gayannabeth

  “Morning,” I said sleepily to Olivia, sitting next to her on Friday morning. I was actually a little bit early for css.

  Her eyes went wide. “Um, hi. How are you?”

  I frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  She averted her eyes. “Um, nothing.”

  “Your eyes went wide. Is there something on my face?” Had my appearance changed more? Gods, I hoped so… not! I mean not!

  “Nothing,” Olivia said, shaking her head. She turned to face the front of the lecture hall, muttering something under her breath.

  I huffed. No, she’d probably seen something, but was too polite to tell me. I vowed to stop by the bathroom after this lecture finished.

  “Psst! Hey you!” A voice called from behind me. I didn’t think much of it, until the same voice again called, “hey, Liv, can you get your buddy’s attention for me?”

  In response, Liv poked me in the side, then gestured over her shoulder when I turned to face her, a questioning look on her face. I turned to look behind me to find a smirking Hazel Lee. Her pink hair was up in a pony-tail, and she was dressed like she was going for a run. “What?” I hissed back at her.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Damn, girl. Looking good.”

  I froze. “Uh, I’m not…”

  Hazel raised an eyebrow. “It’s alright, take your time. Listen, I wanna chat with you after css. Would that be alright?”

  I gnced over at Liv, who was watching the exchange with a half-smirk on her face. What was with all these girls suddenly wanting to chat with me? I wasn’t that good looking. Besides, according to Harry, they were all lesbians anyway! I just didn’t understand. Was it something I did? I tried to think back to the past week, but nothing stood out to me.

  I wanted to run off to the nearest bathroom to see if my appearance had changed even more, but I was intercepted by Hazel before I could.

  “Hey, you weren’t pnning on running off on me, were ya?” She ughed nervously. “Look, there’s, um, a support group. In the, um, student centre. Meets on Tuesday afternoons. I was wondering if you’d want to come?”

  I looked up at the tall girl, feeling a little confused. “Um, a support group?” I said. Hazel nodded. “What for?”

  Hazel frowned. “Oh! It’s just a little trans support group. I just figured… anyway, see you there, yeah? I gotta get to my next css, byyyyeeeee!” And, before I could respond to anything she’d just said, she turned so fast her pink hair nearly hit me in the face, and walked off.

  A… trans support group?

  Trans?

  Me?

  She has to be mistaken. There’s no way…

  I made my way to the nearest bathroom, slipping inside and stepping up to the sinks, purposely looking down to avoid my reflection.

  Ok. Moment of truth. I looked up, and…

  Huh?

  There’s… a girl… in the mirror…

  I mean, yes, she did look like me… but, unlike the day before, this person was undeniably girl-ish. Like, a couple days ago, I was probably more on the boy side of androgynous, but now I was firmly on the girl side of androgynous.

  When did this happen?

  More importantly, how did this happen?

  And, how do I make it happen more?

  I was broken out of my thoughts by one of the stalls opening. I whirled around, locking eyes with some twinky looking guy. He froze. He gnced around, spotting the urinals. “Um, you’re in the wrong bathroom, miss,” he said.

  Um, no I’m not, I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud, since my voice just refused to work entirely. Letting out a squeak that was definitely higher pitched than any sound I normally made, I all but ran out of the bathroom and away from that awkward encounter.

  I ate lunch a bit slowly, lost in thought. So, I looked like a girl now. I was… ok with that. I’d always somewhat thought that maybe it would be better to be a girl. You know, other than the whole misogyny thing. Girls were prettier, wore nicer clothes, got to have long hair (please ignore that guys can have long hair too). Why was I changing? How? It defied all expnation!

  I entertained the notion that maybe Harry was right — as ridiculous as that sounded. The proof was… well… me! I was the proof! I was changing, and quickly, too! I’d stopped by a single occupant bathroom to, ah, grope myself, for ck of a better term, and, while still small, my, ahem, boobs were definitely getting bigger. My nipples were sore, and now I knew why they were.

