I walked into Kristie's room and asked, “Can I borrow your phone for a little while?”

She was reading a book on her bed. She liked to do that. “What's wrong with yours?”

“Charging. I just need to send Bianca a text.”

She jerked her thumb at her phone on the night stand. I grabbed it, tapped on Contacts, then on Bianca Sharpe, then the text icon. I left a message that said I've got a cold, can't hang out tonight. See you tomorrow. Bianca always made fun of me for not using “text speak”, but I just couldn't. It looked stupid, like people are always in a hurry.

“Why couldn't you do that on your phone again?” Kristie asked.

“I told you, it's charging.”

“I can send texts when mine's charging.”

“I turn mine off to charge it. The charge lasts longer.”

She sighed. “Whatever.”

I cleared her phone back to the home screen. I saw an app I didn't recognize. It wasn't named, it just had a red lipstick logo on a black square. “What's this?”

“You realize I'm not looking at the phone, right?”

“It some sort of makeup app?”

She had a confused look on her face. “I don't need a makeup app, what the hell are you – ” she trailed off.

I was curious. If it was just a simple makeup app, I could goof around and make myself look like a girl for a minute or two before giving her back her phone. I tapped the app and the phone –

– flew from my hand! I couldn't believe what I was seeing: the phone was just floating in mid-air, facing away from me. Kristie jumped from her bed but didn't go near the phone.

“Why'd you open that up?!” she screamed.

“What?!”

The flash from the camera blinded me for a second. Had it always been that bright? I rubbed the after image of the room out of my eyes and blinked a couple times. My eyes were full of water thanks to that flash. The phone landed on Kristie's bed a moment later, almost as if it hadn't been floating in the air in the first place.

Kristie stood there, staring at me. Her eyes were wide as saucers, something I hadn't seen since we were kids. She wouldn't take her eyes off of me, which was outrageously concerning. “What are you looking at?” I asked, and then I clamped a hand over my mouth.

That was not my voice.

I moved my hand a little and sort of whispered, “What are you looking at?”

She grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me in the direction of her closet door mirror. The sight I took in was breathtaking.

The girl resembled Kristie only insofar as it was obvious they were sisters. Kristie had the same dark red hair our dad had, while mine and this girl's were a mix between that and our mom's chestnut brown. The girl's eyes were the same hazel that mine were, while Kristie's were bright green. Kristie had a deep tan from sunbathing every afternoon after school while the girl had paler skin, more like our mom. Her cheeks were dotted with freckles, much like mine were, and she had the same thin scar splitting her right eyebrow that I had, though her eyebrows were thin and arched, whereas mine had been bushy.

I had been wearing a bright red tee shirt with a hole close to my belly button and a pair of cargo shorts. The girl was wearing a bright red tank top with a hole near her belly button and a pair of Daisy Duke shorts that showed off every inch of her legs.

For some reason, the fact that the girl in the mirror wasn't some stranger but was in fact me had yet to fully hit home. I couldn't believe I was looking at this girl who could very much be the sister Kristie and I never had. She looked just as confused as I was, which made sense, considering she was me.

From downstairs, Mom shouted, “Kristie! Emily! Dinner!”

I asked Kristie, “Who's Emily?” That voice again surprised me. Granted, I'd only heard it two and a half times.

She groaned. “That's you, dummy.”

“What?”

“Good job, you just changed your whole life.”

I repeated, “What?”

She sighed. “Look, you stay up here, I'll go downstairs and get our food, okay?”

I nodded.

Five minutes later, she'd walked back into the room carrying a plate of spaghetti and handed it to me. I was still too mesmerized by the girl in the mirror to do anything. “Eat up,” Kristie said, “you already look bulimic as it is. I'm going to assume Emily doesn't eat as much as Eric did.”

“What?” was repeated a third time.

Kristie sighed again. “Look, you found something I should have deleted a long time ago. You found the Miss App.”

I know I misheard her. “I found the what what?”

