We sped down the road in the Ted the Blue Beetle, a beloved moniker that I had bestowed upon Elle’s car much to her frustration. She always said that her car was a girl, but she never was really able to come up with a better name so Ted stuck. Besides Ted can be a girl’s name! Short for Theodora, I looked it up. Baby names and gender neutral nicknames were fun to check out. I feel like people definitely researched the names that they would have been given if they were born as the opposite gender. Or at least they knew what was popular. I probably would have been a Hannah or a Samantha. Not that I've given it a lot of thought, it's just something that stuck with me. 

The radio seemed to be permanently set to NPR, so we spent the majority of the ride in silence. It was nice to listen to them talk politics and how the world seemed to be burning down around us. And by nice I mean every minute that went by made me want to drive to the radio station and smack the microphones out of their twee little hands. We were getting close to her place when the silence between the two of us was getting just a little too much for me.

“Elle.”

“Hmm.”

“I didn’t really get a chance to say this back at the house because I was a slight bit of an emotional wreck, but thanks for your help.” I gave her my attempt at a smile, which probably looked quite dire. But I was trying at least. That had to count for something.

She gave me a slight smile while still keeping her eyes on the road. “Oh come on. It’s no problem. I think being your escape plan is literally the least I could do right now.”

“Well it means a lot, dummy. I’ve just been turning one thing over in my head again and again. What made you believe me? I mean, it has to be a lot to take in right? This woman appears out of nowhere and claims she’s your friend?”

After a second of tapping her steering wheel, Elle brushed some of her hair out of her eyes and said “Do you want my honest answer or do you want to feel better?”

What was that even supposed to mean? Did she specifically handpick the option that would lead to the most stress? Thanks a lot Elle. “Oh boy, well both sound so appealing. I guess what I’m worried about is kinda getting my life back in order? I’m going to have to do this again with, well everyone else that I know right? So hook me up with the honest truth, doc.”

“Well to be fair, it was the whole rant.”

“What really?”

“Yeah nobody can smash together an old detective and expletives quite like you, Andy. Besides the fact that it was coming from someone who looked completely different, I could just close my eyes and imagine it was you going on the whole spiel. I mean you have to look at it from an outsider’s point of view. You’re asking for someone to dump every rational notion that they hold about the world overnight. I mean I don’t even completely believe you still. And I want to! It’s not like I’m watching your every move and waiting for you to screw up. It’s just. . . Well the way you are right now it raises so many other questions.”

She had a point there. I scratched the back of my head for a moment. Wait, was my hair softer? It feels softer. I honestly have been trying to stay away from exploring how my body felt but I had to file that away for later. “Yeah I guess. Like are there wizards.”

“Exactly! A secret society hiding our noses. Laughing at all the normals! Do you think that all the goths are wizards or something? That would be my guess”

I put on the fakest British accent I could muster “Yer a wizahrd Elle. Here’s an owl and a gift card to Hot Topic.” We both laughed for a little bit, and I have to admit it felt good to joke around about it. “But seriously, you’ve brought up an extremely good point. If there are wizards and societies of said wizards, then there could be someone I could go to to change me back. Someone who can read this or will know how to fix everything without ripping apart the very fabric of the universe.”

“Well yeah but how would you know that someone is legit or not? We can’t just put up a Craigslist ad saying “need a wizard. No voodoo allowed.”

“Magical racist.”

“What? Voodoo weirds me out. It’s all chicken bones and blood sacrifices.” Elle stuck out her tongue and made little bleh noises.

“You know the West’s bastardization of the Vodun religion is actually this drastic misinterpretation about what it is all about and what it-” She held up a finger and put it right up to my lips.

“Stop, stop. Now I know you are definitely Andy. Not only do you rant like him, but you also love going on dumb tangents about anything vaguely supernatural.” I laughed again as the car came to a stop in her apartment complex. It was always a little fancier than mine and I was always jealous that they had a pretty nice pool. Really though, swimming in this body was the last thought on my mind at the moment. Although it was still really hot out. Damn southern summertime. 