  And why was I ok with this? My body was being changed by something I didn’t know, without my say-so. That should be cause for arm, right?

  I was pulled out of my own head when someone sat down at the table next to me. I looked up to find a girl. She had curly shoulder-length bck hair and was wearing a baggy t-shirt.

  “Almost didn’t recognise you,” she said, “guess it’s not just me.” Her voice sounded anxious. She spoke quickly and quietly, like she was worried about overhearing.

  Wait a minute…

  “Harry?” I said. “My god, what happened-”

  “Shhhh! You should see yourself! And not too loud. You can’t be overheard calling a girl ‘Harry,’ now, can you? People would think you’re crazy!”

  I groaned, but lowered my voice to a whisper. “I have seen myself, actually. I’m freaking out, here, man.” I paused. “And what should I call you, if not Harry?”

  He hesitated, then mumbled something I couldn’t understand.

  “What?” I asked. “I couldn’t hear you.”

  “Rachel!” he hissed at me. “If you need to use a fucking name, you can use that one, ok?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Um, not ‘Harriet?’”

  He winced. “Um, no. Too simir to Harry.”

  “Why should that matter?” I asked.

  “It just does, ok?”

  I mean, fair enough. I myself wasn’t a big fan of my name. It was just so pin and boring, and…

  Wait a minute…

  This presented a golden opportunity here.

  “Call me Lillith, then,” I said smugly.

  “What?” Harry AKA Rachel said.

  “Well, since I look like this now, you can’t go calling me by my real name either, right?” I ughed nervously. “So, um, Lillith.”

  Rachel (I decided to just think of him — or her, since it would also probably be weird to call an apparent girl ‘him’ — as that to make things easier on me) nodded slowly. “Ok. That makes sense. Ok. Um, you should also, like, refer to me as a girl, probably.”

  “What, like she/her? Like use different pronouns? How woke.”

  She squirmed. “Um, yeah, um…” she trailed off, a faraway look in her eyes. “Fuck. Ok, should I also do that for you as well?”

  I nodded. “Yes, actually.” An idea struck me. “Oh! And they/them too, please!”

  Rachel frowned. “But… you’re one person.”

  “I know that, but, like, you can use it to refer to one person too, right? Like, you don’t know their gender or whatever, so…”

  Rachel hesitated. “I- I guess…”

  “You can also use ‘Lilly’ as a nickname for me too!” I decred. “Hi, I’m Lillith, Lilly for short. She/they.”

  Holy fuckballs! That felt amazing to say out loud.

  Rachel was looking at me like I’d grown a second head.

  “Your turn,” I said.

  “O-Oh. Right. Ok. H-Hi, I’m, um, R-Rachel. Sh-she/her.” She blushed.

  There was a brief moment of silence while Rachel took a bit to regain her nerve. When she finally did, she took a deep breath and started talking. “Ok. So. Clearly, it wasn’t the vaccines. I mean, I got a whole bunch of them, right, but you didn’t get any at all. Since this happened to both of us, it must be something else, right?”

  “Um, yeah,” I replied, nodding.

  “Yeah. So, it has to be something else. Something specific to only the two of us. As much as I liked your idea of it being the burgers, plenty of people eat the food here already, not just us.”

  “Maybe it’s just the game, then,” I commented.

  She nodded. “I agree.”

  “Maybe we should stop pying it, then?” I said. I felt a little disappointed. I was really enjoying that game. You know, just the game, totally not the changes that I’d gotten as well.

  Rachel hesitated. “Um, y-yeah, m-maybe we should…” She seemed about as happy with that as I did. “We, um, stop pying, and then all of this just g-goes away…” She looked like she’d swallowed broken gss, her face screwed up in a look of pure discomfort. No, she definitely did not want to stop pying that game, but what choice did we have?

  Continuing to py that game would mean the end of whatever scraps of masculinity and manhood we had left!

  gayannabeth