Ch. 10

At the very least, Dylan seemed to be giving me some space. Or, rather, some mental space, some head space? Some space in my head? He had shut up and let me think for a bit. Though, to be honest, it kind of would have been nice to have him say something, just to have a distraction from the cacophony of red alerts that were blaring in my head. My spacious head. Wait, fuck, not like that. I wrangled my focus back to the matter at hand. Which was the fact that: at the end of the day, I wanted to be a girl. And for whatever reason I’d just been denying that as even a possibility.

Which meant that, when faced with the problem of a queer girlfriend, I’d decided to just jump head first into changing my body instead of either communicating with her or communicating with myself on why those feelings were there to begin with. And fuck, now I had a whole additional thing to talk to Olivia about beyond this whole thing with her being into girls. Was I even ready for that? To come out to her as trans? To even fully accept and present myself as trans?

Was I actually really even trans? Wait, no, that last one was at least a probably. I still maybe should take some time to actually like, read about being trans and even talk with another trans person. But it seemed like if I wasn’t a trans woman there was at least something going on there beyond “feminine guy.” It was at that point I realized Dylan was still kind of just staring at me patiently, but expectantly, and I decided to break our shared silence.

“Hey, um, Dylan?”

“Yeah?”

“I uh, shit.” Why was this so hard all of a sudden? “I think uh, I think I might be trans?” I squeaked, hanging my head in embarrassment, hoping he wasn’t going to be weird about the whole thing.

“Uh, yeah. I know. I just told you that I thought you were trans. We kinda had like a breakthrough? Did you miss that?” The look on Dylan’s face was nearly identical to the one he gave me when he was asking me if this was all some kind of prank.

“Well, no, I didn’t miss it, I just -- This is hard, okay? It’s a lot to take in at once. It’s like, I dunno, imagine trying to flip that big of a switch in your head on how you see yourself? Even if logically I get how all that stuff would make me trans, it’s still hard to like, actually internalize that and think of myself as a girl, you know?” For the first time in a while, Dylan gave me an appreciative, understanding nod.

“Sure, I get that. I mean, not literally, cause once again, I am not trans. So just, if you haven’t already, please get that idea out of your head. But, what you said makes sense. There’s a difference between wanting to be something and accepting that you actually can be that something.” It seemed like, for the first time all damn day, we were actually on the same wavelength, which was good, because I was very tired of the layered misunderstandings that this whole thing was built on top of. After another long pause, Dylan asked, “So, um, do you want me to still call you Jesse, or do you want to change your name?”

“Good question. I think I do? Want to change it, I mean. I know Jesse is androgynous, but I dunno, it’s still something I can’t separate from being a guy you know?” That was all well and good, but it left one major problem.

“So what should I call you then?” Yeah, that was it, that was the one, the problem I mentioned.

“Ah, well. I don’t actually know?” I offered a most unhelpful shrug.

“Okay then. What if you just throw one out to see how it feels?” It wasn’t the worst idea, I paused for a moment, then realized pausing to think kind of defeated the purpose of throwing one out.

“Okay, how about Noelle?” I paused for a moment, letting the name feel itself out, before shaking my head. “Nevermind, that name sucks.” I waved my hand dismissively.

“That’s a little harsh,” Dylan winced.

“Meh,” I shrugged apathetically, and got back to thinking. To be honest, there was one name that I’d kind of been avoiding. In hindsight, this wasn’t the first time I’d considered what my name would be if I were a girl. And yup, that’s pretty telling. How the fuck did I not realize sooner? Still, there wasn’t much sense agonizing over it at this point. Plus, Dylan was still waiting for a reply as I kind of just awkwardly stared at the floor, deep in thought and blushing.

“Do you have something?” he asked expectantly.

“Um, can you call me Abigail?” I stammered, not taking my eyes off the floor.

“Sure, that’s a cute name, Abigail.” It’s a good thing I was already looking at the floor, because the moment I heard Dylan call me that, I shivered with happiness and blushed an even deeper shade of red, I wasn’t sure it was even possible for a person to blush more than I was. He chuckled.

