I heard my alarm going off what felt like an hour earlier than it should. I grabbed my phone and saw that it was going off at 5:45am, just like it was supposed to. Why did it feel so early, then?

I put the thought out of my mind and just turned my lamp on, then sat up. Thursday meant no football practice, which was good, since I'd probably be benched again anyway. It also meant I could get my article done. Sure, the part due today was already finished and I had a whole month left for part 2, but getting it done on time would actually be a big change for me.

I took my shower, dried off, brushed my hair… Everything I normally did, and yet something seemed off. I couldn't put my finger on it as I pulled my panties back on and went back to my bedroom.

After throwing a shirt on, I sat down at my desk and got back to work coloring the pages Grant sent to me last night. The page in question had Brenda pleading with her best friend about… Something. Honestly, I couldn’t remember, as I’d written that page weeks ago. I’d get around to remembering it when I got to the lettering.

I looked at some of the past pages and saw I'd constantly given Brenda darker colored clothes, kind like Laurie actually wore, but for some reason, that just seemed wrong now. When it came time to color her next days’ outfit, I'd make sure she wore some more colorful clothes. She wasn't an emo, or anything like that.

An hour or so into coloring, I heard my phone buzz. A second alarm? I didn’t remember setting it. Why would I only get up an hour before the bus came, anyway? But there it was, clear as day, an alarm set for seven o’clock. Weird. I wondered why I would have set it at all. Unless…

I got up and walked across the hallway to Laurie’s room, and sure enough, she was still asleep. She was clad only in her bra and boxers. “Hey, get up!”

She flipped onto her side, her back to me. “Go away, Ashley.”

I hated it when she called me that. Yeah, it was my name, and it was unisex, but it still sounded stupid. “C’mon, it’s seven.”

“Don’t care, get the hell outta my room.”

Dad just happened to be walking past as I was arguing with her. “Laurie, get your ass up now.”

She groaned, then sat up. “Fine, Jesus…” She looked over at me. “I see you’re dressed.”

I folded my arms across my chest. Yeah, I was standing there in just my panties and a shirt, but it’s not like it would take me forever to get dressed. Only like twenty minutes to both pick out my outfit and put it all on, and I was about to go do that. “Hey, I had to wake you up.”

She flipped me the bird. “Whatever. Just get outta my room.”

I just walked back to my room and set to work getting dressed.

Later…

Grant was already working on whatever page he was on when I got on the bus. It was always impressive to me how he focused on his work on the comic. The world around him was nothing compared to his art.

So, naturally, I dropped my bag on his head.

“What the hell?” he almost shouted through laughter.

“You were dead to the world again, man, had to knock you out of it.”

“Still.” He threw my bag back at me as I took my seat next to him. Did… Why did he smell different today? Was he wearing aftershave? “How goes the writing?” he asked.

I pulled out my notebook. “Almost done with this chapter, just gotta figure out the right ending.”

“What about… You were telling me about that lesbian thing you wanted to do.”

“Yeah, that girl based on Kat.”

“We haven’t introduced her yet, so how about we end the chapter with her introduction? That way Brenda has this character who never met her as a boy, but is super interested in her anyway.”

I liked that idea, honestly. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

“So, we have her…” he trailed off. “Um, whadda we have her do?”

I shrugged. “Uh, I think I had Brenda shopping for a swim suit, so having New Girl come in and admire her is a way to have her flatter and creep Brenda out.”

He nodded, an excited look on his face. “Yeah, and we'll make sure her friends aren't around for extra conflict.”

I jotted down our plans on the margin of my notebook. This was what I loved most about doing this webcomic, just the two of us hashing out ideas and plots. It made this whole thing fun, exciting even. We'd been friends forever, but working together on this thing was just great.

That urge I'd felt last night, to kiss him. I felt it again, for some reason. I wondered why I was feeling anything like this. I'd never considered that kind of thing before, so why was it running through my mind now?

Most important of all, would he mind?

What was wrong with me?

Later…

“Alright, everyone, I want you to put your pencils on your desks,” Mr. Krenzler said as he walked into the classroom. “You’ve all done that? Good.” He slammed his briefcase down on his desk. “Now I want you to put your notebooks on your desks.” Everybody followed his instructions. This was Creative Writing class, so it’s not like we didn’t have our notebooks on our desks anyway.

Benji Schneider asked, “Are we going to be tested on this?” I was sitting beside him and I wanted to smack him. Most everybody else just laughed.

Mr. Krenzler shook his head. “Not to worry, Ben, there will be no test today. There will be a challenge to you all, however. I want you to pick someone in this classroom and I want you to create a character inspired by them.” He smirked as he leaned back against his desk. “And for added challenge, I want you to pick a classmate of the opposite gender.”