I realized that Elle had started talking again and snapped out of my haze. “Okay so here’s the plan. We get in there and drop your stuff off. Find something that can vaguely fit you and then all the chicken and/or waffles we can eat. This shouldn’t be too hard except. . . oh.”

“What’s an oh? Why would you say an oh?”

She pointed a few parking spaces over. “It looks like my roommate is home. I thought she was working later tonight. Well, the balls in your court Andy. I know you haven’t really gotten a chance to meet Zoey yet since she’s usually really busy, but do you think you’re actually ready to, y’know, interact with people right now?”

At this point my stomach was actively growling. I had a serious matter to consider. Going in there and meeting Elle’s roommate and probably being extremely awkward. Or not getting food. 

For about five seconds it was a hard internal struggle. But then my hunger reminded me that I was goddamn starving. It’s weird, I really wasn’t that hungry about 30 minutes ago, but now my body was absolutely famished. Did the magic use my body’s energy to spur the transformation? Another thing to add to the list. The science of gender swapping, maybe after all this was over I could write a nice coffee table book about it. Or maybe master the technique and help a lot of trans people who actually need a transformation like this unlike me. Ugh, now I feel guilty. Like I stole some life saving magic from some poor trans college student. I’m sorry! I sighed and shrugged. “I guess if I’m going to crash at your place I’m going to have to meet your roommate eventually, right?”

“I guess. Then there’s something that I’ve been wanting to ask you this whole car ride. What are you going to introduce yourself as?”

“Huh?”

“Well. . . I mean I know you’re thinking about all these big questions with identity and all that, but you sort of need a name. Which is kind of cool. Most people don’t really have a chance to reinvent themselves. What’s your mom’s name again?”

“Carolina, but there’s no way in hell I’m naming myself after my mom.”

She shrugged and turned off the car. “Why not? I mean your mom is pretty cool.”

“For a mom, yeah I guess. Sometimes she goes all Southern Christian on people I guess. Like 90% of the time she’s cool but. . . Anyway nothing against her but I really don’t want to share names with family members. I mean I didn’t wanna be named after my dad when I looked like a guy. I just don’t really feel like being parent 2.0, y’know. And besides, can you imagine how weird that would be for her? Hey mom, the son that you know and love is gone but check it out I’m young you!”

“I’ve seen pictures of your parents getting married. Your hair would be way poofier if you were a young version of her.”

“Alright, touche,” she was right and I knew it. At the same time though I was having a bit of a hard time thinking up any good names. Especially ones that seemed to really fit me.

“What about extended family. Any cool aunts or grandparents that you could name yourself after? I mean, I know it is odd to pick a name from family members but it could also help smooth the transition over with your folks a bit. Make it easier in the long run, ya know?”

I shook my head again. “Ugh the problem with that is all of my extended female relatives had names that haven’t been in widespread use since we had a vaccine for polio. Dolores, Agnes, I actually think I had a great aunt Leonora. Why is this so complicated? Can’t I just stick with Andy?”

“Welllll. You can’t really be Andrew, but I think Andi works.”

“Yeah that’s what I said.”

She waved her hands around and continued. “No, no, Andi with an i.”

“How could you tell I wasn’t saying Andi with an i? It’s not like it was written out or anything. I could have been saying it with an i and you had no idea.” I paused a moment and thought about it. This could actually work. “What is it short for anyway?”

It was her turn to think. “I think Andrea? I mean it doesn’t really matter unless you need to get it legally changed. Not like you went by Andrew at all. The only person who called you that was. . .” She made a little “eep” noise and quickly covered her mouth with her hand.

“It’s okay. We can say Mulder’s name. And. . . I think it’ll work. I mean, with everything about me changing gotta hold onto something right? Ehh? Shit I meant that to be more of a joke and it sounded sadder than I wanted it to be.”