“I hope this isn’t weird of me to say, but, you’re acting really cute right now.” Okay, nope, it was definitely possible to blush more. God dammit, fuck, it felt so nice to be called cute. And yeah, it always had ever since I started taking those pills. But now that I was being called cute as a girl, it was way different. I could only imagine what it would feel like when Olivia did. Though, as soon as I did imagine it, I immediately stopped, because it suddenly made me feel more than just blushy, and I was not about to start exploring those kinds of feelings in front of Dylan.

Everything I was experiencing was definitely nice, but at the same time I felt a little bit weird being treated like I was this wholly different person. Dylan was my gym bro first, and that dynamic seemed to have been put on the backburner for this whole ordeal. “Um, thanks. But, uh. Look I know you’ve been kind of nicer and softer to me ever since you started suspecting I was a girl, and I appreciate that. But I also don’t really want our dynamic to change much, you know? Like, can you still treat me like your gym buddy? And, we can still work out together and stuff, right?” I finally managed to glance up, way up to meet his gaze.

“Of course! Sorry if I was acting weird -- I just, like, I dunno. But yeah, we’re still gym bros. Or, maybe not bros. Is dude still okay?” His tone rose at the end, and he was starting to look a bit awkward himself.

“Yeah. Dude is fine. I guess it’s not a hundred percent gender neutral, but well, I’m from California. I called a chair dude one time.” I giggled a little, and Dylan breathed a sigh of relief that turned into an amused guffaw.

“Cool, sounds good, dude. You’ve probably got a lot to think about and figure out though, so, I won’t keep you. I’ll do a bit more research into that spell this afternoon to make sure we’re not going to have any issues, but I’m happy for you, dude.” He grinned wide and gave me a big thumbs up.

“Right, uh, thanks. By the way, maybe don’t go around telling people about me? I mean, you know, it could turn out we’re wrong and I’m not actual--”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he interjected, before locking eyes with me. “Do we need to go through this again? Cause I can call you cute again and we can just go around for a few more loops.”

“I -- no, no that’s fine. I get, okay, fine. I’m still gonna talk to other trans people to understand better, but I get it.”

“Good.” His face brightened. “By the way, you have nothing to worry about, not gonna tell anyone ‘til you’re ready.”

“Uh, cool, thanks. Also, uh, thanks for helping me figure out that I might b--” My sentence was cut off by a growl from Dylan. “Uh, that I’m probably --” He kept glaring. “That I’m almost definitely actually a girl?” Seeming somewhat satisfied, he nodded, like a stern teacher releasing a student from an overly long detention. “Okay, bye!” I called, and scurried out of the room before I put my foot in my mouth again. He called his own goodbye after me, and I made my way home.

Once I’d returned to the privacy of my room, all manner of thoughts which I’d tried to avoid entertaining too much in public had now decided it was open season on my head. Somehow, it was almost weirder being alone with this body now that I understood the full implications of it. Before it was just a fun little experiment, now not only was I a girl, but I also had this probably still gradually changing body. Save what was between my legs, my body was exactly in line with what the majority of people would think of when asked what a woman’s body was like, and now having to somehow deal with that reality had gotten a lot harder. Not harder in a bad way, but harder in a oh my god how do I even start to process this kind of way.

Instead of coming up with anything concrete, I kind of just wound up flopping onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling and running my hands all along my body. It was so wonderful. I had always enjoyed the changes, but now, it was like I had permission to enjoy them uncritically and without shame. Which made doing so both a way more exciting and way scarier prospect. Even the feel of my fingers running up and down my hairless skin was electric, making my breath catch in my throat.

