Larry responded, “I have a couch in my bedroom, we can use that.”
Grant asked, “Why don’t you have a couch in your room?”
“Uh, where would I put it?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure my vanity and my wardrobe take up more room than his couch.”
“Didn’t you used to have a couch in your room?”
Now that he mentioned it, I kinda did remember having one, but I couldn’t remember how long ago that was. It had to be before I started going through puberty and decided I needed to stop being such a tomboy. That was a long damn time ago. “I did, didn’t I?”
“You did, when we were kids,” Larry answered. “Damn, man, how’d you remember that?”
Grant shrugged. “I dunno. I thought it wasn’t that long ago, though.”
Why did I think he was right about that?
By the time Grant and I landed on the couch, I was pretty sure we had tripped over a ton of junk that was still left over in the floor after the party. In fact, the couch itself was kind of a sticky mess that we were gonna have trouble cleaning up before Dad came home, but we'd have all day on Sunday to deal with it, so I didn't really see any big problems arising.
The sticky couch did not, however, stop Grant and I from practically jumping on it and making out like we'd never done before. That wasn't really even an unfair assessment, either, we never had done this sort of thing with each other before. I'd made out with Bobby Keenan before, which he’d considered the best day of his life if his locker room talk was to be believed. Of course, he hadn’t exactly been the best boyfriend I’d ever had. He liked to bite down on my tongue and suck on it, which was… Just all kinds of weird.
But Grant wasn’t like that. He was gentle, he was firm, he was warm and he was making sure this was as much for me as it was for him. His hands never moved from my waist until I moved them to my ass, which he finally took as an invitation to fondle and squeeze as much as possible, but he wasn’t rough with me at all.
It really took me a lot to not just pull my shorts off and let him have his way with me. I couldn’t be that ready for sex, was I? Maybe Larry’s stupid little comments were starting to get to me. No, I was just outrageously horny and not thinking straight, that was all. I could get over that quickly enough, hopefully. Besides, I didn’t think either of us had a condom and I was not ready to become a teen mom.
Although, maybe Grant would be a great teen dad.
I put the thoughts out of my head and got back to thinking about Grant’s warm, delicious lips. He tasted so sweet, so lovely. I couldn’t believe just how different this was from any other boy I’d kissed. Maybe Chrissie was right and my life was turning into a romance novel. That would make exactly no sense, but here I was currently loving the shit out of my boyfriend and wanted nothing more than to stay with him forever.
I couldn’t ignore the irony, really. Grant and I were making a webcomic about a couple of friends who eventually grow to love one another and all the wacky antics that led to that, and that was really what was happening with him and me. To really parallel everything, I would have had to be a guy before all the kissing started, but it was such a minor thing that it didn’t matter. Of course, the idea of that seemed kinda funny.
After the kissing subsided, the two of us just sat there on the couch, the TV on but nothing really interesting was on at the time. Some reruns of The Big Bang Theory on TBS was about all we watched. Funny, but the only thing I was concerned about was sitting there in Grant’s arms, comfortable in his embrace.
At some point, I must've fallen asleep, because I woke up somewhere around midnight with Grant snoring and still holding onto me. He looked so adorable there. I carefully slipped out from under his arms and sighed. I didn't want to just leave him there, but I had to pee something awful.
Making my way to the downstairs bathroom, I tried to be as quiet as possible. Last I'd known, Larry and Chrissie hadn't gotten in, but there was a chance they had while I was asleep. Hopefully, neither one of them was passed out in the bathroom. Luckily, the bathroom was completely devoid of life when I opened the door and turned on the light.
When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, something seemed… Wrong. It was me, as I'd always been. Golden blonde hair, tanned skin, bright blue eyes, the whole shebang, but something just didn't feel right. What was it? I didn't have any zits or anything, so it's not like my face looked gross. What the hell was I seeing that wasn't there?
Well, now that I realized it, my shirt was gone again. I must've taken it off while Grant and I were snogging on the couch. This was either going to be too common or a running gag and I couldn't tell which. In the comic, I meant. Brenda being based on me meant I could use the weird crap I did as fodder for comic gags.
I dropped my shorts and underwear, let it flow, and then wiped away the excess. I wondered if Grant had woken up while I was in the bathroom. Maybe he was ready for kissing.
By the time I got out into the living room again, I felt a weird headache coming on. I’d never really been prone to migraines, but I was definitely feeling one now. I’d had another cup of that spiked punch after we got back from the game, so maybe that’s all it was, like the beginning of a hangover. I’d only had one hangover before, after the guys and I had a particularly bad game.
Wait, what? That wasn’t right. The guys… And I… But…
I stopped and looked at my reflection in the hall mirror. That…. That wasn’t me. That was Laurie, right? But, no, it kinda still looked like me. We weren’t identical twins, but we had certain similarities, but the girl I saw in the mirror wearing short shorts and a bra looked like some weird combination of me and Laurie.
What the hell was going on? I ran upstairs into my bedroom and slammed the door shut. Something was strongly wrong. It was still my bedroom, at least for the most part, but everything was feminine. Vanity, wardrobe, desk, bed, even my couch was replaced by a simple chair that had the word PRINCESS written on it. This just… No. This was not right in any way.
I rooted around in the purse on my dresser and pulled out my phone. It was still the same, but there was a big pink heart sticker on the back. I checked my text messages, my emails, my contacts. So much was the same, but so much was different that I almost started hyperventilating.
And I saw texts with Grant that clearly showed we were dating.
That didn’t scare me as much as everything else did, somehow. Grant was my best friend, and if I were to suddenly turn gay, he’d probably be the kind of guy I’d want to be with. Strong arms, tender, caring, focused on satisfying the needs of others before his own. Not to mention he was gorgeous and I knew from the locker room that he…
No, no, no, NO! I had to get that out of my head. Was that a me thought or a… Different me thought? What the hell was happening with my brain? What the hell was happening in general?!