“Andi, you know it’s okay to be sad right?”

“Well yeah but-”

“I mean your situation has changed, yeah, but when you joke like that it feels to me more like you are trying to deflect your feelings about the whole situation.”

“Spider-Man jokes all the time,” I huffed.

“Yeah but he’s a fictional charac- Look why don’t we just get some clothes alright? We can talk about this later.” Or never. Let’s not turn this into a little mini-therapy session, thank you very much. With that we both got out of the car. Fortunately her apartment was on the first floor pretty close to where we parked so I didn’t have to scandalize any other old ladies with my wardrobe choice.

I think I had been inside Elle’s apartment a small handful of times before. My personal philosophy is once you’ve been inside one college student’s apartment you have been inside them all. Upon entering the apartment you find yourself right smack dab in the living room. The “entertainment area is right to your right featuring the standard tired floral patterned couch and television. You can tell that a lot of the furniture in the place were borrowed from relatives or refugees from the thrift store. But that’s okay, that was pretty much my apartment as well. Or at least…. was.

Once you made your way through the living room you find yourself in the kitchen. Filled with the obligatory mishmash of two different people’s specific cooking tools. But really what always impressed me was their liquor collection. Usually most college kids just collected their various bottles of the strong stuff on top of their fridge or shoved into the freezer. For Elle, she and her roommate apparently went to a thrift store and splurged on this retro 50’s bar set that they made into a prominent feature in their house. The different shapes and sizes and well unknown flavor of these liquors (like seriously what the hell is malört) were both intimidating and seriously impressive. 

I had done my best to help fill up their shelves. I knew that Elle liked her gin and so of course there was a nice looking bottle from a local distillery that I had gotten her when she finally turned 21. To be fair, I’m not much of a gin guy… girl… person? But it had good reviews online and the bottle looked neat so I’m sure it was great. It made sense as well that both Elle and her roommate had decided to make a swanky booze corner that would make even the most martini’d out 50’s executive jealous. Her roomie was a bartender, with apparently a knack for making up drinks on the fly. I know this because I had been promising to meet her for months now and yet our schedules just never seemed to match up.

It wasn’t for want of trying at least! I hadn’t heard anything but nice things about the gal. From what I had heard about Elle’s roommate they got along well, and respected each other's space. They didn’t drink from each other’s booze and the main area was all kept neat and tidy, which was a plus. Oh yeah, they also didn’t cast magical curses on each other which I didn’t think would be such a good thing for roommate cohesion but it turns out you learn something new every day!

When we went in, her roomie’s door was closed (thankfully) so I guess she was just hanging out in her own room. But that could change at any moment. She could hear us moving around and pop open the door to say hey. And here I was, just chilling right in front of the liquor like some kind of detail obsessed moron.

“Well come on, hurry up.” Elle beckoned me into her room.. I decided to let her wait a little bit and leisurely strolled into her room, trying to downplay my own sense of eternal panic. The first thing that I saw was there was an abundance of stuffed animals. Her dresser and desk looked like the final days of some sort of Beanie Baby Bacchanalia. Elle was busy rummaging around in her closet, so I spent some time looking at all the animals, mostly little stuffed birds and pigs. I picked up one particularly large shark that she had on her bed.

“Huh. I didn’t figure you to be the stuffed toy kinda gal?”

She stuck her head out of her closet. “Oh those? Yeah when I was a little kid I was all about the stuffed animals. So when I moved out of my parent’s place they told me I had to take them with me or they were taking them all to the dump. And there’s no way I could have lived knowing they were rotting in the landfill. It’s sort of like a comfort food, you know? Didn’t I tell you the story about what happened when I was in elementary school?”

“No. I don’t think so?”

“Alright,” she rummaged around her desk looking for one and eventually pulled out a worn out looking fuzzy penguin. The thing had definitely seen its share of tough love over the years. One of the wings was definitely just being held together by a single straining thread. “When I was a kid I was doing something stupid on the playground. I went up to the top of this big jungle gym structure and woosh! Jumped right off.”