I looked around at everybody else. Most everybody was annoyed at the idea of picking somebody of the opposite gender. Most likely, everybody was just gonna pick the person closest to them. Though, honestly, they still could. We were seated boy-girl-boy-girl.

Mr. Krenzler continued: “You have two weeks, and every class up until then is dedicated to this challenge, as well as whatever curriculum we have on the docket. However much you get written is of no importance, only the creativity, the wonder, the range of your story. It can be anything you like, as well, no judgments will be made for genre, so long as you keep it school appropriate.” There were many giggles from around the room, my own among them. As if any of us would do anything… Like he was insinuating. “You have fifteen minutes to pick someone, and then the writing begins!”

I looked around the room and tried to decide who to base my fictional character on. It wasn’t easy to pick, I was pretty much friends with everybody in the room. I was fairly certain I could easily mimic their personalities, and my descriptions were good enough for Grant to draw people exactly the way I wrote them, so that wasn’t a worry. I just didn’t know who to use.

That was when an idea hit me. Nowhere did Mr. Krenzler say we couldn’t pick two people, and he said we wouldn’t be judged on the genre we wrote in. I was already writing a TG webcomic, maybe a prose TG story would be just as easy to do. And since the comic was male-to-female, I could do female-to-male for the story. Sure, it’s technically not the “opposite gender” stipulation, since I was writing both, but at least the final character would be opposite of me.

Besides, it’d be fun to do a TG story for school credit. Be nice practice for my future writing career.

The girl the character would start out as would be… Tracy McMaster. Though I tolerated her, we weren’t exactly friends, because she was a bitchy cheerleader. Having a character based on her, all prissy and uptight, turned into a guy would be hilarious irony. Now to pick the guy… Benji was a stand-up kind of guy, though a little awkward. Turning the popular girl into an anxious mess would actually be a pretty good way to then have her/him break out of their shell and become a better person, maybe even more friendly.

I quickly opened my notebook and started jotting down notes, mainly about the before and after for the main character. I was starting to like this idea the more I thought about it.

“And the first one to get started is Flash,” Mr. Krenzler said with a hint of amusement in his voice. “This one’s got a career ahead of them.”

I felt myself smile at that.

Later…

I had no idea why, but changing in front of the other guys in gym class seemed… Weird to me that day. I didn’t understand it at all, but it’s not like anybody thought I was weird for deciding to change in a restroom stall. I wasn’t even the only one who did, as Charlie did the same thing, but he always did.

I slipped my gym shorts on over my panties, with this weird feeling like I was wearing the wrong shorts, but I knew I wasn’t. It was an easy feeling to ignore, though. I pulled my gym shirt over my head. My chest was kinda itchy for some reason. I'd need to deal with that eventually, somehow. Maybe… I dunno. I'd look it up online later.

I laced up my gym shoes and then mussed up my hair a little. I liked looking like I'd already had a workout before class started, made it look like I took class more seriously. Charlie did the same thing, but that was so that he didn't need to work as hard, or however the fuck he justified it. Charlie was a little more normal than Wheeler, but more of a goof than Grant.

“Dude, can you believe it?” Charlie asked as we both left our stalls.

“Generally, yeah, I believe a lot of things that don't sound like total bullshit.” I chucked some chewing gum in my mouth. “What ‘it’ is this, Charlie?”

“Swimming starts tomorrow, man. Girls! In bikinis!”

He had a good point. Until last year, girls had to either wear one piece bathing suits or cover up with a shirt. Last year, however, the gym coaches got tired of telling the girls to cover up, so the rule was tossed out. I remembered Laurie cheering, since she refused to buy a one piece she'd only wear for a week while she wore her regular bikini whenever we went to the beach.

The idea of bikinis during swim class this year was enticing. I was almost excited.

“Now that you mention it, that is something to look forward to. Who are you looking forward to the most?”

He scratched at his chin as if lost in thought. “Hmm… Amber Forsythe would look perfect in one. Maybe a nice blue one, since she wears light blue clothes most of the time.”

I nodded. “Yeah, she’d be great to look at. What about Kristie Deckard?”

His eyes lit up. He’d had a crush on Kristie since puberty set in. “Oh, man… I’d have a woody immediately, man. I’m having trouble keeping one down just thinking about her.”

I laughed. It wasn’t uncommon for us to talk about this kind of stuff, but for some reason, it seemed… Different. I couldn’t put my finger on what was so odd about our discussion. Maybe I was just thinking about other things. It wouldn’t be a surprise to me if I was thinking of either the webcomic or the story for Creative Writing instead of thinking about pretty girls.