“The Miss App. It's something a friend of mine showed me when I was really down and about to jump off the bridge a couple blocks away.”

Kristie had almost committed suicide?! “Whaddya mean? Since when have you ever been that low?”

She set her plate down and stood back up. “You don't remember it.” It wasn't a question. “That's what the Miss App does. It rewrites reality.”

I couldn't be hearing that. “That's impossible.”

“Yeah, I said that a few weeks ago when my friend Allie showed it to me. But it's real, and it's worked its magic on you now.” She quickly forked some spaghetti into her mouth. “Now, I need to help you acclimate.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Eat.”

“Answer the question.”

“Eat the food, and I'll answer the question.”

I sighed. “Fine.” I sat down at her vanity and started eating.

“Like I said, the Miss App rewrites reality. As far as the world outside of you, me and my friend Allie are concerned, Eric never existed and Emily always has. Mom and Dad don't remember Eric at all, but Emily has been their second daughter since the day you were born.” She took a bite of her spaghetti. “Just like when I changed from Christopher to Kristie.”

I stopped eating. “What?”

“See? You don't remember when I was your older brother, do you?”

“You've never been my older brother.”

“And here you sit having just gone through the same thing. I told you, reality is different. You don't remember me as your brother because I used the Miss App, just like nobody outside this room will remember Eric. And judging by the pictures I saw when I went downstairs, you're the girly sister.”

I pointed at my torn shirt. “I'm the girly one? I look like the tomboy sister.”

“And I bet if you go look at your closet, you'll find the rest of your clothes are absolutely perfect and mostly pink. The Miss App just feminizes the clothes you're wearing for the initial change. Mom probably thinks you keep that shirt for sentimental reasons, or something. Kinda like that leather jacket that everybody thinks my 'boyfriend' left me.”

Come to think of it, that explanation had always confused me. “So, if they all think I've always been Emily, does that mean they'll notice if I start acting different?”

“Did you notice when it was me?”

“No.”

“Exactly. You are one hundred percent exactly the same, except you've got female parts and a female life.” She picked bits off of a piece of bread and ate them individually. “You're gonna find out that some of the guys who used to just be friends with you may have been your boyfriends, and girlfriends you had will probably still be girlfriends, but in the female sense, as in your closest friends.” She picked up her phone. “That text you sent to Bianca probably didn't change words, but the meaning behind them is different now.”

“But does it really count when you changed? I didn't even know you were a guy until today!”

“That's my point. Nobody but me knows you were a guy, they'll just see the same Emily they know and love. And your body is already used to your new mannerisms and such. Hence you're sitting pretty ladylike right now.”

I looked down and finally noticed that I was sitting awfully ladylike, with my legs together and my feet crossed at the ankles. I hadn't even done it intentionally, it was like... Like a reflex action. Had everything about me changed? I still remembered being a guy, but for some reason, sitting like one felt wrong.

“I know what you're thinking,” Kristie said, breaking me out of my sorta trance. “You're trying to remember how it felt to sit with your legs spread and no fear of somebody taking it as an invitation, right?”

“I...” I was probably blushing. “How'd you know?”

“I did the same thing when I changed. I tried to do all my male mannerisms but they were just wrong to me. Being female was what I wanted, and it was all I could be, even though I still had male memories.”

“So, the only person who's gonna think this is all weird is me?”

“Pretty much.”

I hugged my legs to my chest. “Why did you even have that?!”

She slid across her bed to sit closer to me. “I told you, I was on the verge of suicide. I was a girl living in a guy's body, and it was tearing me up. I knew Mom and Dad would never accept it if I wanted to go through surgeries and treatments and all of that. I told Allie about it and that was when she showed me the Miss App. I didn't believe it at first, but then she used it.”

“She turned herself into a girl?”

Kristie rolled her eyes. “No. She used it on me. Suddenly, I'd become exactly what I wanted to be. Having actual magic used on you about thirty seconds after you've been told about it kinda makes you a believer automatically, y'know?”