“Oh yeah this is how you broke your arm. By being a huge idiot” I vaguely recognized the story, she had probably told it to me in high school or something.

“Yeah! Well I mean I was like 7 or something. I think kids are allowed to be big idiots. But anyway, I’m freaking out. Have to go to the hospital, because duh I did something idiotic and hurt myself. Then when I come back home sitting on the bed waiting for me is this fuzzy penguin and a get well balloon. And Percy has been with me ever since!”

“You named your penguin Percy? What’s this guy’s name?” I brandished the shark in her face.

“That’s Mr. Shark. What can I say, not all of the names are winners. Now stop distracting me and just wait a second. I need to see if I have to make sure I have clothes that actually fit you.” 

Part of me expected her to be embarrassed about having all these stuffed animals just out in the open. I mean, when I was a kid I used to have a ton. Hell, when I went to bed I was basically buried alive in plush pets. 

She went back into the closet. Rather than snooping around some more I threw Mr. Shark up and down for a little while until she finally came out with a small pile of clothes.

“Alright so I’m a bit taller than you,” she said, dropping the pile on her bed.

“No need to rub it in,” I grumbled.

“Not trying to, dummy. What I’m saying is these clothes are going to be a little bit of an awkward fit. Also your measurements are like, completely off from mine so we will have to make do with what we’ve got and hope it all fits.” I blushed and looked at her. Yes she was definitely larger than me in the bust department.

“Umm yeah, fits. Right. Thanks.”

“You know we’re probably going to have to get you some things that definitely fit tomorrow. Because all of my bras are too big and I know whatever shorts I give you are gonna be a tight fit.”

“I get it, I get it! Please just give me the clothes!” And I thought I was blushing before, I could feel myself flushing a shade of deep crimson. She picked up the clothes again and flung them my way with a big smile on her face. Of course she would enjoy seeing me squirm. I made sure nothing slipped out of the bundle of clothes and made my way into Elle’s bathroom to change.

I put the clothes on the sink so I could get a good look at what I had to deal with. Fortunately for my psyche, she had decided to just find the most normal clothes she had for me. Well, normal for Elle anyway. I picked up the white t-shirt. It seemed a little big for me, but as long as I wasn’t swimming in it like I was for my Mountain Goats shirt that would be completely fine with me. I looked at the front and there was a cartoon cat on it and it said “meow wow.” I have no idea what that is supposed to mean but at least it wasn’t anything too weird. I would like to have the least amount of attention on my chest as possible thank you very much. . . Which speaking of chest. I guess this is the moment of truth.

I looked at myself in the mirror. This was Andi. As of this moment, until we can get everything sorted out with the book this is the body that I’m inhabiting. If I spend the whole time like I am, walking on eggshells and getting nervous about how people think I look or how weird the sensation is then I am going to be a frazzled wreck. I mean I’m probably going to get extremely embarrassed regardless of the situation, but in that moment I made the decision that I’d rather be comfortable with my self image and embarrassed than just 100 percent uncomfortable. 

Which yeah of course that’s easier said than done. We can all promise ourselves that we won’t let something bother us. But the fact that we decided that it was important enough to make the pledge that something wasn’t going to bother us, well. It obviously bothers you to begin with or else you wouldn’t be saying something like that. A real catch 22. And all I can do is just think in circles and I’m thinking in circles because there’s a cute girl in the mirror and she’s about to take her top off and that girl is me and I need to take my top off because I can’t live a long and fulfilling life with this curse if I try to ignore my newfound boobs as much as possible. WHEW. With that thought in mind, I took a deep breath and whipped my shirt off.