There had to be some sort of explanation. Some reason why I was suddenly some amalgam of myself and my sister. Had the same thing happened to Laurie? Was she a guy version of herself? That might explain why one of my contacts was some guy I’d never met named Larry. I had some vague memory of him as the guy Chrissie was dating.
I walked over to the wardrobe and grabbed a shirt. It was a pink spaghetti strap tank top that looked perfect with my shorts, but I honestly needed to shut that thought of my head because that seemed like a girl thought. I had to go somewhere, do something, but I had no idea what that would be. It was midnight on a Saturday (technically Sunday) and the odds were good nobody would believe me if I said I was turned into my twin sister.
Just after leaving my room, things started to get weirder. It was already somewhat dark in the hallway, seeing as the only light was a small lamp at the end by Dad’s room, but everything started to lose saturation, turning solid black and white. It almost reminded me of Grant’s art for the comic before I added the color.
All except for me, that is. I still looked exactly as I did before. Still full color, still a girl. Things were just going out of control, really.
The door to Laurie.. Er… Larry’s? Oh, the hell with it, the door to my twin’s bedroom opened and a guy who looked vaguely like I remembered myself to look but also somewhat like a male version of Laurie stepped out, buttoning up his shirt.
“Ash?” he asked.
“Laurie?”
The both of us asked each other in unison, “What the fuck is going on?!”
As if in answer to our question, the floor began to glow, then turned from carpet into… Bricks? The bricks took on a yellow shade, then extended outward, down the stairs and straight to the front door.
“Seriously?” Laurie asked, “The yellow brick road?”
“We are in Kansas,” I said. He gave me a look of pure annoyance. "What?"
He sighed. "I guess we follow it. Can't be any weirder than waking up as a guy cuddling with one of my best friends." He nudged me with his elbow. "How'd you wake up?"
"Cuddling with Grant, then suddenly confused about everything."
He nodded. "Basically the same."
I cocked an eyebrow. "You weren't… You didn't have sex with Chrissie, did you?"
He turned red. "That is… None of your damn business and completely unimportant to this weird shit going on, so let's just follow the yellow brick road and find out what's waiting for us in Oz."
The yellow brick road led out the house and down the street, for a few miles directly to the school. I felt both odd and normal as we walked, never once feeling like I was in a body that wasn’t really mine. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d been… Whoever I was for I don’t know how long, or if it was because of whatever the hell was happening, but it was definitely disorienting.
As we finally got to school, my head started to hurt again. I remembered both scoring a touchdown to win a game and standing on the sidelines cheering the guys on while we waited for our turn to go back out on the field and do our thing. I remembered hanging out in the locker room with Grant as we worked out the details of our comic and waiting for him to hurry up so that we could go out for a bite to eat while we discussed some of the characters we each had made up. My head was split between these memories as Ash “The Flash” Johnson, star quarterback, and “Flashy” Ashley Johnson, the fashion-crazed girl-next-door with the kissing reputation. It was like I’d lived two separate lives at the same time, both of them trying to force their way outside.
I glanced at Laurie and saw that he was rubbing his forehead, most likely under the exact same pressure as he tried to make sense of his lives as Laurie Johnson, the school’s hot geek girl, and Larry Johnson, the football player everybody wanted to be like. Hell, me remembering simultaneously being both his younger sister (by seven minutes) and her older brother (by seven minutes) was exhausting all on its own. I remembered picking on her for dressing trashy the first time and getting angry with him for making fun of my outfit that day at the same time and it was nearly driving me insane.
All around us, everything was black and white, just like back at home, but as we walked I saw that there was more. We didn't have a whole lot of people on the road at midnight, but what two we passed were stopped mid-drive, completely oblivious to the two teenagers passing their cars or the yellow brick road we were following. It was like their world had just totally frozen.
The front doors to the school were unlocked, naturally, and the yellow path continued on inside. I felt my heartbeat racing, most likely in fear of what was about to happen. Everything about this was weird, freaky, and just plain wrong. I wanted so very much to go home, go back to bed and hopefully wake up never remembering the life of the body I didn't wake up as. I didn't care if I was Ash the boy or Ashe the girl, either one was fine with me because both seemed like good lives. The only problem would be if I woke up as one and Laurie woke up as the other, but hopefully we could reconcile that.
The path led through the building, up to the second floor on the east wing. I found myself scratching my head when we arrived at the art room. The lights were all on, the room had all its color, hell, it almost looked like a class was in session, which was just plain… Well, weird.
For the longest time, Laurie and I just stood there, not wanting to go inside. Finally, I took a deep breath and then walked inside the classroom. The new art teacher, Mrs. Morfran, was sitting behind her desk, apparently grading papers.
I looked around at the room and almost gagged. All around the room, paintings of my life -- my lives -- were hung up on the walls. Paintings of Laurie's lives were also there, which clearly weirded him out as much as my paintings did for me. This whole thing was just plain creepy.
"The Johnson twins," Mrs. Morfran said as we came closer to her desk, "I was wondering when you'd arrive. My changes must have finally taken root if you're able to come here now."
Laurie stepped forward. "What the hell is going on?"
Mrs. Morfran shook her head. "Now now, young man, that's too strong a tone."
"So what? Answer the question," I said, my own tone firm but concerned.
"You as well, young lady. That's no way to speak to the goddess that fixed your wayward souls."
"What?!" Laurie almost shouted.
Mrs. Morfran looked up from her papers. "You couldn't see it, not by yourselves. You were too stuck, too… Lost. This gift I've given you, this change, is what you so desperately needed. If you hadn’t, things might have been very different indeed.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “How is changing us into the opposite twin a ‘gift’?”
