Falling Over

That night, I received an email from the lady who was the head of the design programme, whose name I finally learned was Diana Monahan. She sent me a list of electives that still had space for an extra student in them, and after a look over the list, there was one that caught my eye. Victorian era fashion was something that piqued my interest, I couldn’t be a proper geek if I didn’t at least have a passing interest in steampunk. I emailed her back saying I’d like to take that paper, and even though it was almost ten in the evening, she still got back to me saying she’d let the professor of that paper know.

Maddy and I didn’t play games that night, so I decided to hop on with my normal gaming friends and see how they were going. I forgot one very important thing however.

The room had three or four of my friends in it, all yammering away about whatever game they were playing, and I sat in the channel for a moment to gauge how things were going. I usually sat in the channel til someone noticed I was there. Saying hello was scary.

“Oh shit! It’s Coby! Where have you been man?” said one of my clan mates, who went by the name Torus.

“My life has been so crazy since the third Emergence,” I sighed.

Everyone in the channel stopped speaking at once and I frowned, had I disconnected?

“Uh, who was that?” asked another clan mate named Gallan.

“Coby are you using a voice changer?” Torus asked warily.

“Nah dude, you can hear a voice changer. It’s got this distorted sound to it and it doesn’t help with intonation and shit,” the third guy in the channel told us. His name was Kadal.

“Yeah shut up dude, we know you’re an audio nerd,” grumped Gallan.

“Sound engineer dude,” Kadal corrected quietly.

I stayed silent, my voice failing me as my body ran cold with panic. I hadn’t intended to out myself like that.

“Coby? Cetri?” asked Torus, using the screen name they all knew me by.

I breathed deep while they all waited for my response, steeling myself for whatever was to come. This was going to be hard.

“Yeah?” I asked meekly.

“That’s you? Cetri? Really?” Torus asked in disbelief.

I gulped, “Yeah, the uh… the Emergence. It uh, it changed me.”

“Changed you how though?” blurted Gallan. Gallan was a bit younger than the rest of us, and was impatient and talkative to boot. He was a good kid otherwise, but he could get on your nerves if you let him ramble about random shit for too long.

“Um… I got turned into a girl,” I said quietly.

“A girl,” stated Torus.

“That’s what Cetri said,” Kadal replied sarcastically.

“You’re not fucking with us?” Torus asked.

“No…?” I replied, trailing the word of questioningly.

“That’s fucking wild dude!” Gallan exclaimed enthusiastically.

“Not really a dude anymore,” I laughed uneasily.

“Oh shit yeah sorry!” Gallan laughed, “Far out, we finally get a girl in the channel and she’s Coby! That’s so crazy! This one time, I heard about this guy like a year above me in school who went and changed to a girl! She ended up being like super hot too apparently and like all the guys in her year were so confused! I wish I could have seen it! It would have been so-”

“Yo, Gallan! Chill!” laughed Kadal, interrupting before we got too far down the rabbit hole.

“Wait so like, the guy just turned into a girl?” Torus asked, confusion colouring his voice, “How does that work?”

“I dunno man like you just take pills and stuff and it makes you into one!” Gallan replied.

“Damn…” Torus said, his voice trailing off as he processed the shocking new information that Gallan had enthusiastically dumped on him.

“So how’re you finding it Cetri?” Kadal asked.

“I like it. It’s fun,” I said, shrugging even though they couldn’t see me.

“Fun?” asked Torus with an odd tone in his voice.

“Yeah, fun! I’m hot now and I can wear cute clothes,” I said, smiling as I looked over at the drawer I had hidden my outfit in. I needed a new one for tomorrow, damn.

“Cute clothes? For real?” Kadal laughed, “Sounds like the change wasn’t unwelcome then?”

“I mean it beats being a ratty nerd who looks like a greased up skeleton,” I joked.

Gallan made a sputtering noise that sounded like he’d just spat water everywhere, “Oh my fucking god. Sorry, just. Fuuuck that is such a good description of what you look like, or used to look like.”

“Can you show us what you look like now?” Torus asked in an overly casual tone.

“No I think I’ll leave it at that,” I said quietly.

“Why though? How do we know you’re telling the truth?” he shot back, a bit of an edge to his voice.

“I don’t really care if you think I’m telling the truth or not,” I said mildly. I’d had grievances in the past with Torus, and I had known him long enough not to give a shit.

“Whoa, okay then,” he muttered, but did shut up.