I had this perfect mixture of firmness and softness all over. Taut, toned muscles covered in plush skin. My thighs simultaneously looked like they could be used as a great pillow, or a means to crush someone’s head. And my boobs, for the first time since I’d first changed, I allowed myself to really, genuinely feel myself up. It was so wonderful to feel them fill my small hands and squish like little stress balls attached to my chest. Though maybe it would be best to avoid using them for that purpose outside the comfort of my own home. Still, I couldn’t help but gasp in a husky, but deliciously feminine voice as I felt them. They were so soft and sensitive, topped with such big and perky nipples. I quickly realized where this would be going if I didn’t stop myself, and somewhat reluctantly, decided it would be best to hold off on that sort of thing.

I had way too many things to figure out, and not enough time to figure them out. The more I thought about it, the more I realized just how impractical my entire plan was. When I was coming up with my ‘oh so brilliant plan’ yesterday, how the hell had I not considered that completely changing a person’s appearance and presentation would require a lot of work? Well, that was pretty obvious, actually, I didn’t think about it the same way I didn’t think about basically any of the implications of that plan. I just wanted an excuse to be a girl, probably. But now the work I was going to have to do to integrate into this identity must have grown like, tenfold.

I was going to have to talk to so many people. I would need to tell Olivia I was a girl, the rest of my friends too. And, fuck, my family. They were probably not gonna be too weird about it, but also weren’t going to not be weird about it. Then there was the school, and all my professors, and shit, the bank, the government. I couldn’t even buy beer anymore. Nobody would believe that was me on my license.

Well, actually that was probably an exaggeration. Most people who live in a college town know about trans people, so I probably could just show it and not run into any trouble at certain places. But still that would mean basically outing myself to any and every person I ever had to show any form of ID to. And they would probably be fully within their rights to not accept that ID if they just decided they didn’t like trans people, or if they just didn’t believe that was me and god dammit. 

That was probably only the beginning too. There was buying a whole new wardrobe, learning to actually fit in as a girl. And now I’d have to deal with shit like misogyny, and also homophobia and maybe transphobia and yeah, okay, I was kind of freaking out. At the very least I took some small comfort in the fact that none of the things I was worrying about were enough to make me want to stop or go back. So, that suggested I really was authentic. Which was nice. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to just curl up into a ball and hide from the world.

Then I realized that was something I actually could do. So I did. And I kept doing it, and then I did it some more and before long I’d realized I really, really did not want to face the world right now. I didn’t want judging eyes on me, I didn’t want to risk the wrong person somehow figuring out who I was and saying or doing awful things to me. It soon became crystal clear that I definitely needed to cancel my date with Olivia. My anxiety was peaking at the thought of going out in that dress. Not at the thought of wearing it. Wearing it seemed pretty nice, but what if it looked bad? It showed a lot of skin, I’d be way too exposed in it and I was super not ready. I just wasn’t. So. reluctantly, I texted Olivia.

“Hey, babe. I’m kind of having an existential crisis / anxiety attack right now and I don’t think I can be around people tonight. I’m really, really sorry, but can we move our date back?” I stared at my phone anxiously for several minutes, each passing second making me more and more convinced my girlfriend hated me and was going to leave me for that other girl. Fuck, wait, she also needed to know I really was a girl too. That would probably earn me points. But I still really, really wasn’t ready to do that, and I didn’t want to do it over text because I’d just run into this exact anxiety problem waiting for her reply all over again and --

“Of course. I’m really sorry you’re still struggling. I just want you to know that I’m really proud of you.” I sighed in relief, and also scratched my head in confusion. Why was she proud of me? Maybe it was still related to the whole “I’m exploring my feminine” side BS I’d concocted. Either way, it wasn’t the time to worry about that sort of thing. It was the time to decompress.

All in all, things could be worse -- I mean of course they could, but they could be worse within reason too -- for one, while it was Sunday, I didn’t actually have class tomorrow. This upcoming week was the school’s designated studying period -- for those uninitiated into the inner workings of American higher education, see: drinking period -- which preceded the start of finals, so classes were canceled. That meant I had a few days to at least get the word out to all of my professors and the school administration that I’d changed my name and gender.