She stood up and walked around and leaned on the front of her desk. “Did you not listen to my explanation yesterday, Ms. Johnson?” She tapped the desk with one finger and the paintings all changed to scenes of me in class, though they showed me as both genders. I couldn’t actually remember a version of this as Ash, but my memory as Ashe was definitely clear. “Artwork is change. It’s the process of taking a blank canvas and turning it into a masterpiece of color, of beauty.” She motioned to us. “You two are but another of my masterpieces. A talented young man created from a simple girl who didn’t push herself,” she said, pointing at Laurie. She then moved her finger toward me. “A spirited young woman created from a boy who never really tried at life.” She folded her arms under her breasts. “The two of you were blank canvases, and have now become works of true art.”
“What gives you the right to do this?” Laurie asked, his voice barely hiding his contempt.
“The right? Silly boy, do you not understand what a goddess is?”
“You think you can do this just because you’re a goddess?” Laurie was seething now. “Just what the hell are you the goddess of, anyway?!”
She smirked, then snapped her fingers. Suddenly, her casual looking blouse and skirt were replaced by the red dress she’d worn yesterday when she came into class. Her hair took on a mass of curls and a crown appeared on her head. She was barefoot, for some reason, but it didn’t seem to bother her. She went from looking like her late 30s to her late 20s, though she could actually pass for far younger very easily.
When she spoke, she took on an accent that I couldn’t quite place, but sounded vaguely British. “My name is Ceridwen, and I’m considered the goddess of rebirth… and transformation.”
I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. I’d think this was outright insane if not for the fact that I’d stopped mid-stride back at home and realized I was somehow two people. Either this was all the craziest fucking dream, I was actually going insane or the even crazier possibility that this was actually happening.
The only thing I could even consider asking was, “But… Why us?”
Laurie asked, “That’s all you can say?”
“What do you want me to say?! This whole thing is insane, we shouldn’t even think it’s real, but we both know it is! I wanna know why it was us that got changed as opposed to anybody else!”
Ceridwen started to giggle. “She asked the right question, Mr. Johnson.” She walked away from the desk, toward us. I realized right then and there that she was tall. I was maybe five-foot-four, Laurie was six-foot-two, but she was even taller than he was, somewhere around six-foot-ten if not taller. “You see, children, twins are special. From the days of the first humans, straight through today, twins have a special connection that transcends mere sibling attachment.” She set her hand on my shoulder. “They are tied to one another uniquely, some pairs adopting similar mannerisms subconsciously, others developing relationships that mirror one another without reason, others still taking on the same likes and interests without even knowing they’re related to each other.” She put her hand on Laurie’s shoulder now. “But then there are twins such as you. Neither of you shared any interests, had similar friends, or even shared looks. Twins such as you are rare, often only occurring once every hundred generations.
“When I saw you, realized a challenge: How far could either of you go seeing the differences in each other without seeing the differences in yourselves.” Her hand moved from my shoulder to my face, and it creeped me the hell out. “Could Ashley see her sister changing into a young man all the while she was focused on wooing the boy she’d had a crush on almost her entire life?” Her hand on Laurie’s shoulder moved to his face. “Could Larry watch as his brother became a spunky young woman while he focused on his football career and his high school stardom?” She thankfully took her hands off of us, but I felt a shiver run down my spine. “The two of you were so interesting to me, I just couldn’t wait to see which one of you noticed the changes first.
“As it turned out, neither of you did beyond a cursory glance. Ashley’s brain was already deep in creation, turning what little she actually did notice into fodder for her wonderful comic book. And while Larry did seem to have a bit more insight into the changes, he brushed it off and worried more about spending some wonderful time with his girlfriend.” She snapped her fingers again and the paintings around us changed, focusing only on our new lives asn Ashe and Larry. They weren’t even recent happenings, I saw the day I wiped out at the skate park and broke my arm in two places. In my life as Ash, I wanted to be the next Tony Hawk, but in my life as Ashe, I wanted to be the next Elissa Steamer. “The two of you had become so attached to your new lives, that noticing the changes was relegated to a subconscious feeling that you merely pushed away with a simple moment of logical reasoning. You both accepted what you were becoming before you’d even truly started to change.”
“Are you saying the reason you picked us was because we were too stupid to realize what was happening to us?” I asked.
She shook her head. “On the contrary, I picked you because you were too clever. You both saw, you both took it in stride, you both discovered ways to adapt.” She looked at me. “It helped that you were writing that comic. You had already laid the groundwork for your own gender bending experience by creating one for your character, one based both on your former and current lives. That you involved your brother almost instantly was another masterstroke, as it acclimated him as well. You really are a talented writer, Ms. Johnson. I look forward to reading your works in the coming years, you have a great future ahead of you in that field.”
I felt an annoying sense of pride that the woman that had changed my life without my permission actually liked my writing, but that was beside the point. “And what about Laurie?”
“Mr. Johnson also has a promising future ahead of him.” She turned to him. “Not just in football, but in business as well. It’s a shame you don’t apply yourself as well as you should, but that college scholarship will be just the thing you need to come into your own.”
“But what about the lives we would have had before you changed us?”
She turned back to me. “Your future as a writer was set in stone from day one. As was your brother’s future in business. Of course, as a woman, Laurie’s business career would have been a bit more limited, just as your writing career would have been a little more difficult as a man.”
“But there are lots of best selling male authors, why would that have been a problem?”
Laurie nudged my elbow. “I think you just answered your own question, sis.”
“Indeed,” Ceridwen said with a hint of amusement in her voice.
“So, you did this to help us?”
She turned to him. “No, I did this to create beautiful works of art. Changing your futures to accommodate your interests was a bonus.”
“So we’re right back to the what gives you the right argument and your only answer is that you’re a goddess.”
She nodded. “That’s the answer, alright.”
“You took away the lives we had and shoved us into different ones just for the fun?” I asked. “Don’t you see how we could, maybe, not be happy about that?”
She snapped her fingers and a notebook appeared on one of the desks. “Brenda was very happy as Brian, was she not? And yet, what you’ve written so far has her discovering love and happiness as a young woman she never was before.” She opened the notebook and flipped to one of the later pages. “Ooh, from the looks of things, Brenda and Joey have quite the future ahead of them. Children?”