Except that I didn’t think I was. I just thought I was, for whatever reason, uncomfortable with talking about other girls like that.

I didn’t know. I just pushed it to the side and tried to think about what kind of bikini I’d wear for swim class. Did I even have any? Maybe I should worry about that after school.

Charlie and I followed everybody else out into the gym, where Coach Brandt blew his whistle and shouted, “Alright, you limp dicks, get in your spots!” He meant our assigned “seating”, which was just a place on the gymnasium floor we were given for our warm-up exercises.

We were separated with boys on one side of the gym, closest to our locker room, and girls on the other side of the gym. For some weird reason, I felt like I was on the wrong side of the gym, like I should be sitting with the other girls. I wasn't sure why I felt this, but I worked hard to put it out of my mind as we did the warm-up stuff.

At least, I tried to. I couldn't quite get the idea that something was wrong out of my head, like I was in the wrong place, or… Or even the wrong person. I couldn't quite peg what was wrong about me or anything else, but the feeling refused to go away.

What the hell was up with me today?

Later…

“Not today, Flash,” Coach said when I got out onto the field, in my gear.

“C’mon, Coach, I’m losing my edge! Lemme play today.” I sounded somewhat like a pleading child, but at the same time, goddamnit, I needed to play.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “You’ve got what you need, but these SISSIES! can’t seem to get what they need. So, instead, I’ve got a little work for you to do.”

I sighed. “Fine. Whaddya need?”

He smirked. “Remember when I had you checking out recordings of the last game the other day? I need ya to go back over them one last time, make sure you didn't miss anything. Last call on new plays is today, that way we can get them in for tomorrow.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Take Grant with you, he's still in the shit from whatever he had yesterday.”

I nodded again. Good. Grant and I could work on those plays and get some work in on the webcomic. I'd even explain my plans for that Creative Writing story. He'd love it. Plus, just spending some time with him would be great to me. Just the two of us.

I called Grant over from the field and he hurried over. A quick explanation and he was ready to go. Wheeler was looking at us kinda funny as we left the field.

We took our gear off in the locker room, changing back into our regular street clothes. As I stood there in just my shirt and panties, I caught him taking peeks at me. “What?” I asked.

He blushed. “Oh, uh… Nothin’, man.” He then turned to face away from me. “Yellow looks pretty on you, by the way,” he said so quickly I wasn't really sure he said it.

Pretty? Me? I felt myself blush.

Later…

I crashed on my bed and breathed a sigh of relief at being home after such a weird day. The weirdest thing about it being that I really couldn't tell what was weird about the day. Everything was completely normal, but nothing was normal at all.

I heard my phone buzz. A text, or a game notification, or something. I reached into my back pocket and pulled the phone out. A text, it seemed.

From Grant.

I felt myself blush, for whatever reason. He wasn't in the room, he couldn't see me. He was my best friend, why was I so… So nervous about this? We texted each other all the damn time. What the hell was wrong with me?

hey got 3 more pgs done he texted. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was almost worried it would be something else.

send em over & ill get to coloring I sent back.

u busy tmrw nite? he asked.

Why did he ask that? What was… What was he going to ask if I said I wasn't busy? What the hell was going through my head right now?

I shook my head, needed to drive away the crazy or the stupid or the whatever the hell. no I responded.

wanna c a movie?

I felt my heart racing for some reason. A movie? The two of us? What was even playing? sure I answered.

I agreed to go to the movies with a guy. With my best friend. This wasn’t something new, but it felt so very different now that it was crazy. Why the hell did I feel like something had changed between us when everything was exactly the same? What was so wrong with me?

An hour or two later, after some coloring and some writing and then brushing my teeth, I slipped into my nightie and dropped onto my bed. I stared at the ceiling in the dark for a long time, not sure what had really happened. For whatever reason, going to the movies with a guy I’d gone to the movies with a hundred times before was suddenly different than it ever had been. This was nothing new, and it was completely new.

I felt my dick stirring in my panties, signaling that I was aroused. Aroused! Aroused by going to the movies with Grant! What was wrong with me? Why was this such a big deal?

My chest started to itch again, so I let my hand move away from my cock and scratched at my chest. There, something to take my mind off of Grant for a little while…

But only a little while.

I reached for my phone on my night stand, tapped the calendar app and set a reminder for “Movies with Grant” on tomorrow night. I even left a little heart emoji beside Grant’s name. This was a big deal. I may not know why, but I knew it was, and I had to treat it like it was.

I was going to the movies with a guy, and that was huge.