A cheery pop song blaring from my alarm clock ripped me out of a pleasant dream and I angrily smacked the off button in retribution. It had been so nice to finally get a break from the nightmares that had been my constant companions since I came into existence. Why did this dreadful machine have to ruin it? I squinted at the time displayed on the alarm and had to blink a few times to read it. According to the dim red digits, it had only gone off once this morning. Lucas had always had habit of hitting snooze a few times before crawling out from under the covers, but something about that dream dissuaded me from attempting to sneak in a few more minutes of sleep and instead encouraged me to push forward into the day.
I threw on one of the outfits that Sarah had picked out and sleepily walked downstairs to see if my dad was awake yet. I found him in the kitchen waiting near the toaster. When I looked into it I saw all four slots were full of bread.
"Do you want eggs and toast?" my father asked as I walked into the kitchen.
"That sounds great, thanks," I said, failing to suppress a yawn.
"You were out late last night," he said, leaving the implied question hanging in the air.
"We all met up at Chris's house again. Everyone was helping me study for the history test," I answered.
"The whole time? I thought math class was your nemesis this year."
"Nah, not the entire time. We also watched one of Sarah's horror B movies. As for history class, I am starting from scratch. Since I sort of do not remember any of it from before Monday. At all," I said, carefully.
"What?" my father asked, with serious concern in his voice.
"I guess Aurora's memories about history replaced—" I started but cut myself off before I said "Lucas's". I hastily finished my sentence instead with, "mine."
Even though I had previously explained what happened to Lucas and Aurora to my father I did not think reminding him that his first child did not exist anymore was a good idea. My repeated discussions with Dan and his outright accusations of murder also had brought me close to my breaking point. I really did not want to talk about "not being Lucas" ever again. I had all his memories, and even my magically altered body had been his first.
It was simple.
He was me and I was him.
And still, something about that thought bothered me. The words just felt wrong. Either way, I had to move on. To everyone else in the world we were the same person and that was how it had to be.
"Earth to Laura, please respond," my father called in a singsong voice.
"Huh?" My attention snapped back to reality, and I turned to face Dad.
"Here you go!" He pushed a plate with toast covered in scrambled eggs into my hands and I gingerly took it along with a fork. "I can tell the memory thing is bothering you. Let's talk about it later, okay? So, what else did you do at Chris's house? You seem more tired or at least more distracted than you would normally be after a night with your friends."
"Actually, we decided to try one of the easier looking spells from Mom's journal," I said reluctantly as I walked to the table.
"Oh, did it work?" My father said as we sat down. He seemed surprised. "I thought it would take a bit longer for you to unravel the secrets of the arcane! Did you really crack it the same day we found that notebook?"
"I specifically picked that page since the instructions were straightforward and much easier than some of the others. Comparing it to the others I think it was originally from another source. And technically Chris is the one who figured it out first, with some help from Sarah's spirit. He is the proud new owner of a deflection ward. We did not get a chance to test its effectiveness yet, but I could feel it on his arm so I am pretty sure it worked," I said, leaving out the part where Chris collapsed after he completed the enchantment.
He had slept through most of the movie Sarah had put on to pass the time while we waited for him to regain consciousness. After he finally woke up, he downed the entire glass of water I left for him. He had been so enthusiastic about successfully casting the spell that he did not seem to mind at all that it had knocked him out afterward. While we finished the movie, he had kept touching his wrist and every time he did a giant grin spread across his face. I was not sure how much magic he would need to be as combat capable as Sarah or Dan, since without a guardian to convey fighting styles and impart stores of arcane energy I figured it would take a lot of training. Years maybe? Some part of Aurora's memory teased at the edges of my mind, but I could not recall exactly what it was that was bothering me.
"Did you get in on the fun?" my father asked during a pause between bites.
"I did actually. Right before Chris drove us home, I used the same circle. We had to scrape off the melted wax and wait for the steel focus to cool off first. Then I used the rest of the candles we found. We lit them, I pushed some magic into the circle to prime it, let the metal glow, and took the finished enchantment," I explained.