Laurie whispered, “When did you write that far ahead?”
I shrugged. “Last night, I think. Grant and I talked about it when he brought me home from the movie.”
Ceridwen shut the notebook. “You understand the double standard, I assume?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t. Those are fictional characters, not real people.”
“Fictional to you. Real to those that live in that world. Who’s to say we are not all fictional characters in someone else’s narrative? Brenda enjoyed her life as Brian, then came to realize her life as Brenda was significantly better.” She tossed me the notebook. “As you’ll both come to realize soon.”
“You mean you’re not even gonna give us the option to change back?” Laurie asked.
She shook her head. “Of course not. Once a change has taken root, it can’t be undone. Your only choice in this matter is whether or not you want to remember your old lives.”
Laurie scoffed. “Yeah, right, like that’s a choice. You think we want to go nuts remembering two separate lives? If we’re gonna be stuck like this, we should just be this.”
I wanted to agree with him, but… I couldn’t deny Ceridwen’s comparison between us kinda hit me hard. In both lives, at least some aspect of Brenda was based on me, and she remembered everything about her old life as Brian. She didn’t get the opportunity to forget being Brian and just live her life as Brenda. If I was gonna be stuck as Ashe, in a happy life where I had a great boyfriend and a promising future as an author, maybe I should be more like Brenda. But was that the wrong choice? Was it stupid of me? Was it a selfish thing to not go fucking crazy remembering two lives when I had the choice to forget one?
“If you wish not to remember,” Ceridwen explained, “you can simply leave. You’ll wake up the next morning, and Laurie and Ash will be gone forever. If you wish to remember, you need to tell me now.”
Laurie -- Larry, I had to call him Larry now -- turned to me. “You’re gonna remember, aren’t you?”
I looked up at him. “How can you tell?” I asked.
He pointed at the notebook I had clutched to my chest. “I could tell it was going through your head as soon as she used Brenda on you. And I don’t blame you for it. You can handle knowing two lives at the same time, you can just use it for your writing. I can’t do that, and I admit that, so I’m gonna go. When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll remember Larry and Laurie, and I won’t remember Ash, but I will remember Ashe. Instead of my dopey big brother who teased me for dressing slutty when I was twelve, I’ll remember my geeky little sister who though she had to dress that way to fit in until she realized she could still be a popular girl while being a total dork.”
I lightly punched him in the chest. “Hey! I’m not a total dork! And I’m very fashion conscious.”
He smirked. “See, that’s why you’re the better little sister. Maybe the goddess over there is right, and our lives will be so much better, but it still chaps my ass that we didn’t get to make that decision for ourselves. I’d just rather not remember being what I can’t be anymore.”
I nodded. “I get you, I really do.”
He patted me on the back. “See ya tomorrow, sis. You’ll remember me saying that, but I’ll just remember going to bed with Chrissie in my arms.”
I smiled, then asked, “Did you have sex with her?”
“That is none of your business.”
“You won’t remember telling me.”
“But you’ll remember that I told you.”
“You’re an asshole, you know that, right?”
“Besides, if you think I didn’t notice you cuddling Grant with your shirt off, you’re wrong.”
I blushed. “We didn’t have sex though!”
“You just weren’t trying hard enough.” He reached out and hugged me. “See ya in the morning. We’ll probably both have a major hangover.”
I felt a tear drip down my cheek. “See ya tomorrow, bro.”
For a moment, it almost seemed like he wanted to stay, but in the end, he turned and walked out the door, forever erasing Laurie from everything but my memory. As if to drive the point home, the paintings of Laurie around the room faded away, leaving only paintings of Larry. I recognized all of the scenes that played out in the paintings, from his first touchdown on our preschool playground to just this last game, where he scored the game ender and everyone cheered.
Nobody but me would ever remember anything but that smiling boy I call my twin brother.
I turned around to face Ceridwen, who had changed back to her Mrs. Morfran form and returned to her seat behind the desk. I hugged my notebook a little closer as I walked up to the desk and waited for her to explain exactly how I’d remember everything. I was almost worried how this whole thing would work out.
She was grading what looked like one of Grant's pages for the comic, showing Brian and Brenda standing back to back. It was one we'd decided to use as Brenda reflected on her new life and how it was different and in a lot of ways better than her old life. The difference was that Brian and Brenda were replaced with Ash and Ashe, the two people that made me up. I saw the parallels she was trying so hard to draw between Brenda and me -- this time literally -- and that in a lot of ways, I’d written this whole crazy story about me and Larry changing genders.
“You changed us because Grant and I made the comic, didn’t you?”
She smirked. “I did. It was the inspiration I needed for this change. I could have simply changed you from a football player to a photojournalist, changed Laurie from the business-minded young woman to a singer/songwriter. But you, dear Ashley, proved that your imagination is a creative well that must be drawn from for the future to be bright.” She then added a comically large “A+” to the corner and handed me the paper. “Just place it in your notebook before you walk out the door. You’ll wake up comfortably in the arms of your wonderful boyfriend and live your life knowing of what was and what now is.”
I took the paper and held it for a moment, then asked, “Am I doing the right thing? What if Larry’s got the right idea?”
“Your brother is right about one thing: You’re strong enough to carry on knowing both of these lives, and to understand which one you prefer.” She leaned forward. “I never mentioned around Larry that your comic was wish-fulfillment.”
I looked down at the drawing and felt more tears begin to well up. “It really was, wasn’t it? I don’t… I don’t know when I really figured that out, but… It was.”
She motioned to the drawing. “And now your wish is fulfilled, and you still remember it. When you leave, you’ll be the only one who knows.”
“Well, you’ll know.”
“I meant humans. You’ll be the only human who knows.”