Also, frankly, it was just good timing. While the study period did have the ultimate threat of finals hanging over its head, it was usually actually a fairly low-stress week. We had literally an entire week with no obligations save studying or working on whatever final papers were due. There would be plenty of time to not do that and push any and all work off til the last few days before pulling three all-nighters, as was tradition. I decided to put off stressing over all that, and do some, hopefully not stressful, introspection and investigation into being trans. Cause, y’know, I still might actually have just been a confused feminine guy all along who’d just convinced himself that he was actually trans.

About an hour later, I was elbow deep in realizing just what a fucking idiot I was. I’d found a handful of different online trans communities, and as it turned out, I checked just about every box. In fact, I apparently wasn’t even particularly alone in the subgroup of people who “experimented with magic for x reason and turned out to be trans.” One of the communities I’d looked at had like, a hundred posts that described situations almost exactly like mine. Well, not always specifically becoming more feminine to appease their apparently gay girlfriends, but on the whole, very similar stories.

It was in the middle of reading a comment thread on a post from a “guy,” who sounded so much like I would have sounded not three hours before that it physically hurt, when I got a text from Dylan. “Yo, Abbi (is Abbi good? Trying it on for size.) Did you wind up telling Olivia that you’re a girl now?” It was an odd question, but not entirely unwarranted.

“Not yet, no. Why?”

“I’m at a kickback hosted by a friend from my Spanish class. She’s here too. Keeps talking about a girlfriend. Someone said they thought she had a boyfriend, she’s denying it. Thought you should know.” My heart sank. What had I done wrong? Was it because I canceled my date with her? I quickly realized the words on the screen were getting blurrier and blurrier as my eyes began to water and a little sob escaped my lips. “Do you want to come over here and talk to her? I know that’s kind of awkward, but I dunno. Maybe she kinda deserves to get yelled at.”

“Address?” I texted, fumbling on the keys awkwardly as I trembled through another sob. I was going to give that cheating cheater a piece of my mind.

“323 Pasley, it’s on the corner of Pasley and 51st. Blue house, has a weird bear sculpture out front. Also, I do have --some-- good news I think. I’ve been studying that spell. I think I figured out what the deal is. Can you bring the pills?” I started throwing on a more casual outfit I’d gotten from the store today, just jeans and a shirt, and tore open my bag to find the pills. That was when things got even worse: the pills weren’t there. I turned it inside out trying desperately to find them, then began combing my room on hands and knees, tossing covers, books, everything everywhere. It was nowhere to be found. Dylan said he didn’t have what he needed to make more right away, did that mean I was going to -- I shuddered, trying as hard as I could not to finish that thought, as my tears only got worse.

I trudged upstairs and out the door. Everything was fucked. I was losing Olivia, possibly losing this body I’d just barely accepted as my own for a completely unknown amount of time. But whatever, if I was going to crash and burn, I’d at least chew out my shitty soon to be ex-girlfriend first.

Ch. 11

The entire walk over was accompanied by no end of grumbling and cursing under my breath. In a desperate attempt to keep myself from falling apart, I was trying my best to reach for anger. And I could do that fairly easily; unfortunately, my body had decided that wasn’t the only emotion it would be surfacing. Perhaps it was the sea of new hormones flooding my body, but the whole way there I was blinking back tears and little sobs between ill-fated attempts to clench my jaw and twist my lips into a scowl. Some weird, lingering bit of masculine pride was telling me that I shouldn’t cry, but stoicism was apparently no longer something I had in my arsenal in situations like this.

And fuck it, I was sad, like really, really sad. Hurt, too; it wasn’t that I had no idea this was coming, I’d known from the get-go that this would be a possibility, but part of me hadn’t wanted to believe it. Even as I’d thrown myself deeper and deeper into femininity, part of me had hoped deep down that I’d somehow misheard Olivia that morning. Or that I could somehow just pretend that the phone call and subsequent conversation had never happened at all, and just be a girl for her. Or, rather, at the time, be a feminine guy for her. But apparently not. Realistically, I couldn’t blame Olivia for not having seen me as a girl before.