My attempt at the spell had gone smoothly in comparison with Chris's. I did not run into the same burning sensation that Chris had encountered while handling the spell before it had been applied. After I cast my copy, I sat down on the couch and waited to see if I would be able to say conscious. Chris got me a glass of water to drink. After a few minutes I stood up and walked around the living room. I felt completely normal. Either I had a much larger reserve of energy than Chris or I was just more experienced at using magic.
By the time we left, the storm had transitioned from high winds to heavy rain. Chris drove the three of us home and I tried to read a few more pages of my English book before falling asleep.
"Melted wax and steel? Should I be worried the next time I slice a birthday cake? " my dad said.
"Do not forget the magic circle!" I said with a laugh.
"It seems a bit, uh, less magical when you just list out the ingredients." He seemed sort of disappointed.
"Too much like chemistry?" I asked.
"I dunno, kiddo. The few times that your mother talked about magic, she made it sound so mysterious and fantastical. But you approach it more like it's an equation or a scientific procedure. I wonder if she kept that side of her work a secret for a reason."
"Oh, it definitely still feels fantastical to me," I said, gesturing at my wrist with my fork. "This ward I cast should be able to stop fast-moving objects from penetrating my skin. Until it runs out of energy, I am essentially bulletproof. Not that I am itching to test that particular feature."
Dad grimaced at that but still looked curious.
"Can I touch it?"
"Sure," I said and held out my left arm.
My father softly brushed the ward's site I had indicated with his fingertips in a small circular motion.
"I don't feel anything," he said quietly.
"Chris said he could just barely feel his, but maybe that was because it was something he made. Do you want to try it out too sometime?"
"Maybe, but for now you have a bus to catch, Laura."
I smiled at him and scrambled for the door.
-*-
During homeroom Chris and I slowly worked our way through the material for next week's history test. When we only had a few minutes left, Chris put his notes away and leaned in close.
"Thanks for the copy of that page, Laura. That was truly awesome in the original sense of that word," he said quietly.
"You are feeling okay this morning, right? No lingering effects?" I asked. He looked a bit tired and I was suddenly worried.
"Other than being a bit disappointed that I missed the movie, I felt fine after I woke up. It's just silly," He pushed one of his longer loose locks of hair behind his ear and looked down at his desk before continuing. "I didn't sleep well last night because the pool cover was flapping around in the wind. And it was really loud, even through my window. But I didn't feel up to taking a midnight stroll through sheets of rain, so I toughed it out. I inspected it this morning and one of the tie-downs was just gone."
"It must have been quite a storm. I sort of slept right through it," I said.
"Laura, you could sleep through a metal concert if you were tired enough," Chris said with a laugh.
"So going back to the spell you cast. It is still up and active, right?" I asked as I looked closely at his right wrist where the ward had been placed. At first I felt nothing, but after a moment I knew with absolute certainty that if I reached across his desk to touch his right arm I would sense it buzzing under his skin.
"Yeah, I can just barely tell that it's still there. It kind of tingles if I touch it," he said, reflexively brushing the spot with his fingers.
"I hope with all my heart that you will never need it," I said with a smile. "But if you do, I think it will work."
"So, uh. I was wondering about something," Chris was looking intently at my left wrist. "Could I touch yours for a second?"
"Sure," I said as I turned slightly to my right and held out my left arm to Chris.
He scooted closer to me and gently placed his left index finger on my enchantment.
"Anything?" I said, a note of curiosity sliding into my voice.
"Yeah, it feels really similar to mine, actually. But not exactly the same. Yours has a flair to it that I'm not actually sure how to describe."
"But we used the same ingredients and the same exact circle. Does that mean each spellcaster leaves a unique..." I said, trailing off as I looked for the right word.
"Signature?" Chris offered.