“I don’t know if I want to, now. What if…”
She shook her head. “Ah ah, Ms. Johnson, trust me. It would be better if you remembered.” She smiled. “Think of all the fantastic stories you’ll write with the experiences of both a boy and a girl.”
I sighed. “I guess you’ve got a point there.”
“Exactly. Now go home, Ms. Johnson. Go home, wake up to your boyfriend and enjoy your life. I believe you and your brother have a house to clean up before your father returns home.”
My heart stopped for a second. In all of this craziness, I’d actually forgotten about that. And Larry and I would need to do that with a hangover. In a bit of a rush, I slid the drawing into my notebook and ran out of the classroom, into a bright, white light…
Ashe's journey reaches its conclusion.
When I woke up, Grant was still asleep. My top was still somewhere I didn’t really know, and I was still wrapped up with his arms. It was exactly as I’d fallen asleep, as if nothing had happened between when Grant and I were cuddling in front of the TV and now, at… Six thirty in the morning. The couch was still kinda sticky, the house was still a trashy mess, and so far as I could tell, Larry was still asleep up in his bedroom.
But I remembered everything.
I slid out from under Grant’s arms and realized, much like when I got up in the middle of the night, that I desperately had to pee. I laughed inwardly at the stupidity of that, of needing to pee being the thing that connected waking up and finding out a goddess had changed my life and waking up in that changed life. It was ridiculous, and yet strangely fitting.
After finishing up in the bathroom, I walked upstairs and changed from my messy day old clothes into a denim skirt and a pink tee-shirt with a cleavage window. I slid my feet into a cute pair of sandals and was just about to go downstairs and wake Grant up when I spotted my notebook.
Sitting on my desk where I'd left it Friday night, the blue notebook was opened to the most recent page I'd been writing on. After the movie, Grant and I had pretty much plotted to what we thought should be the end, giving us a definite stopping point rather than carrying on with minimal plot development for hundreds and hundreds of pages like some webcomics. We settled on a happy ending, naturally, one where Brenda and Joey pretty much end up in a life long relationship. It was sappy and cliche, I know, but I couldn’t deny it was the ending I fell in love with.
And I couldn’t deny that it was an ending I wanted in real life, too.
Reading what I’d written made me laugh just a bit. The scene I’d been writing was a single page scene, Brenda and hugging Joey because she’d just decided rather be Brenda, rather be with him the rest of her life, instead of finding a way to change back. We hadn’t even decided what the cause for the change was yet, just that Brenda didn’t care anymore and wanted to be who she was.
Almost exactly like what happened last night. God, the irony was just insane. I wondered if Grant would object to me introducing a character based on a mythological goddess in one of the last few chapters and claiming she was behind it all. He’d probably ask me where I got the inspiration for that from, and I’d just laugh it off as something that hit me in the middle of the night.
I flipped through the notebook and found the drawing from last night, of me and the old me standing back to back. I took it out and traced my finger along the outline of the old me, the guy I used to love being. He had a promising future as an author, a great run as a football player and… Not much else, at the moment. Sure, I could have eventually met someone, had kids, had a great life, there was nothing that said I would have been miserable as Ash.
Then I traced my finger around the new me. She had all the same potential as Ash did, maybe not the football player part but it’s not like I’d even tried playing since this happened. I remembered playing once in elementary school, but that wasn’t exactly the same game as when you played it in high school. Besides, Larry roped me into it and I was perfectly fine just sitting on the swing reading like a normal dork. He made me rip my dress that day and Mom was furious about it.
I smiled. Ashe and Ash. Two sides of me, and since I remembered both of them, I could almost mix and match who I wanted to be. Luckily, the two lives were almost the same, the main difference being whether I was a boy or a girl.
Last night, I was almost worried that I was making the wrong choice by keeping my memories as Ash. That I was trading away a simple, oblivious life like the one Larry was living for a life of potential mental problems trying to resolve two separate lives.
But, really, would remembering these two lives be that much of a problem? As time went on, the only life that would go on would be Ashe’s. Ash would probably fade away at some point, becoming distant. Maybe after a while, I wouldn’t even remember Ash. I didn’t really know if that’s how it would work, but maybe.
I opened my desk drawer and slipped the drawing inside. I didn’t want Grant asking about it, though I did have a lie worked out for that. I shut the notebook and left my room. I took a quick peek in at Larry and Chrissie, both asleep on his couch and both wearing clothes. I guess he didn’t have sex with her after all. Good, that mystery was gonna drive me nuts.
I walked downstairs and found Grant still sleeping on the couch, holding onto the top I’d been wearing yesterday. I almost wanted to let him keep it as a trophy of the night he almost got in my pants. Eventually, if things worked out, he may get the chance to do it for real. I gently slipped it out of his hands and threw it over my shoulder. It was time to wake him up.
I lightly tapped him on the shoulder, rousing him from his slumber. When he saw me, his face lit up and then he seemed to remember where he was. “Hey, beautiful,” he said, groggily. “What time is it?”
“About eight. You’re a really heavy sleeper.”
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He looked around at the living room. “Wow, we dodged a minefield of trash last night, didn’t we?”
“And it’s gonna take all four of us -- you, me, Larry and Chrissie -- to clean it up.”
He stood up and kissed me on the cheek. “I bet the two of us could get it done while they’re still asleep.”
I blushed, for whatever reason. “You think so?”
He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me close. “Of course we can. Let’s get started, and then I’ll treat you to breakfast.”
“Ooh, you and me going out to breakfast?”
He put on a nervous smile. “I mean, it’d be McDonald’s, since my folks are a little late on my allowance, but I’ve got enough for today.”
I smiled. “It’s a date, lover boy.”
“I dunno why you two thought I didn’t know about the party,” Dad said when he got home. Larry was sitting at the kitchen table on his fifth cup of coffee to get over his hangover. Apparently, he’d left some bottles of beer for him and Chrissie in hopes that something a little more exciting would happen after the game, but all that had happened was the two of them getting so knock out drunk it literally knocked them out while they were watching TV. “Hell, Coach Brandt called me up and told me after that Hyun kid told him, but I’d already figured it out before that.”