Staring back at me in the mirror was a topless woman. It sort of drove home again just how small I was now. I looked around momentarily for a scale, but Elle didn’t have one. Thanks a lot Elle, all having positive notions about your body and not having a need to constantly hold yourself up to society’s standards for women. I probably dropped like sixty pounds or something, but I’d never know because SOMEONE never bought a scale because they’re happy with how they look. Weird. The movement of tugging off my shirt had been definitely different than it had about 24 hours before. The feeling was odd but I guess not entirely unpleasant. I put my hands on the counter and just sort of stared at myself. I looked down and saw that my nipples were a bit larger than they had been. I mean not absolutely huge, but they looked fine in proportion with my breasts. 

My breasts. MY breasts. Borat voice "myyyy breasts." Yeah that would still take a while to get used to. Now is however not the time to get obsessed with boobs, there would be plenty of time later. And I mean I have nothing against boobs. They're fantastic, it's just up until then they had primarily been fantastic on other people.

I had to remind myself why I was getting dressed. Fried chicken. Fluffy waffles. Syrup. I repeated this over and over in my head so I wouldn’t explore much further. I put on the goofy cat shirt and immediately realized, dang this is much softer than what I was just wearing. I didn’t realize how scratchy and unpleasant my mountain goats shirt was on my nips until I had something else. Thanks cat shirt.

Time to move on to the rest of the clothes. It seems like she grabbed me a green pair of athletic shorts. That worked with me, whatever it took to actually wear something that covered myself again. Along with that was a green pair of panties. Does anyone actually call them panties anymore? Like, usually I only saw them referred to that in like manga.

I sighed. It’s not that I have anything against the idea of women’s underwear. In fact judging from my teenage fantasies I would have to say the idea of women in women’s underwear is quite wonderful. Everything just sort of changes when you are the woman in the underwear. 

Was I going to be someone's fantasy? Please let it be a cute girl. Please. But again, magically I have been transmogrified into a woman and I definitely wanted to have something to wear underneath those shorts.

There really was no time like the present, after taking another deep breath I slowly slid the briefs that I had been wearing down my legs. They were my favorite pair too, light blue with a pattern of raindrops and umbrellas. Mustering up my courage I looked down to see my new reality. Well, I tried, mostly I got a partial repeat viewing of my new chest. Sighing I leaned forward to actually see what I was dealing with. Mostly all I saw was a patch of brown pubic hair. I had mentally prepared myself for some great shift or some terror, when really all I saw was just. . .well myself. That was it. I know there were all sorts of complicated issues going on beyond that area, but for now I just wanted to get over seeing my vagina. 

There. 

I saw it. 

Great. Transaction complete. I think my mind can process one thing at a time. I know eventually I'm going to have to explore this new reality. And it's not healthy to put this off together, but maybe dinner first will let me be a little bit more rational.

I grabbed the green undies and put them on one leg at a time, sliding them up my hairless legs. Wait, hairless legs? Why was this more of a shock than the vagina? Was this a permanent thing, or did the spell just happen to shave my legs when it changed my gender. Which I mean thanks I guess spell, way to follow traditional ideals of how women should take care of their bodies. 

Why didn’t I notice this before? Why was I noticing all of these small details now. I gently ran my hands up my calves and thighs and found myself shivering a little bit. Alright that felt. . . nice, and it felt way more sensitive than it used to. In fact everything about myself was more sensitive than I had been. It was like there was a filter on my body and my emotions and they were just stripped away leaving me to face the elements raw and alone. 

Trying to distract myself from this realization, I looked back at myself wearing the underwear. They were a little tight, and obviously flat at the front. I turned around and looked at myself from behind. I don't even know what kind of underwear this is? They did make my full hips look. . . well it looked really good. I noticed that my butt wasn’t that big, but for my frame it looked a little larger than normal. All in all, cute. I looked cute and I was… okay?? With that? I can just be okay with that right? This doesn’t have to be some sort of struggle where I pretend I’m not okay with looking cute because I’ve been uncute (hell even bordering on ugly) for 21 years of my life so I think I’m just enjoying the novelty.