She was a lesbian, it wasn’t her fault for wanting to leave me and date women instead of what she’d literally been told was just  a feminine guy exploring his presentation. But the cheating, the cheating was fucked. It didn’t make any sense; she didn’t seem like that kind of person, but maybe that was the point. People didn’t go into relationships expecting to be cheated on. I’d held on for so long to this idea that it was fine, throwing myself into this whole femininity thing in place of actually confronting what I’d heard that morning. But it was so much easier to keep a lid on it all before things became as real as they were now. When it was more just my own funtime adventure with accidental gender identity exploration, and not me losing my girlfriend to a huge violation of trust.

Realistically, I didn’t know what the hell my plan was. I was going to show up at this party where Olivia apparently was and then what? Just yell and scream at her? That wouldn’t actually help me. At the end of the day, she’d have still cheated on me, I was really only making a fool of myself, but frankly, I didn’t care. I just needed to get these feelings out, I was pissed and I was sad and I was hurt. And I needed her to know that.

What was worse, however, was that Olivia turning out to be a shitty girlfriend was possibly the lesser of my problems. Just what the fuck was I going to do about the missing pills? I’d been wracking my brain over and over, but the only thing I could think was that I’d left them in the changing room at the store, and that store closed early on Sundays, so I couldn’t even bother checking. Thinking about the consequences of that just made me feel even worse than before. I was already in too deep; there was no going back, the concept of losing this body was revolting, sickening. The mere thought of it had me trembling. It was a complete mystery just how long it would take for Dylan to whip up another transformation spell, And until then I’d have to just be in my old body and -- I shuddered visibly, forcing myself to think about other things. Unfortunately the only other thing my brain would let me think about was this thing with Olivia.

By the time I was nearing my destination, I was so overcome with emotion I could barely think. I stomped up to the front door and, upon realizing I had no idea whose house I was standing in front of, let out a defeated sigh and pulled out my phone to text Dylan. Honestly, nothing takes the wind out of your sails like forcing an emotional moment to come to a screeching halt in order to text your best friend asking to let you into the place you were supposed to be having said emotional moment inside of. I waited a few minutes out there on the doorstep, awkwardly trying and failing to keep a handle on things as I idled. The door opened, and I was looking up at Dylan, who, upon seeing the state I was in, gave a sympathetic smile.

“Ah, fuck. Look, I’m sorry, Abigail. I’ll go get her; when you’re done, let’s go get a beer or something, get your mind off things.” He turned and marched away purposefully before I even had the chance to reply, leaving me once again awkwardly twiddling my thumbs while trying my best to not completely lose it. When the door swung open, I found myself eye to eye with Olivia. Which was weird, since we definitely weren’t usually eye to eye, but I very quickly got over that weirdness and instead felt a wave of powerful emotions overtake me. The problem, however, was that I couldn’t actually get those emotions out. Seeing her like that had me choked up to the point where I could barely force out a breath, let alone anything comprehensible. Olivia stared at me in confusion for several moments before recognition dawned on her.

“Oh my, god, Jesse? That’s really you isn’t it? Wait, you’ve been using magic to change your appearance haven’t you? I mean, fuck, of course you have, there’s literally no other explanation for it. I’m an idiot, I should have realized that the first night.” She pulled me into a tight hug, which I certainly didn’t reciprocate, but found myself unable to pull away from as I hung limply. “What’s wrong? Is it that existential crisis? Want to go somewhere and be alone just the two of us so I can help you feel better?” She backed away, and reached out to stroke my cheek; I flinched, and stepped backward.

“Wh-what the fuck is wrong with you Olivia? How can you just act like this after everything you’ve done to me?” I was barely able to choke out my retort through hiccuping sobs.

“Wait, what do you mean? What did I do?” She suddenly looked mortified, eyes fixed in place, mouth agape and frozen in guilt. But I had no interest in playing into that act of hers.

“Don’t give me that crap. I know you’re cheating on me. I know you’re seeing some girl.” I spat.