"Exactly." I said, gently squeezing Chris's fingers with my left hand. His arm tensed up and his eyes grew slightly wider as I continued, "Thanks for working so hard last night. I am really glad you were able to do it."
"Only with your help," he said with a laugh.
"What about Corona? I had no idea about any of that energy pushing stuff. I was so lost." I was doing my best to deflect the praise, but I could not stop my face from breaking into a wide grin.
I was so happy I had been able to help Chris. I renewed my commitment to give him any kind of tool I could against the absurd and dangerous world that Aurora and the other guardians had thrust him into. We stayed like that for a few more moments and his face slowly grew more flushed. Then I pulled my hand away from its gentle grip on his fingers and he visibly relaxed. A moment later, the bell rang to end the period, and I was off to Biology.
Mrs. Garza's class went smoothly, and I expected the rest of the day to follow similarly until I got to English. There I was reminded of the novel I still had not finished the assigned reading for. I had tried to knock that out last night, but I just could not focus on the book while being excited about letting Chris try out magic. As class was ending, Miss Knight also hinted that there would be a quiz tomorrow on the assigned reading from the novel on Friday. Looks like reading Orwell just moved to the top of my to-do list for when I got home from the GSA club meeting later today. I was looking forward to the club meeting, and decidedly not looking forward to the novel.
Trigonometry felt much more comprehensible than what I remembered. The techniques Mr. Eckhart used to solve the example angle and shape diagrams came easily to me despite always giving me trouble as recently as week ago. When the homework problems were written on the board at the end of class I eagerly flipped to the page in the textbook and finished two of them before the bell rang to announce the start of lunch. If I did not have to focus so much on math, then maybe it was possible I could catch back up in history; enough to sneak by with a passing grade and graduate at least. I piled all my belongings into my locker and eagerly rushed off to lunch with my friends.
"You look happy today, Laura," Chris said when I sat down at the lunch table. Sarah and Chris had already begun eating, but Dan had yet to arrive. His absence from the table further improved my mood.
"I am just excited that trig is finally starting to make sense to me," I replied as I started eating.
"Who are you and what have you done with my friend?" Sarah laughed.
"What?" My entire body tensed up and my hands clenched into fists in my lap. My eyes scrutinized Sarah's face trying to figure out what she really meant. She had defended me in front of Dan at lunch yesterday. Had Dan talked to her since then? Was she on his side now?
"Laura, are you okay?" Chris said with a worried expression. "You look like someone walked over your grave."
"I am fine," I lied. I forced myself to relax, unclench my fists, and return to eating. Sarah had also noticed my rapid shift in demeanor and was giving me an apprehensive look.
"Laura, do you, um, sense something?" Sarah mumbled. "Shades?"
"No, no. I am fine, really." I said as my eyes bore a hole into my lunch tray. "No shades. Nothing else either."
"You don't look fine," Sarah said, frowning. "Laura, when you first got here you were ecstatic! What just happened, you look like a kid who just got her ice cream cone knocked to the ground. Don't lie to me."
She crossed her arms and stared at me. She was serious. I poked at my food and delayed giving a response using my lunch as an excuse.
"I am still the friend you have always known, Sarah," I said slowly after eating most of the lunch. "I know you did not mean it that way, but with Dan being weird, stuff like that just gets to me easily."
Chris and Sarah exchanged glances then Chris scanned the cafeteria.
"Is that why Dan isn't sitting with us?" Chris asked.
"Laura, how long has he been acting like this? It wasn't just yesterday at lunch, right?" Sarah pressed.
"He started pestering me on Monday and he has not stopped even once. Unless he was around other people," I sighed. "Well, then again, even that did not stop him yesterday."
"Hmmm, we might need to have a talk with him," Sarah said, fuming.
She leapt to her feet and stalked through the rows of tables. I watched her carefully as I quickly finished the rest of my lunch, growing more and more nervous.
"Laura, relax. Dan will come around. He's just a bit thick sometimes," Chris said with a smile. "You know how the football jocks can be."