“You’re just going to go asking a chick on the internet for pics? Wow, thirsty much,” Kadal laughed, his tone snide and mocking.

At the same time, I got a private message from him.

Kadal: I got your back.

Cetri:Thanks :)

“Fuck you Kadal,” Torus replied in a wounded tone.

Gallan huffed and said, “Yo can we get back to the game now please?”

“Right, sure. Wanna join us Cetri?” Kadal asked.

“Sure!” I said happily.

****

The next day, I left the house early in order to buy some new clothes, as I couldn’t turn up to class in the same outfit as yesterday. Almost as soon as I was out of sight of home I swapped to my girl form and got changed in a nook between houses. I opted to rush to the nearest target, just to pick out something cheap but still moderately good looking. I had the jeans with me, jeans were something you could wear a few times in a row.

It’s honestly strange in hindsight how much I’d pawed over fashion websites and pinterest feeds and just, anywhere I could find about fashion before all this. Like, even having only just realised I wanted to be and stay as a girl, it was just silly. I thought back to the time I’d started a tumblr account and started blogging about fashion trends and what I’d thought of them. It had lasted a few months before I’d started feeling like an imposter and quit.

Maybe I should start that again?

Anyway, I rode to target as fast as I could push my board, and rushed into the store. Finding the women’s section, I tentatively made my way inwards. I had so many emotions roiling in my mind. One second I was sure I belonged here, the next I was hating myself for being in such a feminine space.

Fighting through my imposter syndrome, I started to look around at all the different items, trying to figure out what I was after. My mind went back to Brook yesterday, and her amazing display of abs. Did I have abs?

I lifted my shirt to check, and was greeted with… there was no abs, but I did have a smooth, flat stomach that curved slightly towards my groin invitingly. Alright, I could work with that.

Thirty minutes later I emerged from Target wearing a cute black off the shoulder crop top that had long enough sleeves to keep me warm during the slight chill that was creeping into the days. A short denim jacket went over it all and a T-shirt grey bra went under it all. The bra had taken the longest to find, as I had to do my sizing via trial by error. I’d grabbed one of every size I could find in the style I liked and just tried them all on one after another.

Something else I had to ditch was the jeans. They just didn’t look right with the outfit, and instead I was rocking a pleated black miniskirt. The black skirt and black top really highlighted the skin that was showing, and I buzzed with excitement at how I looked. It was just intense, the feeling that I was exposed in key areas and looked sexy as fuck because of it.

I’d had to make one concession to practicality, buying some spandex shorts to wear so I wasn’t flashing everyone as I rode.

My first college related activity today was a lecture for my elective, the victorian fashion one. I was kind of excited for it, so even though I’d spent time getting a new outfit, I arrived with plenty of time until it started.

When I stepped through the door into the lecture theatre, I was struck by how mundane it was. The room wasn’t in the main artistic buildings, but off in the history department instead. I guess that's why it wasn’t all swanky and new looking.

I was running my eyes over the many open seats, when I noticed a pair of dark eyes peering at me over the screen of a laptop. No way! That was Maddy! I felt something inside me do an acrobatics routine, and it wasn’t my powers. What was she doing here? Having seen that I’d noticed her, she ducked back behind her laptop for a moment. Did she not want to talk to me?

I started up towards her anyway, mostly on autopilot if I was honest, while I watched her. She popped back up above her laptop screen, and her eyes widened behind her big glasses. I caught the flash of a blush and a smile. Okay, so that was a good sign at least. If she was smiling then she at least was open to me sitting next to her. Goddess knows I didn’t know anyone else in this entire course.

When I sidled up next to her and plopped down in my seat, I stowed my skateboard awkwardly underneath me and placed my bag on the desk in front of us. She was facing forward, but turned slightly towards me like she wanted to speak. I looked over at her under my hair and saw her doing the same. Shit she was so cute. Her freckles were adorable the way they marched over the bridge of her nose like that.

I opened my mouth to say hello, but my blush got in the way. Damn! We’d been chatting tons over the past few weeks as we played games together, but this was the first time I’d seen her in person since that time at Burger king. Suddenly I wasn’t able to utter a single word, my body rebelling as explosions went off in my chest, she shockwaves causing all the butterflies in my stomach to rush around in a frenzy.

She was the one who got a word out first, whispering, “H-hello.”

I gulped, and was finally able to get a few words out myself, “Hey Maddy… um, I didn’t know you took this paper.”