Tugging the shorts on was a bit of a tight fit but overall fine. The kind of fit where it looked okay from a casual observer’s point of view, but wearing it I could tell they dug into my hips just a little bit. I looked back in the mirror and saw. . . Well actually, I saw a nervous looking pretty young woman staring back at me. I smiled, and she smiled back. I stuck my tongue out at her and she followed suit. After staring for a little bit I realized I actually kind of liked the me staring back. I could get used to the cute button nose. While my shaggy hair had previously seemed like an afterthought I loved the way that I framed my smaller face. The sly way the woman in the mirror smiled or grimaced when she got embarrassed, well it was nice. 

“We’re going to have to get to know each other a little bit better.” I whispered at her. Yeah yeah, cheesy. But it felt appropriate. It was that or flip the fuck out and I've already done more than enough of that for these past few hours. 

I was just gathering up my discarded clothing when there was a loud knock, which obviously scared the crap out of me. Elle was developing quite a knack for knowing just the right moment to freak me out. “Come on it can’t be that hard to put on clothes!!”

“Alright, alright. I’m coming.” I shouted back, rolling my eyes at her impatience. If she had been zonked into a dude I’m sure she would take just as long. Or maybe she’s just assuming that I spent the hour waiting for her just going to town on my tits. I mean, I get it. That’s what like, a normal guy would do in this situation. I mean I am a normal guy. Or… was. At least.

I took a deep breath and shoved all of those thoughts aside. Did I take my anxiety pill this morning? No, shush. Again. What did I just say? Shoving thoughts aside. This was it. My big reveal. I pushed my way out of the bathroom, awaiting whatever judgement I’d get from Elle.

She gave me a once over, smiled and nodded. “Why I might not know any magic myself, but I think I’m quite the wizard. The outfit looks great. Nobody will be able to tell its just some random crap from my closet.” That was it? I spent some time building up in my head this big grand fashion judgement and all I got was this anticlimactic pronunciation?

I rolled my eyes. “Oh gee thank you so much for the random crap.” Forget her nonsense then, I was honestly pretty pleased with myself. I could do this. I could pull this off. Nobody would know that like two hours ago I had a completely different set of chromosomes. Not that that matters or anything. Just. Well I feel like everyone would know I’m totes faking.

“One last thing,” Elle said and went back in her closet. She came out with what looked like some smaller pairs of sandals than the ones that I wore over. “I kept worrying with your new tiny feet that you were going to trip and smash your face on the way here. I know these are sort of old but they’ll fit you better and look a little nicer.” I looked at the sandals, and they definitely looked a little nicer than the cheap flip flops that I had worn to death for about two years. They were the strappy kind that I had seen women wear in the past, but had always looked sort of uncomfortable.

“Do I really need to wear those?”

“Oh come on, it’s either that or lose a few teeth after you fall flat on your face.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I fell today.”

“Oh yeah? What happened? Pre or post transformation?”

“Post. I slipped on my shorts trying to answer the door.”

“Ha! I wondered why you answered the door like that. I just figured your cousin had looser morals.”

“Why that is quite the insult to my family.” I said, making a grand sweeping gesture placing a hand on my chest where my heart was. I drew my hand back almost immediately when I realized that I just groped myself while trying to look serious. Which of course Elle found even funnier. "Besides I feel like the giant shirt could have passed for like. . . a dress or something." Just then a head popped in through the open door.

“Hey, what’s so funny in here?” I could only assume it was Elle’s unknown roommate. At the moment her face was obscured by long curly tresses of auburn hair. But her voice, it was spoken with the kind of confidence and ease that most people practiced their whole life to perfect. This was the kind of voice that could talk their way onto any guest list in the world by sheer moxie alone.

“Oh hey Zoey. I was wondering if you were ever going to come out of your room. I thought you had work tonight?”