"I thought we were friends with him because he was not like that," I muttered.
"Well, sometimes he still is," Chris laughed. "He did seem surprised you offered to show me magic, you know? That's why he came to study with us last night, too."
"I bet he just wanted to stop me from turning you into a toad." I huffed.
"Nah. I don't think it was like that. He seemed genuinely intrigued until I fainted. You'll win him over yet," Chris said easily before returning to his lunch.
Eventually, Sarah returned from her lap around the cafeteria. She looked extremely annoyed. Both her fists were firmly planted on her hips as she stood above her spot at the table. As she turned to face me her expression finally softened, and she sat down.
"I guess he skipped lunch after all. What a coward," Sarah said.
"I'll talk to him before history," Chris said. "Hopefully, he'll listen. Maybe he just needed some space."
"Laura, we don't need to bring him with us on Friday," Sarah said.
"We should all go together. We will need his help if there are as many as last Friday," I said uneasily. I did not want to deal with Dan if I could avoid it, but magical monsters endangering the town took precedence over our spat. I understood why he did not want to be around me. Still, we had a job to do.
"Having Chromos in his head must be driving him crazy," I said aloud while thinking over this mess.
"No kidding," Sarah said with a laugh.
"Did Corona tell you anything about him?" I asked.
"Other than that he's completely full of himself? I'm afraid not," she replied derisively.
"Well, Aurora did not like him much either as far as I can remember. Though she did respect his magical abilities," I said.
"It looked like he could make physical objects out of pure magic at least from where I was standing. Some kind of matter-magic specialist from the Leyline Rising series?" Chris said.
"Is that the fantasy series I've seen on your shelves?" Sarah asked.
"Yeah, it's pretty good. I recommend it," Chris said.
I shrugged. "As for Chromos's specialization your guess is as good as mine. That sounds right, though."
"Corona's specialty is fire, which suits me fine," Sarah said. Her eyes gleamed for a moment.
"And my specialty, thanks to Aurora, is ice," I said. "But I had no trouble casting the deflection ward. Maybe witchcraft has different rules?"
"Hopefully it's the same for me then? I want to try all of the spells from your mom's notebook, Laura. If that's okay with you, of course," Chris said.
I looked at him encouragingly, but Sarah raised a palm. The color had drained from her face.
"Wait," she said. Her voice dropped even quieter, "Does this mean anyone could use magic if they just knew how?"
"Uhhh, maybe?" I said. "Perhaps we should keep a tighter lid on this than we have been."
The three of us at the table glanced around the cafeteria uneasily and we all jumped when the bell rang to dismiss lunch.
In Mr. Takahata's history class, I did my best to pay attention and take notes, but I could not resist taking an occasional glance at Dan. He appeared to be pretending that I did not exist. It irritated me, but I could not afford to fall even further behind in this disaster of a class. The longer I stared at the side of Dan's head the more likely he was to realize I was looking at him and yet I could not stop doing it. I just wanted him to accept me as his friend and have everything go back to normal. Or, at least, as normal as it could be.
Spanish and gym somehow both passed by me without any incidents. Even the pop quiz at the end of Spanish was no problem for me. I finished it long before the bell marked the end of both the class and the allotted quiz time. Tommy was again a no-show in my final class period; he must have received a full week-long suspension for attacking me.
As my last class slowly wound down, I had to repeatedly remind myself not to take the bus home. I walked into the locker room, and grabbed my bag from my locker. Normally I changed in a stall, but this time I decided to risk a quick shower, though I left my sports bra and underwear on. The rest of the class was long gone, so I was able to relax. It frustrated me that I was still so nervous about using the locker room when other people were around.
Other than Margaret, I wondered who else would be at the GSA club and what we would even do there. The buses had already left so I had no other quick way home from school than the ride that she had offered me. I made my way down the west hall to Miss Knight's classroom where the GSA club was held. The door was closed, and I stopped just outside. An anxious feeling slowly crawled up from the back of my mind until it overwhelmed me. I could not even move to push open the door.