“How?” Larry asked, with a hint of annoyance or something like it in his voice. Probably just the hangover still talking. “We were careful about this.”
Dad took the coffee mug away from him and took a drink of it. “If you think I didn’t do this kind of shit when I was your age, you’re wrong.” He set the cup down on the counter and filled it up again, then handed it back to Larry. “I met your mother at one of my parties.”
“You met Mom at a party?” I asked, almost surprised. Granted, I hadn’t met Grant at a party, but it kinda felt similar. “How did that work out?”
“Very simply, and then a month and a half after a party, she told me she was pregnant.”
Larry spit his coffee out. “What?! We were conceived at a high school party?!”
Dad laughed. “No, dumbass, it was a frat party. I never said which party it was we had sex.”
I giggled. Yeah, that seemed like something Dad would do. “Wow, Dad, that’s some tale of romance there,” I said.
He sat down at the kitchen table. “Yep. Your mother and I made out on Debbie Kessler's couch that first night. It didn't get past kissing, though, much as I tried. And then I passed out drunk in the middle of it and fell off the couch, almost takin' her dress with me." He reached into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of soda. "We didn't talk for about a week after that, seems she was afraid of me, until she found out I was just drunk."
Larry groaned and rubbed at his forehead. "Right now, that just makes me feel a little better about how last night went, but I swear to God I'm staying away from alcohol for a good long time."
Dad patted him on the shoulder. "Good. Just remember that the next party you go to, which I hear is tonight."
"Huh?"
I said, "Coach called earlier, there's a party tonight to celebrate how badly you guys trounced the other team last night. It's at the school at about seven."
Larry rolled his eyes. "Well, I guess I'm staying away from the punch tonight."
I laughed. "Please, you barely put enough in yesterday's punch to get me buzzed, and I'm terrible with alcohol."
"Now that is just a waste of good beer," Dad said. He took a long drink, then added, "But I guess at least you," he pointed at me, "weren't drunk enough to have sex with that boyfriend of yours. I'm not old enough to be a grandfather yet."
I blushed. "I wouldn't… C'mon, Dad, have more faith in me than that."
He just smirked.
I was just finishing getting into my dress when there was a knock on the door. "Come in!" I nearly yelled, for some reason. Probably because I was busy adjusting my dress and making sure I avoided any wardrobe malfunctions, like last Christmas when Uncle Floyd was at the house. Hilariously, that did not happen to Laurie and Ash didn't have a corresponding memory, so Ashe alone had to bear the embarrassment of exposing her boobs to the uncle who had a disgusting habit of leering at his nieces.
Larry walked in on me picking my earrings. “Jeez, sis, what the hell?”
“What?”
“It’s not fucking prom or anything.”
I glared at his reflection in the mirror. It’s not like I was wearing some fancy thing. My dress was a simple yellow one that barely even showed anything. I’d wear this around the house, for chrissakes. “And this isn’t a prom dress. Now, whaddya want?”
He leaned against the wall after shutting the door. “I gotta ask you something. It’s… Kinda weird, honestly, but… Did we go to the school for something last night?”
I spun my chair around. “Uh, yeah, your football game, remember?”
He shook his head. “No, after. I just… I have this weird memory of going to school for something late last night.”
I smirked. “Are you sure it wasn’t just some drunken dream?”
He shrugged. “It might have been, but it felt realer than that.”
I tried to put on a look of incredulity, like I didn’t think he was saying anything of importance. In reality, I was almost scared shitless. He remembered? Ceridwen said he wouldn’t remember anything. What the hell did that mean? Would he remember being Laurie? “I… Uh… I just think you had a weird dream.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re probably right, it’s just some weird nagging feeling about it, y’know.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Just think about other stuff. Like, oh I dunno, what you and Chrissie are gonna do after the party."
He laughed. "If you think we're gonna gave sex, you're wrong. You and Grant, though. That's who Dad should be worried about."
I glared at him. "What are you implying?"
“I’m implying that you two barely kept your clothes on last night. I wouldn’t be surprised if one thing leads to another and almost a year from now I’ve got a little niece or nephew calling me Uncle Larry.”
I folded my arms under my breasts. “Even if we did have sex tonight, I happen to keep condoms in my purse.”
He smiled. “See, I told ya the odds were good.”
“Get out now before I stuff a stiletto heel in your cheek.”
He just laughed and shut the door behind him. I smirked and set to work trying to find the right pair of heels.
Chrissie, Kristie, Kat and I all met up just outside the school, which was already filling up with dozens of people. I assumed everybody who learned about the party texted their friends and they then texted their friends, and so forth and so on, leading to pretty much the entire school and then some showing up for a party that was supposed to just be the football team and whoever they decided to bring with them.
Not like the coach or any of the other teachers chaperoning the whole thing cared. There was plenty of room for everybody in the gym, though it very quickly became almost as crowded as the house was yesterday. It wasn’t quite shoulder-to-shoulder, thankfully, so nobody was accidentally (or purposefully) fondling me. Well, not that nobody was. I know Jeremy Brennen actually did accidentally grab my boob. Tim Hyun shoved him into me as a joke. The impressive part was that he managed to keep his drink from spilling.
I walked over to the punch bowl and ladled myself something to drink. More alcohol than yesterday’s punch, but still not enough to cause any problems. That was good, because I didn’t want to combine being drunk and wearing four inch heels. I didn’t want to force Grant to carry me home or anything like that. Not that I wouldn’t want that, or anything…
Maybe I could convince him to carry me home…
I put that thought out of my head and waited for one handsome Grant Harrison to show up and take me for a nice dance once the slow music started playing. With any luck, he’d be ready for a nice date night afterward. I kinda wanted to make out with him in private, after all. Not to mention certain… Other things. Not sex, though. Noooooo-ho-ho, not sex. No matter what Larry said, I was not about to let my first time be the aftermath of a high school party.