“Nah my shift got canceled so instead of hanging out at the bar, I thought I would just come home and relax instead. I was pretty surprised when I didn’t see you hanging out here. I thought you would be shooting people with your geeky friends or something.” Zoey strode into the room, pushing the hair out from her eyes. All I could think was, oh God no. . . She’s cute. More than cute, absolutely stunning. 

She was about as tall as Elle was, but while Elle had more rounded curves Zoey had a lithe angular nature about her. Her thin smile held a hint of mystery, something that I’m positive that I will never figure out. She plopped down next to Elle and turned and pointed in my direction. “And here I thought I might have to send my dear sweet roommate to the nuthouse for talking to herself. Who’s your friend, E?”

“Zoey, this is Andi. We go way way back. Andi, may I introduce you to my roommate and partner in crime Zoey. She works as a bartender at Sweet Tooth’s downtown. You know the combination bakery/bar that I talk about all the time. Well Zoey makes the most kickass mixed drinks in the world. She is definitely responsible for some nights that I don’t really remember. Well besides the fact that they tasted amazing.”

“All it takes is knowing just the right ratios of booze so that it comes together to form a singular flavor and not just one thing overpowering everything else." Zoey scoffed like making mixed drinks that didn't taste like you were stuck in frat party hell was the simplest thing in the world. Like I said, effortless cool. Was I sweating? I felt like I was sweating. 

"Anyone could do it. What about you Andi, are you a fan of mixed drinks?” The way she said it it almost sounded like a challenge. Of course the real struggle was trying to think of something to say. A beautiful woman who is amazing at cocktails has just put me on the spot, so play it cool Andy.

“Uh. Yeah. Drinking, I uh, I enjoy it a lot. I like beer and. . alcohol. Alcohol is great. I love losing control of my body. From drinks. Which is what people do. With drinking. For fun.” Nailed it. Now she totally knows how much of a cool winner I was. I expected her to ask Elle if I was brain damaged or something but instead she simply smiled. Maybe I have a concussion from falling on the floor. Maybe this is all some sort of brain damage fever dream?

“Well I guess I’ll have to test some recipes on you sometime. What do you think? Do you think you'd be able to rise to the occasion?" Zoey smiled as she said this, cocking her head to the side to judge my reaction in a predatory manner.

I blushed, and tried not to seem completely desperate. “Yes! Definitely! I mean, if you’d like to. I would definitely be into doing that. With you. It sounds like fun.” I wanted to hide my face completely. Why was I letting her get to me so much? I was getting flustered just looking at her. The butterflies in my stomach had butterflies in their stomach and it made me feel like a complete idiot. And I also felt a little fuzzy warmth that wasn’t just the anxiety, but some new feeling entirely that I have absolutely no way to process at this moment. Crap. I was floundering. Having trouble trying to say something, anything really.

Elle seemed to notice me squirming and swooped in to my rescue. “Yeah Andi had a little fight with her roommate and some of her clothes don’t really fit any more. I know I didn’t really ask, but is it cool with you if she crashes her for a little bit while she gets her affairs in order?” Oh thank God Elle to the rescue. I hadn’t even thought about trying to tell her why I was here or wearing weird barely fitting clothes.

“Oh that’s terrible. I’m sorry that you had to go through all that Andi.” Zoey’s face morphed from a sly smile to a look of complete compassion. “Stay here as long as you need. If you need any help finding clothes or really with anything, just let me know, all right.”

I squeaked out a small “thanks I really appreciate that.” Well at least I can make complete sentences. My brain isn’t completely worthless yet.

Elle looked at me, and looked at Zoey and once again I saw that wicked smile cross her face. “You know Z, we were about to go to Honeygirls Chicken and Waffles. Have you ever been.”

Zoey thought for a second. “I can’t really say I have.”