"Get it together, Laura," I whispered under my breath. These people were not going to be like Tommy or Mark. They knew exactly what I had been through because they had already done all of this themselves. As I stood there pondering the door handle, I wondered if any of them were like me. I doubted anyone shared my origin of being brought into existence by a supernatural accident, but surely at least one of them had experienced a magical transformation. It seemed possible at least.
So far, I had followed Aurora's personal rule and avoided spreading the true nature of magic to the wider world. In the past she had been met with panic, fear, and threats of violence whenever her true nature was revealed. If anyone who had been paying attention to Lucas before last Friday examined me closely, it would be obvious to them that a significant change had occurred. And if they were already suspicious about the existence of the arcane, they might even figure out that I had been changed by it.
"Laura! You made it!" Margaret called out from somewhere behind me. I jumped a little in surprise.
"I was worried I was already late. Got stuck in my head for a minute," I said, turning to face her. As the brunette passed me to reach the door, it occurred to me that she was a few inches shorter than me. I could probably easily see the top of her head if I stood on my toes.
"No worries! We usually wait for a bit after the end of classes so everyone can get here without hustling," Margaret said reassuringly. She pushed open the door and held it for me while waving me inside.
I hesitated, but Margaret's big smile provided exactly the push I needed to take a few steps inside the room. As I entered, I noticed Miss Knight sitting at her desk. She seemed to be reading through a stack of student homework. She looked up and gave us a wave before returning to grading. Six desks had been placed in a circle in the center of the room and the rest had been pushed out of the way. Three of them were already occupied with chatting students. Margaret walked past me and dropped into one of the remaining open seats. I followed her lead and sat next to her, leaving an empty desk to my right.
"I think everyone's here!" Margaret announced. "We usually start the meeting with introductions. I'm Margaret and my pronouns are she, her."
After she finished, Margaret motioned to the person to her left and the remaining members of the club spoke in sequence.
"Mark. He. Him," said a boy who looked like he was a year or two younger than me. Despite sharing a name, he had no resemblance to the Senior bully from my homeroom. This Mark had long dark hair, nearly black like mine, and looked to be a bit taller than me with a sturdy build.
"Jade. She and her," said a girl I recognized from my own grade. Her bright teal hair had been very noticeable the few other times I had seen her, and I was glad to finally know her name.
"Alex. They slash Them," the third student said. This person had short dark brown hair styled into wide spikes along the front and top and wore a black shirt that bore a pin with the text: "They/Them" on it.
I was unfamiliar with the pronoun choice, but when no one else reacted to it, I gathered it was some third gender neutral option. They were either in Mark's grade or a sophomore, and their presentation was extremely androgynous. Part of me wanted to guess at their previous gender, but thinking about how I felt about my past selves quickly quashed that notion. Did Alex have as complex relationship with their past as I had?
Then the group turned to look at me, so I followed the pattern.
"Laura. She. Her," I said carefully. My eyes darted around the circle of faces, and I got a feeling that I should add something more, so I continued, "People used to call me Lucas, but I am not him."
Jade blanched at my words and my eyes quickly darted to the empty desk in front of me.
"Laura, don't worry, we're not like that here," Margaret said in a reassuring tone.
Her reaction confused me. What did she mean? Well, it was not like she would know I was created by magic. Maybe I should not have said that? I had not been exactly sure what the etiquette was for transgender people introducing themselves after all. I decided to ask.
"Oh, um, what should I have said?" I said carefully.
"Generally transgender people don't include their old names in their introduction. It was just a bit surprising, that's all," Margaret said.
"I am still pretty new to this I guess," I mumbled.
"You came out just this Monday, right?" Jade said. "You really riled up the whole senior class. They talked about you for like two whole days."
"Monday? Really?" Alex said surprised. "You look great, by the way, Laura."