“I -- what? I promise you there’s nobody else, not besides you.” She was tearing up too now, seemingly shocked that I’d even accuse her of that.

“D-Don’t you dare lie to me.” My voice was getting louder and shriller by the moment. “I fucking heard you. I heard you yesterday on the phone with Trish just after I woke up. I heard you talking about leaving him to be with her. And Dylan heard you literally at this party, bragging to everyone about your girlfriend and denying that you have a boyfriend.” As I finished, Olivia just looked at me in stunned confusion.

“W-wait, what? I mean, yeah. Yeah I have a girlfriend, she’s you. You’re not seriously still in denial about being a woman, are you? After everything you told me?” Her hurt seemed to be evaporating by the moment and replaced by bewilderment.

“What do you mean, everything I told you? I haven’t spoken to you all day. And yes, yes I am a woman. But I only realized that like, three or four hours ago, so there’s no way you could know that, since the only other person who knew was Dylan, and he didn’t tell you.” For a moment I almost felt triumphant, I’d completely eviscerated her shitty excuse like it was tissue paper.

“I -- You -- you literally. Oh my god.” Her eyes widened as realization dawned on her. “The fucking blackout. You told me you remembered the important parts from Friday night.” She put her palm to her forehead in frustration.

“What are you talking about?” Something about the amount of sincerity radiating off her was disarming.

“After we left that party, you kept telling me we needed to talk. So we did. We found a nice private place, and you told me about how you desperately wanted to be a girl. We had a heart to heart, agreed you were trans, and then went on with our night. And you, god dammit. You forgot all of that, didn't you? Fuck, I’m such an idiot for not realizing,” she sighed. For my part, I could only stare at her in stunned silence.

“Wait, really?” Olivia answered me with a silent nod. “Well, fuck. I actually forgot literally realizing I was trans?”

“You kinda had a rough night after. I tried to keep you from drinking too heavily, but you were really struggling to come to terms with everything and kept sneaking in drinks all night. I should have done a better job keeping you under control. I meant to talk to you more about it yesterday, but honestly, I thought you already had it all figured out, given everything you were doing and the mood you were in.” Things were making more and more sense, and the more she told me, the more faint memories began to stir.

“Yeah, I um, that kind of rings a bell actually. Pretty crazy coincidence, right?” I admitted.

“Wait, what coincidence?” It was at that point I realized Olivia didn’t actually know the reason I’d had Dylan do wizard shit to me to begin with. So I told her. I told her everything from my dazed morning, my accidental eavesdropping, my plan, the magic, the changes and my reactions to them, and finally my more recent heart-to-heart with Dylan and eventual self-discovery. Olivia looked on silently, occasionally asking clarifying questions or giving me a look that suggested she thought I was out of my mind. When I finally finished, there was silence for several moments, before Olivia broke it. “So wait, you only even got this body because, when you came to believe I was cheating on you with a woman, your first and only reaction was to feminize yourself?”

“Well, uh, yeah when you put it that way it sounds worse than it is.” I looked at the ground tracing my foot in little circles. Olivia rubbed her temples, then pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

“Babe, listen, you’re great. Honestly, you’re a wonderful girlfriend but, fuck, sometimes you can be really dumb.” I tried hard to argue with her, opening and closing my mouth several times in a futile attempt to come up with a response as I reached my hand into the air to grasp at nothing, I couldn’t deny it. She was right, after all.

“That’s fair.” I huffed, slumping forward as Olivia gently caught me in her arms. “By the way, um. I go by Abigail now.”

“Cute,” Olivia cooed as she gently tickled my belly, sending me into a fit of giggles all while I tried to control the very visible blush spreading across my cheeks.

“Be nice to me.” I bowed my head, covering my face in my hands as my lips formed a little pout.

“How is this not being nice, Abigail? I’m calling my very cute, very pretty girlfriend exactly what she is.” This woman, absolutely merciless, the audacity.

“I’m fragile.” I held the last syllable for a while as my tone dipped low and pouty.

