The matter with Dylan settled, and the matter with myself settled, I decided there wasn’t much of a point in sticking around in the middle of some park. I stood from the bench and made my way back to the bus stop and waited for a ride home. It was strange, since really nothing had actually changed about me, but I was in so much better of a mood. Possibly the best mood I’d been in for ages, and that’s including at the times over the past couple of weeks where I got to experience living like this. I just got to stay this way, forever, and be Heather and do all the shit I’d wanted to do without pretending anymore. And that was fucking cool. I couldn’t wait to tell Penny; she’d probably be so surprised that we both turned out to be girls. I mean come on, what are the odds?
I considered calling her, but decided it might be more fun for us to talk face to face. Also, wait, if I were staying this way that meant I could go out with Rachel again but this time for real! Though, that also left the matter of our “prank,” namely how it kind of didn’t exist anymore. Which was a shame, I mean, the first was in a few days, there was no way Penny and I were going to come up with a prank as good as the original in time, so we weren’t going to be able to get back at Will and Rachel for setting the two of us up on a fake date last year. There was also the matter of whether or not we were going to reveal the initial prank, which kind of felt like the honest thing to do, and that would be awkward. But oh well, it was obviously worth it in the end.
Luckily for me, I didn’t have to wait too long before my bus arrived; I hopped on and rode home without incident. The whole ordeal had taken a few hours, and when I got back I found Penny had returned from wherever she and Will had been. I knew because her and Will’s shoes were back in their place by the door; also because she and Will were cuddling on the couch, but hey, it was a fifty/fifty effort. Standing in the entrance hall, Penny turned to see me, our eyes met, and I had to repress this sudden little bad feeling at the sight of her cuddled up against Will. Not that there was anything wrong with Will; I should have been happy for them, but like, the sight of them together just didn’t make me feel very good, it made me feel lonely. She turned and stood from the couch. “Heather!” she called, slipping out of Will’s grasp. “You’re back! Where did you go? I was looking for you and I had tried calling you and god, I was so worried about you!” She rushed over to me and pulled me into a tight hug. Something about doing this when I knew we actually were both girls sent a whole other wave of feeling coursing through me.
“I, uh, yeah. I’m back. And, um, sorry? I had this kind of crisis thing and I needed to go be alone so I did that but now I’m back and, um—”
“We need to talk,” Penny and I said simultaneously. Wait, why did Penny want to talk? Oh yeah, she’d wanted to discuss something else just before I hung up on her.
“I—”
“Oh well—”
“You go first?” I offered, awkwardly glancing past her toward Will, who seemed to be causally observing. We’d definitely need privacy for my talk, but maybe whatever Penny wanted to talk about was less secret. Honestly any guess was as good as mine.
She shook her head lightly. “Not right here, why don’t we head back to your room and have a chat?” She cast her eyes down the hall and I nodded, leading the way.
“We’ll be back in a bit!” Penny called over her shoulder to Will; who just gave a friendly wave. Entering my room, I directed her to the bed, and we took a seat across from one another. “So…” she mused.
“What did you want to talk about?” I asked.
After an awkward pause of Penny seeming to try her best to find the right words, she responded, “Listen, after everything that’s been going on, me realizing stuff about who I am. I think you really need to consider the possibility that you’re trans too.”
“Wait, what?” I raised my eyebrows in surprise; this was what she wanted to talk about? And I mean, yeah, she was right, but how did she know?
“Heather, this whole time you’ve been super excited to be a girl and all that, and the more I think about it and look into it, the more I realize that wanting those sort of things isn’t a thing guys do. Especially after a, um, fairly enlightening conversation with Will.” She blushed prettily, the burning in her cheeks highlighting all her best features. Gosh, Will sure was a lucky guy.
“I see. Well, listen, I’m kind of one step ahead of you. I actually kind of just came to that conclusion myself, though I did have a bit of help, I guess.” I shrugged, thinking back to my odd encounter with the veritable human Greek statue who was Dylan.
“What do you mean, you had help?” she asked.
“Oh, I met that wizard guy. The one who gave you the transformation serum. Nice guy, though he seemed to be pretty frustrated about something. I was doing a pretty good job of explaining the reasons why I couldn’t be trans before he finally convinced me though, so maybe he was just annoyed at how easily I was able to counter his arguments. Still, he was right in the end,” I mused.
Nodding, Penny replied, “Yeah that kind of makes sense, I can’t imagine having to debate with someone as smart as you. Having to listen to you expertly dismantle all of my arguments all while simultaneously knowing deep down that I was actually correct sounds really frustrating.”
“By the way, what are we doing to do about the prank now? I mean, since it’s not actually a prank anymore, we should probably come clean, right?” I asked.
Penny huffed, clearly not particularly thrilled about the prospect of admitting something so awkward. “I guess we probably should, yeah. Let’s maybe wait til after the first though, just to avoid them thinking there are any like layers of prank, you know?”
“Makes sense, yeah. Oh, by the way, I didn’t tell you, but Rachel and I might be a thing! I’ll have to check with her now that I’ve got myself figured out, but last night we kind of, um, did stuff.” Just thinking about last night’s events flustered me. And oh, shit, wait, I would get to experience that whenever I wanted, and as a girl too. How fucking awesome was that?