"Thanks," I said as my eyes continued to bore holes in the desk in front of me. I felt way too awkward to look at any of their faces right now. Why were they complimenting me right after I said something weird? "I told all my teachers on Monday, and some of them announced it to the rest of the class."
I glanced at Miss Knight as I said this. She had been one of the teachers that treated my updated identity as serious business. She was still working on grading papers and did not seem to be paying attention to the group conversation. I was still not sure how I felt about being publicly unveiled; it mostly had not felt great in the moment, but at least it had gone better than when I had been asked to introduce myself in homeroom.
"Oh, I hope that went okay," Alex said with a note of sadness in their voice. "I wasn't really a fan of all the fanfare when I came out."
"Well, it was not very fun," I said and slowly moved my eyes up to Alex's face. "In homeroom one of the people in the class started calling me names. Then in gym three boys cornered me and I just barely got away." As I spoke my voice faltered a bit and I could feel tears coming into my eyes.
"I heard he got suspended for a week for attacking you," Mark said. "His friends were complaining about it the next day. I think they should all have gotten expelled."
"So, what exactly is the GSA?" I asked, trying to change the subject and push away the nascent tears. And I was still a bit curious about what the club I had been invited to actually did.
"Welcome to the Genders and Sexualities Alliance," Jade said with a flourish of her hands. "It used to be called Gay-Straight Alliance years ago, but that's a much older term and it got changed a while back to be more inclusive."
"I think Margaret mentioned the club's full name, but I'm not really clear on what it means," I said.
"We welcome lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, queer, straight, and other identities to the club to talk about their experiences and sometimes we do events to raise awareness. In general, it just acts as a safe place we can come to discuss our lives with other people we can trust," Margaret said with a smile.
"It's a cool place to hang out, basically," Mark said with a laugh.
"So, not all of you are transgender, right?" I mumbled as I worked out what Margaret had said. Then I bit my tongue, worrying that I had just made another big mistake.
"I'm transgender. Not all non-binary people identify as transgender, but I do," Alex said with a smile. I deduced that non-binary was the term for people who used 'they' and 'them' as pronouns. My brain was working overtime to figure out the terminology they all seemed to expect me to know already.
"Like I said, I am really new to all this. I am not sure what some of those mean," I said with worry leaking into my voice.
I took a second to collect myself and review that Margaret had said. There was a whole list of things she mentioned there and any one of those could apply to the people at this meeting. If nothing else, it had been a hint I missed that they were not all transgender like me. Except Alex. But they still confused me almost as much as the rest.
A quick detour into Lucas's memories gave me some answers for the definitions of lesbian, gay, and bisexual. Though it felt a bit confusing to me that lesbian specifically referred to women who were attracted to each other, but gay seemed like it could mean either attraction between two men or two women. There seemed to be some strange nuance that gay was usually reserved for men, but women could use it too sometimes. The definition of bisexual seemed straightforward enough: a person who was attracted to any gender. Though since non-binary people existed the prefix bi- felt a bit outmoded. There was clearly some sort of linguistic history going on here with these terms that felt a bit outside the scope of this club meeting. I wonder which, if any, of these terms applied to me...
"Laura, you're fine," Alex said, snapping me out of my meandering thoughts.
As Alex was reassuring me, the door to the classroom opened and a tall girl with long blonde hair and bright green eyes strode into the room and took a seat in the empty desk to my right. Her voice was a bit deeper than I expected and yet she spoke with an almost melodic quality, "Sorry I'm late everyone! I'm Elizabeth. She or her. Hope you didn't start the party without me."
"Oh, I thought you had volleyball today," Margaret said.
"Nah, that ended last week," Elizabeth said. She glanced at me with a big smile on her face and stuck out her right hand towards me. "You must be Laura! I heard you just came out on Monday. I hope that went okay; mine was kind of a trainwreck," she said as I cautiously shook her hand.
"When was that? I mean, when did you come out?" I asked nervously.