“I can see that; you’ll be fun later tonight when we take your body for a test run, I can already tell.” Olivia’s smirk only widened as I found myself blushing all the way down to my neck. “What a pretty shade of red! I think I’d like a dress that color.”

“I call time-out.” I pulled away and crossed my arms, turning my gaze away from her. She leaned forward and lightly kissed me on the cheek, causing my knees to wobble a little. Luckily just then I was saved by Dylan, who suddenly filled the doorway, scowling at Olivia. He was suddenly owed quite the explanation, which we were happy to provide. A few minutes later he was leaning against the side of the house, scratching his chin contemplatively.

“Okay. Yeah, uh, well that definitely fills in some gaps. And sorry, dude, I’m with Olivia on this one; you and I were both kind of dumbasses.” That had to be the betrayal of the century right there. Et tu, Dylan?  “By the way, did you bring the pills?” And with that, my mood, which had been buoying upward, was immediately grasped by some shadowy tentacle and dragged into the depths of the Shitty-Feelings Sea once again.

“I lost them,” I whimpered, hanging my head in earnest this time as new tears began to collect. “Dylan, please. I’ll do whatever you want, just please find a way to keep me from losing this body.”

“Hey, hey, hey. Abigail, stop. It’s fine. I said good news, didn’t I? I mean, I also said bring the pills, but it’s not a big deal. You’re not going to lose that body.” He laid a hand on my shoulder, and I slowly tilted my head up to look at him, lip still quivering.

“I’m not?” Part of me didn’t believe it, felt like there was no way luck would be on my side this time. Why would I get the easy way instead of -- I shuddered at the thought of the alternative, of going back.

“No, look, fuck, I’m sorry. We could have figured this out way sooner if I’d paid more attention in class, but I fucked up the translation. The medicine isn’t supposed to give you your ‘typical’ shape, but your preferred one.” He was speaking very quickly, seemingly in a hurry to quiet my doubts.

“Wait, so like, it could have given me any body I wanted?” I asked.

“Not exactly; for one, you can’t actually control what happens to your body. The translation to ‘preferred’ still isn’t perfect, but we don’t really have a word for it in English. Either way, basically the spell is meant to give people a body that matches what we consider their ‘internal self,’ if that makes sense.” Dylan definitely was making sense, I could already tell where this was going.

“Yeah, and for me, my ‘internal self’--”

“Is a girl!” he exclaimed a little too enthusiastically, practically fist pumping. “I wanted the pills to test if you even needed to keep taking them in the first place to keep changing. But I know for a fact that, worst case scenario, you’re just going to be as you are right now until we can get you some more pills, because your body isn’t fighting the changes even a little.” As he finished, there seemed to be a collective sigh of relief from all three of us.

“Well, shit. I guess things really did work out, after all.” I breathed a sigh of relief. And, with impeccable comedic timing Dylan awkwardly cleared his throat.

“Uh, actually, well, there is one problem,” Dylan said, wincing. “It’s not a huge one, but--”

“What is it?” The apprehension already palpable in my wavering voice.

“Well, there might be a tiny side effect. Nothing major, but from the research I did I’ve found that people who have experienced similarly major changes like this tend to get really well, um. Just maybe buy some anti-itch cream? The rash will probably start in the next couple days, then likely subside by next Thursday.” Dylan awkwardly brought his hand up to scratch the back of his head as he offered a sheepish shrug. “Sorry I uh, only learned this was a common thing today. Otherwise I would have warned you. They don’t put warning labels like that in old grimoires. Look on the bright side, you could have wound up like half frog or something!”

“Just be glad that some weird rash is 100% worth it, cause otherwise I’d find some way to kick your ass right about now,” I mumbled, then giggled a little. With that moment of levity, the other two joined in as we broke into fits of laughter.

“So, uh, well, party?” Dylan asked, gesturing back into the house. Olivia and I looked to one another, shared a glance, some mutual shrugs and silent correspondence, then turned back to face Dylan, speaking simultaneously.

“Sure.”