I couldn't fault that. I hadn't even been told about magic, it had just happened. “So, wait, why did the app need to be on your phone?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I honestly don't know. Allie just grabbed my phone and installed it, and then I was female – it was a very quick six minutes of my life, I'm not gonna lie.”

“And why are any of my male friends going to be potential ex-boyfriends now?”

“It's just what the Miss App does. If you're straight when you use it, you're straight after the change. If you're gay when you use it, you're gay after the change. Believe me, I had no interest in guys before my change, and now I've dated three since the change. You keep your orientation, just not specifically the gender you were originally attracted to.”

“That's weird.”

“Yeah. Just be happy you didn't have sex prior to the change, otherwise you'd have to go through life wondering which one of your male friends knows more about your new anatomy than you do.”

I could tell I was blushing again. “The very idea of that concerns me.” I uncurled my legs. “Okay, so I'm the girly sister, nobody remembers Eric and some of my guy friends could be ex-boyfriends.”

“That about sums it up.”

I pointed at her. “I don't like this.”

She nodded. “I understand that, but you're gonna havta get used to it.”

“Why don't you just call Allie up and ask her to change me back?”

She rubbed at the back of her neck. “Well... There's a problem there.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What kind of problem?”

“Well... Allie's sorta back home, dealing with her own problems. Plus, she can't change you back. She explicitly told me it was a one-way trip. Once I made the change, I had to accept the change.”

“Yeah, but you wanted it, you said. I didn't want this, couldn't there be some sort of reversal for idiots like me who did it accidentally?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Allie did tell me that she could make a different spell that could do the same thing, as in change you to the opposite gender, but you'd then be a male version of what you are now, not the guy you used to be.”

I coughed out a laugh. “Great. So I can either be the new me or a different new me.”

“Hey, there's nothing wrong with the new you. You're already acclimated to your new gender, it shouldn't take too long to get used to your new life; this is seriously the best option.”

“For you, maybe.”

She sighed. “I'll help you through this, don't worry.”

“You're probably happy about this, aren't you? Now that there's three women in the house means Dad's the only one leaving the seat up in the bathroom.”

She laughed. “Yeah, because that's the only thing that's good about having a little sister. Actually, you and I have more things to worry about now. We're relatively the same size, so our underwear is gonna get confused in the laundry, not to mention our clothes. I'm gonna havta teach you about periods and other feminine health worries without Mom asking us what's going on. We've got plenty of headaches coming to both of us now that you're my little sister.”

I hadn't thought about any of that. Even if my body knew how to put a bra on, I'd never really done it before. I'd never really worn a skirt, or a dress, or anything feminine. I wouldn't necessarily have to wear that sort of stuff, even if I was the girly one. Girly girls didn't only wear skirts or anything like that. And though the new me had had periods before in her life, I didn't have any memory of it, and the idea of pads or tampons was completely alien to me.

At first, I was just annoyed that this had happened at all; now I was outright scared of how I would actually live my new life.

I started to feel tears well up in my eyes, and instantly, Kristie was there, putting her arms around me. “Hey, hey, it's okay. We'll get through this together.”

“But...” I sounded like a little girl. Granted, it was my first girl cry.

“No buts. Remember, you've got a big sister who used to be a big brother. I've been through this. The circumstances are a tiny bit different, but the outcome's gonna be the same.”

I wiped at the tears. “I'm not... totally accepting of all this. I didn't have any problems being a guy.”

“Does it really hurt that you're a girl now?”

I shook my head. “No.” I gently brushed her arms off of me. The hug was nice, but I was a little better now. “But re-meeting my friends is gonna be weird.”

“I know. But just be the person you naturally are. You'll be fine.”

I sighed, then rapidly nodded my head. “Who I naturally am. Yep.”

“See? You're getting the hang of it.”

I wiped the last of the tears away. “But... Okay, I never had sex with anybody, but Stacy Turner let me fondle her.”

“The same Stacy Turner whose brother Kevin is your best friend?”

I nodded.

“Well, congrats, you've probably given him a handjob.”

“What?!”