"Sophomore year," she replied. She must have seen the flash of confusion on my face because she added, "Last year. So, tell us!"
"It has been fine mostly, I guess," I said, not wanting to repeat my earlier coming out story. "Well, other than gym," I said warily.
"Oh, I'm so glad I'm done with gym for the year. I got it over with in first semester. I think Mr. Winters was always looking out for me. I have no idea how I would have made it without his help," she said easily.
Something about the way she talked about it made me feel better. Had I been overthinking the whole changing room situation?
"I always get so nervous in that locker room," I mumbled.
"Everyone just wants to change clothes and move on with their day. Sure, things were pretty awkward at first, but after a few days I wasn't the topical t-slur anymore, so people moved on to the next easy target," Elizabeth said with a sigh.
"Liz!" Alex, Margaret, and Jade all said at once. All of them, including Mark, were visibly cringing at what she had just said.
"What?" Elizabeth said, "I'm sure Laura's heard worse! I didn't even actually say it."
"Still, Liz, please try to keep a lid on it." Margaret said harshly. "We don't need that sort of language here, even if you mean it in a positive way. It really bothers some people so please be careful."
I had no idea what they were talking about, so I nodded along and continued the conversation.
"Maybe you are right, and it will be fine, but I am still way too scared to show my face. For now, I just change in a stall," I said meekly.
"Fuck that. Laura, you're a woman. You shouldn't need to do that." Elizabeth said it with so much conviction that my spiral of gloom broke.
"Thanks, Elizabeth," I said with a bit more energy behind my words.
"Also, incredible work on your voice by the way. I like it so much better than mine. You must have been practicing for like two years or something before you came out," she said with a big grin on her face.
I froze. What could I even say to that? I certainly was not going to say that magic had immediately gifted me with a voice that would apparently take years to train. I still had no idea how people changed genders conventionally. I resolved to scour the library for information as soon as I could. Sure, Elizabeth would know, but I doubted she would be comfortable with me asking her about it. Especially since it was stuff I was expected to already know. They were all going to think that Lucas had been slowly changing himself for years! I was going to have to make up a whole history for someone who had not even been transgender! My heart was suddenly pounding, and I had no idea why.
My mouth went dry as I scrambled for an excuse to change the subject. I finally landed on something that might work and blurted out, "Sorry to derail the entire meeting. I did not mean to make it all about me."
"No worries, Laura," Mark said. "These meetings generally don't have set topics. We sort of just talk about whatever." After a moment he picked up on the slight panic that must have been evident on my face. "How's your girlfriend, Jade?"
"Amber is very busy, unfortunately," Jade looked surprised at the question.
"Yeah, how come she's never at these meetings anymore?" Alex said. They had also picked up on my not-so-subtle request to move on.
"She's still going to that daily competitive cheerleading training. Even on Thursdays," Jade said with a bit of a sigh. "She's really upset that she's had to miss so many weeks of club."
I breathed a sigh of relief as the conversation shifted to lighthearted chatter that I could safely tune out.
I was glad the group had moved on. Maybe they thought they were being nice by trying to get to know me, but I did not enjoy being the center of attention, especially since I was basically lying to them about the way I became transgender and disrespecting my past self. I had become a woman just under a week ago instantly with the help of magic and skipped years of practicing and who knew what else. I was almost certain that if Elizabeth knew the truth, she would be incredibly jealous of me and hate me.
When this version of myself woke up my body had already been transformed. I had immediately known I was a woman and that I was not like Lucas. Was I even transgender if my mind matched my body from the first moment of my existence? What would have happened if Lucas and Aurora combined to make me before Aurora transformed Lucas's body? Would I have been actually transgender then? Did this mean I was lying to the people in this club about who I was? I slowly stood up from the desk and moved to the door.
"I need a second, I will be right back," I mumbled as a few tears rolled off my face. The conversation had continued without me while I was stuck within my own head. They let me go.