“I’m guessing you’re stuff?” Penny yanked me right out of my musings and back into the cold, harsh reality of being incredibly easy to fluster. I squeaked, and nodded weakly. “How fun! We should do double dates sometime!” The thought of having to go on a double date with Penny and Will kind of left me feeling a bit unsettled in that same way I’d felt before. I just didn’t like the idea of someone else taking priority over me in her life maybe? Which sounded kind of gross and possessive, but I couldn't really explain it as anything else. She was my best friend, after all, of course I wanted to spend as much time as possible close to her. Also she was really hot, and if she were dating Will we couldn’t do the whole two bros totally platonically making out thing. Actually, wait, since we were both girls that wouldn’t work anymore either. In that case, whatever the girl version of two bros totally platonically making out was. Two gal pals totally platonically making out maybe? That sounded right to me. Wait, I’d completely gotten off track.
“Um, double dates are good?” I offered weakly.
“Right! But I guess you’ll need to resolve things with Rach’ first, actually, she seemed a little down today. Maybe it’s related, but I’m pretty sure she’s home. You should go talk to her.” Ah, shit, I hope I hadn’t upset her too much. She acted pretty cool and all, but I did still kind of reject her, didn’t I?
“Crap, I should probably do that now then, huh?”
“Yeah, probably,” Penny replied, awkwardly kicking her legs and twiddling her thumbs as an uncomfortable silence set over the two of us. I cleared my throat softly; she jerked her head up to meet my gaze expectantly, then when I didn’t say anything she went back to just kind of hanging out. I gave her a pointed look, and realization suddenly dawned on her, “Oh, right, I should go then, huh?” She winced a little, growing red in the face, then hunched her shoulders before scurrying out of the room without another word. With Penny gone, I took a few minutes to calm down and get my thoughts in order. What was I going to actually say to Rachel, even? ‘Hey yeah, so it turns out I just needed half a day or so to think stuff over and then that was it now I’ve done a complete one-eighty and I’m totally good and I want to date you’ sounded pretty ridiculous, but that was pretty much the truth of the matter. Perhaps playing it by ear was the call here; if I thought about it too much, I’d just psych myself out. At that, I stood, and walked down the hall to Rachel’s room, and gave her door a few solid knocks.
A grunt, the squeak of bedsprings, and a few footsteps later, her door handle turned, and I came face to face with that gorgeous face. Oh gosh, she did actually look kind of upset, apprehensive and maybe a bit preoccupied, not like properly torn up, but hardly walking on air. Seeing that it was me at her door seemed to perk her up a little, though. “Heather, what’s up?” she asked.
“I wanted to talk, do you think I could come in?” I replied.
“Sure.” She pulled back her door and ushered me in, settling down in her swivel chair as I crossed the room to her bed and plopped right back down where I’d started my day.
“So what’s up?” she asked apprehensively, “I assume this is about this morning?”
The thing about playing things by ear is that it sounds like a great idea in the moment you decide to do it in place of doing the hard work of properly planning. It rarely actually worked quite as well as one would hope in the moment, though. And so I found myself sitting on Rachel’s bed, feeling the burning intensity of her gaze, even when she probably had no intention of having such an effect on me, completely drawing a blank. As such I decided to, once again, just say the first thing that popped into my head and hope for the best. “Hey yeah, so it turns out I just needed half a day or so to think stuff over and then that was it, now I’ve done a complete one-eighty and I’m totally good and I want to date you.” Welp, dang. Despite how utterly baffling that reply sounded both in my head and out loud, however, Rachel broke into a big smile.
“Just like that?” she asked.
“Just like that,” I confirmed. With that, she rushed across the room and took my hands in hers as she curled up next to me.
“Part of me feels like I should ask way more questions about this, but frankly I’m just too happy about it to care,” she giggled, and pulled me in close as I nestled into her neck.
“I’m sorry if I got you worked up over all this.” I sheepishly traced my fingers along her arm.
“It’s alright, like I said, this stuff isn’t easy to figure out. Anyway, how about I take you out tomorrow night? Make sure you wear something nice, I want to show you off. Not too nice, though, I’ll want quick and easy access later.” She flashed a trademark cocky, flirtation grin, and I withered beneath her look.
“Um, y-yeah. I’d like that, but uh…” I trailed off.
“What is it?”
“Well, um, if you want, you can also have easy access to me right now?” With that, there didn’t seem to be a need to waste more breath on words, because Rachel was immediately upon me.
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Just a couple more big hurdles! But they're both big girls now and can figure it out
Yeah that kind of makes sense, I can’t imagine having to debate with someone as smart as you. Having to listen to you expertly dismantle all of my arguments all while simultaneously knowing deep down that I was actually correct sounds really frustrating.
Sounds like an accurate sum-up of the previous chapter
God, I love this story, but I really want to slap Penny and her smugness. Even if she landed at the right conclusion about herself in the end, thinking she went back from that conversation thinking she was the smart person with the right arguments in that discussion just makes me want to punch myself out of frustration
But we'll see. Maybe she'll learn some humbleness one day
It feels so nice when everything is coming together.