“Oh,” I interjected, “oh you should try it it’s really great. If you haven’t had chicken and waffles before the chicken is super crispy and they drizzle honey on it and the waffles and it’s like the perfect combination of sort of savory and sweet. And then if you add a little hot sauce it takes everything to a whole new level. I know people think it’s like, kind of weird. But it’s a perfect southern comfort food and they also have like, faux chicken if you’re a vegetarian or something and even that’s pretty good I tried it one time because I was curious and um well I think that there’s a lot of judgement about like chicken and waffles but most of it is like unfounded you know.” Oh God. Now you can say something brain. Maybe she won't notice that the thing I'm most comfortable talking about is deep fried poultry.

Zoey chuckled, “wow she can actually say more than bizarre fragmented sentences. I’m impressed” Crap she noticed.

I tried to play it kind of cool after going off on a small food rant. “I guess I’m a regular Guy Fieri.”

“So would you like to come with us for dinner?" Elle's eyes gleamed as she casually dropped the invitation. "It would be nice for you to get to know Andi better.” Elle’s Cheshire grin never left her face during my entire exchange with Zoey, of course, this is what she was scheming. Opposed to completely dying of awkwardness in front of her roommate, I started tugging on her shirt trying to signal to her to stop this train wreck before it started.

Zoey’s eyes lit up at the suggestion. “That does sound like a lot of fun. And if it’s half as good as Andi makes it out to be, it definitely sounds like a spot worth going to. I'll freshen up and get ready to go." And with one swift movement, Zoey removed herself from her perch on the couch and went back to her side of the apartment.

Elle waited until Zoey left the room and whispered in my ear. “By the way, we definitely need to get you a bra tomorrow.”

“Wait, what?” I looked down and I could obviously see my nipples trying their hardest to break through the cat shirt. “Oh my God. How long have they been like this.” I crossed my arms across my chest in a desperate attempt to hide them.

“Like, as soon as she walked into the room,”

“Oh God. Oh God. This is the worst. This is the absolute worst.”

“Eh, it’s not that bad. They could be larger.”

“That’s not what I meant. She must think I’m some sort of deviant sex fiend or something.”

Elle let out a muffled cough that could have been a laugh. Could have. “Oh I don't know if you'll need to worry about that with her. And come on, let’s look on the bright side.”

“And that is?”

“I mean she’s coming to eat dinner with us, so you probably don’t absolutely repulse her. Besides you were bound to meet her eventually. And also knowing what kind of girl is your type, she was bound to turn you on eventually too. Isn’t it nice to know that you are all biologically working? We do have the ac blast right now since it’s pretty warm outside for September, so that’s definitely a factor too.”

“Ughhhhhh, again this is the worst.”

Elle made a pouting face and started speaking to me like I was some child one step away from having a tantrum. “Aww cheer up Andi. At least we solved the riddle of your orientation.”

I huffed, not really helping my image of a child one step away from a breakdown. “Thank you Edward Nygma, but I don’t really think that was necessarily your riddle to solve.”

“Who?”She gave me the face she normally reserved for when I made references that she didn’t understand. A combination of befuddlement and frustration. Mostly frustration.

“Edward Nygma. You know. The Riddler. From Batman. He, uh, riddles.”

“The guy who gives riddles name is E. Nygma. That’s absolutely terrible. You’re terrible.”

“Well it got the conversation away from my tits.”

“Fair enough. Fair enough. Edward Nygma." She said the name one more time, like she was rolling around on her tongue trying to get a good taste of it. "What kind of hack name is that, seriously?”

“No idea. But I think we’ve wasted enough time with all this nonsense. Can we please just go and leave all this behind us.”

“Why certainly. Lead the way Scully!” And so I slipped on the sandals and met Zoey in the living room. She had her wavy locks pulled back into an efficient ponytail and was just finishing tying her shoes. I looked at her casually sitting on the couch like an empress and immediately felt that flush of nerves again. I could do this. All I had to do was survive dinner without making too much of a fool of myself and also somehow simultaneously make it so Zoey would want to hang out with me in the future. But not appear as if I was too desperate to be her friend or even creep her out because deep down I’m just a weird dude. I was doomed.