I pulled open the door and softly closed it behind me. I only made it a few steps before I slumped to the ground and leaned back against the hallway wall.
How could I talk about my unique situation without revealing the existence of magic? I did not want to lie to my new friends. Maybe I could get away with telling just Elizabeth? I could show her some ice magic and just tell the whole story to her. I had no idea how effective the conventional methods for transgender people were. What if she asked me to give her a magical transformation like I had gotten? The power that spell had taken was enormous. Assuming I figured out a way to store magic, I doubted that even a full year's supply would be enough. I had been so lucky that Chromos had stolen that massive reserve from the shades. The magical process that had caused my transformation had also been beyond both mine and Aurora's understanding. Her only guess was that it had something to do with the connection between humans and spirits and the way bonds required a close 'alignment' between their members. Tears slowly dripped down my face as I agonized over my next steps.
The door to the classroom opened slowly and the sound of the latch nearly made me jump. Elizabeth slowly emerged from the doorway and eased herself to the ground to sit next to me.
"Hey Laura," she said quietly.
"Hey Elizabeth," I said, forcing a smile.
"Did I do... Is this my fault? People always tell me that I come on a bit strong sometimes," she said. Her voice seemed to have lost all the liveliness she had shown earlier.
"No," I said and turned my tear-streaked face to look at her. I smiled genuinely this time. I was not upset with her, and I needed her to know that. "It was not you. This week has been a lot, and I think all that stress made me freeze up and doubt myself. What would you say if I told you I had not been trans in the past?"
"I think that's pretty common, Laura. I didn't know I was transgender until around puberty. Not everyone knows from the moment they're born, maybe some do, but it's not a requirement."
"The vocabulary is also still so new to me. I feel like I missed a big homework assignment," I said as I wiped my face with my hand.
"Don't worry about that. You'll pick it up pretty fast."
"My, uh, voice. I did not practice it. It just sounds like this," I said uneasily. "I really do not know much about being a girl. One of my friends helped me pick out clothes this weekend."
"Still, you must have been on HRT for a while before coming out," she said.
I just gave her a sad, lost expression and felt the tears returning for a second round.
"You know, the injections or blue and yellow—or white, I guess—pills you take," she said with a worried look on her face. When I said nothing, she added, "Hormone replacement therapy, medication."
"Oh," I said. "How long does that usually take to work?"
Her expression changed from worry to outright confusion, but she continued, "You can start seeing some small effects within months, but it can take up to one to two years to get started on the major effects. Breast growth and all that. And some of the long-term effects take even longer. You have to take it your whole life. Unless you want to experience the joys of menopause. I'd prefer to pass on that though."
"You saw me before, right?" I said worriedly.
"I mean, I don't generally pay that much attention to the Seniors unless one of them shares a club with me," Elizabeth said. "But you were a big topic of gossip, so I know you went from presenting as a hoodie-wearing 'guy' to full-on girl in a dress on Monday. You're, uh, killing it by the way," she laughed and gave me a big smile. Her voice was starting to slide back to the cool and confident one I had heard in the club. She stood up and held out her hand.
"Huh?" I looked up at her in confusion.
"C'mon back to the club, Laura," Elizabeth said, stretching her arm even closer to me. "I'll make sure to keep the focus on the rest of them or myself. Just think of it as a time to relax and have fun."
I wiped the remaining tears from my face and gingerly took her hand. She took a firm hold on my wrist and easily pulled me upright as soon as I began getting up.
"Ready?" she asked with a grin.
"Yeah, I think so," I replied.
She examined my face closely for a moment and then turned away, opened the door, and ushered me inside. What had she been looking so intently at my face for? I shook it off and rejoined the group with a wave as I sat down.
They were talking about a movie that at least a few of them had seen. It sounded interesting and I considered asking Sarah, Chris and Dan to watch it with me later. As the topics flowed, I resolved to enjoy the conversation without any more overthinking. I was so glad to be finally making some new friends.