Luckily, Grant showed up just in time to kiss me and take my mind off that possibility. "Hey, sweetheart," he said, loud enough that I could hear him over the music, but not too loud.
I smiled and kissed him again. "Hi there, baby. You cleaned up pretty nice after you left." I wasn't lying either. The both of us had been raggy messes after we finished cleaning up all the trash, but he'd obviously gone home, showered and got ready to make an impression on me. I mean, I’d done the same for him, but still, he was impressing me something fierce. He almost looked…
Like a different person.
I sighed. “Hey, babe, I hate to leave you like this, but I need to go to the little girl’s room. One cup of booze punch is trying to go straight through me.”
He kissed me. “No problem. I’ll wait here.”
“Thanks.”
I made my way through the gym toward the door to the classrooms. The rest of the school was pretty much dark, which wasn’t a surprise, since school wasn’t in session on a Sunday. I rushed upstairs (as much as the heels would allow) and made my way toward Ceridwen’s classroom. The door was unlocked, but there was no one there.
I stood there for a moment, hoping that she’d just show up, but nothing happened. Once I was there for a good five minutes (more than I wanted to leave Grant for), I finally slammed my fist on her desk and shouted, “I know you’re here!” Not that I actually did know she was there, but still.
Another minute longer and she appeared from somewhere, using whatever magic she had to turn on the lights at the same time. “Well, I didn’t expect this.”
I tried to put some fury into my voice. “Did you change Grant now?”
She snapped her fingers and a painting of Grant down in the gym appeared on the board behind her desk. “On the contrary, Ms. Johnson, I did nothing to your wonderful boyfriend. What you see is his attempt at trying to charm you on an occasion he finds a bit more special than a teenage party at his girlfriend's house." She rubbed at her chin. "He really does clean up nicely, though."
I folded my arms under my breasts. "You didn't do anything to him? Nothing at all?"
She shook her head. "Not. One. Thing. He's exactly the same boy you fell in love with years ago when you started to realize you really did like boys.”
I still didn’t feel completely relieved. “You’re really not doing anything? I mean, last night you seemed pretty into the whole changing people thing."
She smiled. "Oh, I am, and I've already picked my next work of art. Not that you'll notice, as your memories will be affected, same as everyone else's, but trust me, it's not Mr. Harrison." She patted me on the shoulder. "Just go back down there and have a good time, young Ashe. Tonight will be your lucky night, if you know what I mean."
I didn't really, but I had plenty of guesses. “Okay, I guess I’ll believe you. There’s just one more thing, though. Larry just barely remembers coming here last night.”
“And why shouldn’t he? He doesn’t remember anything about what happened, merely that the two of you came here. In time, those ‘memories’ will pass and he’ll simply believe them to have been a dream.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, good. I was kinda worried.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “You have nothing to be afraid of. Now go back down to the gym, enjoy your dance with your boyfriend and then enjoy your wonderful date afterward. Just remember to take things naturally and let the night go where it goes.”
I couldn’t help but think of what she was trying to imply. If she thought I was gonna have sex with Grant tonight, I was gonna surprise her.
“Kristie Deckard!” the principal called into the microphone. Kristie, her purple lipstick smile almost as bright as the lights in the auditorium. It matched the dress she was wearing under her robe, as well as the tattoo she got during Spring Break when we went down to Cancun. She was proud of that tattoo, for whatever reason. I was kind of annoyed with mine, but hers did turn out much better than mine did.
I stood there in line with everybody else graduating. Larry was beside me, picking his nose like a disgusting pig. He yawned after a second, then put on a smile for whoever's camera happened to be panning past him at that moment. After that, he nudged me with his elbow and started waving to somebody.
It took me a second to realize Dad was helping little Laurie wave at us. That just made me feel a warmth that I hadn’t expected. Granted, it had only been maybe two hours since we’d left the house, but still. I was glad Dad brought her along. Then when she was all grown up on her graduation day, I could tell her we were both there for each other.
I looked just a few people away from me and saw Grant waving to her, to. He was such a good dad to her that I almost worried she'd grow up a spoiled daddy's girl, but that was kinda how I grew up, so I couldn't really say anything. I'd just need to keep everything in check.
"Grant Harrison!" the principal called up next. He flashed me a quick smirk and then walked over to get his diploma. I smiled back at him, proud that he'd decided to take the athletic scholarship he'd considered turning down. He was planning on majoring in art, though. Shame he hadn't gotten a scholarship for it.
Just two people later, the principal called, "Ashley Johnson!" and I stepped out of line to thousands of cheers, shook the principal's hand and took my diploma. I was swiftly followed by Larry, who managed to make his as much a spectacle as possible. He even pretended to 'pass' the diploma off to Wheeler, who was just after us in line, which got him a big round of applause.
After the group photo of the graduating class with our diplomas out and big smiles all around, I immediately latched onto Grant and gave him what I considered probably our most intense kiss ever. It definitely got a lot of "ooh" and "ahh" and other sorts of noises from everybody around us. I honestly had no idea everybody could go so gaga over one measly kiss, even if it was the best one I ever had.
After getting home, getting little Laurie into bed and getting out of my stupid graduation robe, I changed into a comfortable pair of black shorts and an orange tank top. Once I came downstairs, I was greeted by the wonderful sight of Grant, who had similarly changed into a plain blue shirt dark blue jeans.
"Hey, Daddy," I said, teasingly, as I almost fell into his arms.
"Don't call me that, Mommy." He smirked, then kissed me. "Whaddya say while the baby girl's asleep, we get to doing what we do best?"
From upstairs, Dad shouted, "Not while I'm in the house!"
I rolled my eyes. "Not even remotely what he meant, Dad!"
"Or while I'm here!" Larry added.
"Bite it, doofus!"
Grant just laughed. "Is that all they think we do?"