“I’m not, um… I mean, It’s not my normal era. The one I’m interested I mean. Majoring in or whatever, but I was just… intrigued by it,” she told me, her cheeks flaming brighter.

“Yeah. Same. I mean, not same. I mean like, I’m interested in fashion and I saw this one and I just kinda wanted to do it,” I said, awkwardly tripping over my words along with her.

“Wait, you changed your degree?” she blurted, her eyes widening in happy surprise.

“Yeah, I uh, I went to finance yesterday and I hated it. It sucked. I walked out of the class and went straight to admin,” I nodded, my own face opening into a smile as her own smile caused my stomach to bubble.

“That’s so cool!” she grinned then reached out and touched my skirt, “And you look so good too! Gosh I wish that I could even start to put an outfit together like that!”

Her fingers lightly resting on my thigh sent waves of goosebumps fizzling across my body and it was all I could do to take a stuttering breath, squeaking out a, “Thanks!”

She realised her hand was resting on my thigh, and pulled it sharply back, hiding her face behind her hair in embarrassment.

After that, we couldn’t speak, as the professor had come in and begun the lecture. I noticed Maddy absently rubbing her thumb over the pads of her fingers as she stared off into space.

I couldn’t concentrate on the lecture. I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t. I was hyper aware of Maddy being right next to me. It was as though my senses were tuned just to her. The sound of her breathing, the click of her fingers on the keyboard, the way her hands danced as they did so in my peripheral vision.

My imagination was filled with the image of those hands taking mine, of her small hesitant little smile and her sweetly blushing cheeks. I was so caught up in this daydream that had snuck up on me, I didn’t realise that the lecture had ended. All the other students around me were packing up, and I hurried to follow suit.

I wandered out of the theatre in a daze, trying to get my brain back into gear. I’d always been pretty good at concentrating, but I’d apparently failed utterly just now. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I was still attempting to jump start my higher functions when I heard someone clear their throat behind me.

“U-uh… Elsie, what are you doing until the tutorial?” asked maddy, who stood there holding her bag tightly to her chest, absently fiddling with a zipper between her fingers.

It was very typical and very cute that her bag was one of those huge multi-compartment backpacks that all the kids had worn on their first day of high school. It seemed she hadn’t gotten rid of hers, and it looked to be full to the brim as well.

“Tutorial?” I asked dumbly, snapping back to her question as I realised I hadn’t said anything.

“Yeah, the tutorial at one. It’s like two hours away,” she nodded, her dark intelligent eyes searching mine anxiously.

“Oh! I forgot that was a thing,” I said hastily, “Uh, I didn’t plan on doing anything. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“Wow,” she giggled, “I can’t even do anything without making like, a plan and stuff. My brain is so all over the place I need it all written down and stuff or I get lost and confused and… well it’s really not good.”

“But how do you remember to make plans?” I asked with a smile. Her giggle was cute.

She shrugged and grinned back at me, “Habit? I usually stop like once or twice an hour and run through everything I might have to do in my mind, like a checklist. It’s weird but it works.”

“Glad to hear it!” I said, “So what does your plan say you’re going to do now?”

“U-uhh. My plan was to find lunch and then… shit I forgot. Hold on,” she sighed, reaching into the pocket of her bag to retrieve her phone.

Impulsively I reached out and stopped her, “Let me make a new one. Lets go get lunch and then… can I ask you to go over that lecture with me? ‘Cos like, I couldn’t concentrate at all.”

I think every vital bodily function I had within me stopped cold as I realised how forward I had just been, and panic flared like an oil fire spreading across water. I pulled my hand hand back and felt my face heat dramatically. Maddy stared into my eyes owlishly, her eyes wide and blinking behind her glasses.

“Okay. I can do that, that sounds nice,” she said quietly.

I felt my face bloom into a smile and it was all I could do to keep it from seeming manic. She’d agreed! I felt almost giddy, I couldn’t help myself. She wasn’t interested in me, I wasn’t even the right gender and I don’t think I’d give up being Elsie even to be with her, but it was still nice to know she wanted to keep hanging out.

“Where do you want to get lunch?” I asked, trying my best to keep myself calm and collected.

She looked bashfully down at her bag, then back up at me, “I actually brought my own lunch, so um, wherever you want to go?”

“I want chips!” I declared, and motioned towards the nearest cafe.

“Okay!” she said, smiling at me as we walked off. I was struck again by how we were the same height. I still needed to measure myself actually. Maybe I’d do that tonight.