I shrugged. "You have one measly kid in high school and everybody assumes the worst." I kissed him. "So, how many pages you got done?"
"About forty, maybe a little less. Upwards of thirty, though."
I took his hand in mine and dropped onto the couch. "Good, because I have this great idea for Brenda and Joey to open up a restaurant."
He raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? A restaurant? Why?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, but it came to me when I was thinking about our next comic. Remember way back in page… Fifty-six, when Joey surprised Brian by revealing he liked to cook?"
He nodded. "Yeah, but he also likes to do programming, remember?"
I nodded. "Yeah, but he chose not to go to college, while Brenda's going for business classes. Besides, he can use his programming skills for website design." I kissed him on the cheek. "Like you do."
Grant sighed. "Okay, I guess. But what does this havta do with the next comic?"
I picked up my notebook, which had been sitting on the coffee table. "Simple, a place for Felix to work after he becomes Felicia."
"A waitress? Isn't that kinda cliche?"
I rubbed at my chin. "I suppose, but it's also good grounds for character interaction. Putting a gender bended character in a situation that's kind of cliche, like making her a waitress, or a cheerleader. Plus, it lets us explore Brenda and Joey after they've settled into life."
He sighed. "I guess since you've put all this thought into it."
I rolled on top of him. "Oh, and what did you have in mind?"
"Race car driver."
"Race car driver?"
"Yup."
"Like in Misfile? The comic we're so desperately trying not to be compared to?"
"Y'know, sometimes, that's not a bad thing. Especially if we do it better. Besides, I had this idea where Felicia discovers her love for driving after the change, not that it's something that carries through."
I had to admit, it sounded at least a tiny bit interesting. "Okay, so say we do this, do we have her street racing? Or do we get her on like an amateur circuit and really racing?"
He shrugged. "We can figure that out. Hell, we can even do both ideas, have her racing and waitressing. It's not like it's impossible, though that kinda slips us into street racing territory."
Okay, actually, the street racing angle was starting to get more and more interesting the more he talked about it. I shouldn't have been that dismissive, anyway. This was his comic, too, after all. "Alright, I like this."
He smiled. "Good."
I flicked him on the nose. "Oh, you knew I'd come around, didn't you?"
"It was a fifty-fifty thing."
"Butthead."
From up in my room, Laurie started to cry. Grant just gave me another kiss and said, "Sounds like baby girl needs Mommy."
I smacked him on the chest. "Don't call me Mommy. I'll be back down in a minute, then we can stop making out and actually get to work."
I hurried upstairs and into my bedroom. One quick feeding later, and Laurie was just about ready to drift back off to sleep. I just leaned over her crib and tucked her in. She looked so beautiful there.
Grant had said all through the pregnancy that he hopes our baby would look more like me than him, though he had no reason to say that. He was just plain gorgeous, after all. Still, lucky him we had a daughter that he could dote on. Her sandy blonde hair was a nice trade off from my blonde and Grant's brown, and her bright green eyes were just the most precious thing about her.
"I wish you could have met your aunt Laurie, though I guess if you still had an aunt Laurie, you wouldn't be here now. Still, you woulda loved her. She'd be the 'cool aunt', the one you'd confide in whenever I caught you doing something wrong. She’d probably sneak you out to R-rated movies or buy you alcohol when you’re underage.
“You’re named after the best sister that nobody remembers. The only thing I miss from a life where I wouldn’t have you. You’re the best of both worlds, baby girl, and I always want you to know that. The best of both of my lives, and the best of your dad and me. You have the whole world ahead of you, baby girl."
By the time I was done talking, she'd closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. She snored about as much as her dad. I just smiled and gently kissed her forehead.
"Telling her about aunt Laurie again?" Grant asked from the doorway.
"Yeah."
His arms wrapped around me. "She woulda loved her."
I felt a tear slip down my cheek. “Yeah…”
"Honestly, I think I did, too."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, you did not. You maybe asked her out one time to Homecoming and then the only times you talked to her were here at the house."
He kissed my cheek. "Yeah, but I just wanted to make you feel jealous. Everybody knows you were always the girl for me, even back when you were a guy."
I lightly smacked one of his hands. "Hey! That was only true in this life. Ash was never into guys."
He squeezed me tighter. "Honestly, even though I know you were him, I don't think your life as Ash was ever real. You're just so much more right this way, and we have this beautiful baby daughter here. How could it have ever been any different?"
“Simple, a Welsh goddess decided to have a little fun.”
He sighed. “Maybe. Or maybe she just made us think she did, and came up with a story that never happened and made us think it did.” He kissed me again. “Makes things easier.”
I shrugged. “Even if that was all it was, it doesn’t matter. My life is this now. It’s so much better than my old life, and I never want to go back to that one again.” I spun around in his arms. “I love having you, I love our daughter, I love everything about what my life has become."
He smiled. "Thank you, babe," he said as he kissed me again. "So, there's actually a reason I followed you in here, and as much as I love seeing you with your shirt pushed up feeding Laurie, it wasn't the reason."
I rolled my eyes. "Okay, what was the reason?"
He reached into his pocket and took out a folded up piece of paper. “I wanted to give you this.”
I took the paper and immediately that it was heavier than it looked like it should have been. When I opened it, I realized exactly why it felt so heavy, and when I had it all opened, I nearly had a heart attack. The paper itself was a drawing, of Grant and of me. I was standing there, my hands to my mouth as if to keep myself from screaming, holding a piece of paper. Grant was in front of me, down on one knee, holding something that he obviously just picked up from the floor.
The something that was currently in my hand.
A ring.
I was in so much shock that I dropped it, reflexively putting my hands to my mouth to keep myself from screaming and waking little Laurie up. Grant quickly caught it just after it hit the carpet, then held it up.
"Ashley Johnson, will you marry me?"
If I have to tell you that I said "Yes!" then you obviously haven't been paying attention.