“Angel… do I really have to wear an outfit like this?” Blake holds out her arms and frowns. She’s wearing an untucked polo shirt above a pair of cargo shorts. The collar is popped and a pair of sunglasses I’ve given her rest on the top of her head. Her feet are in some tan sandals. You know, the kind you see surfers wear in California and stuff.

“Yeah! That’s like, a really classic college guy look that girls fall for all the time!” I exclaim happily with a nod. “You see dudes in fraternities wear stuff like that and they’re always bragging about how many chicks they’re nailing!”

“But, it’s so… masculine,” Blake whines with a shudder.

“I know, but I got you a pink one! Pink’s a girly color, ya know? Doesn’t that make it more bearable?”

Blake’s look of unamusement is really the only reply she needs to give me there. I sigh and scratch my head. “Okay, okay, fine. Maybe we can think of something else.”

“Why don’t you just dress me up in the kinds of clothes you wear when you’re looking to ask a girl out? I’d feel a lot more comfortable mimicking you than some random beer-guzzling frat guy.” I blush as Blake starts to strip out of those clothes and quickly turn around to give her privacy. She notices and asks, “Why’d you turn around like that? I’m just changing clothes.”

“Y-yeah, but, you know… you’re a girl. You can’t just get naked like that in front of boys like me, ya know?”

I hear the ruffle of Blake putting on her shirt stop mid-motion. “Oh,” she replies, “I, um… I guess I didn’t think about that.” The soft slink of her slipping her shirt the rest of the way down lightly echoes in the room. “Sorry...”

I nod. “It’s okay. You only realized you were a girl literally yesterday, after all.”

Blake murmurs quietly in agreement. “Yeah… But also, I dunno. We’re friends and… I just don’t feel as self conscious around you like I do with the boys at school. You’ve accepted me as a girl so quickly and, unlike when I’m in the locker room before gym class, I don’t feel like I have to pretend or measure up to something in front of you.”

I smile bashfully at the praise. “Thanks, Blake. I’m glad I make you feel more comfortable with yourself.” 

“Me too. You can turn around now!” 

Looking at Blake, I see she’s changed into one of my outfits now. Just a simple gray tee with some dark blue jeans and a pair of Converse sneakers. She's also grabbed a red jacket to wear alongside it, although all of the clothes look a bit big on her considering our height difference. Just a real casual, relaxed outfit that I like to wear sometimes. I smile. Of course she’d be more comfortable in “male” clothes like that. “Not bad. I think I can see more of the sort of style you wanna go for, at least while you’re still in the closet here.”

Blake blushes and twirls some of her long hair around her finger. “Yeah, I mean, I’d really like to try out a dress sometime. Or maybe a cute blouse and a skirt. But not while I still look like this. After I get the curse to activate I 100% will, though.”

I give her a thumbs up and grin. “Sounds good to me, girl! Now, the next thing to do is work on your moves.”

“My moves?”

“Yeah, you know. How you approach another girl and try to get her interested in going out with you.”

“Oh, right. Well, normally I’m really scared of coming across as creepy or predatory, so I usually just kind of watch and observe. I try to find a, um, a good moment to come in and say something.”

“Okay… How long does that normally take?”

Blake shuffles her feet and avoids eye contact with me. “A, um… a c-couple weeks, usually.”

I sigh and run my hand through my hair. “Yeah, that’s way too long. You’re gonna have to work faster than that if you wanna transform before the school year’s up.”

“I know, I know!” Blake moans, holding her arms. “Even just the thought of going the next four months like this is enough to make me want to cry. I want more than anything to finish high school as the real me! But I’m just… I’m so scared and I have no idea what to say to girls!” 

I place my hand on Blake’s shoulder and give it a comforting squeeze. “Hey, don’t worry! I’m here and I’m gonna help you out, okay?” I pull up my computer chair in front of Blake and plop backwards onto the seat, crossing my ankles underneath the chair. “How about you try practicing on me! We can work on your body language and help build up your confidence.”

Blake rubs a couple tears out of her eyes and nods. “Okay, yeah, that sounds good.” She lowers her arms to her sides and takes a deep breath, unclenching her muscles and trying to relax her posture.

“Let’s start with something simple,” I start, leaning back in the chair a little, “Let’s say I’m some girl in class that you think looks cute and you want to get to know better. What do you do?”

“I-I, um,” Blake stutters, pivoting a little on the balls of her feet, “I-I walk over and ask you, um, h-how’s your day going?”

I take a quick breath, then hop into character. “Hey Blake~! I’m doing alright so far. Not looking forward to that test we have in chemistry later though. Ugh!” I reply, doing my best imitation of the ways girls in our class talk to each other that I’ve picked up on from observing them over the years.

Blake blinks, looking a bit surprised. “W-wow, you’re pretty good at that! U-um, let’s see… Y-yeah, I feel you on that Angel...a! Angela! Mr. Montgomery always comes up with such hard tests, d-doesn’t he?”

I nod in agreement and smile. “God, he really does! It’s like he gets off on our suffering or something, jeez…”

Blake giggles at my joke for a second, but then catches herself and quickly covers her mouth in embarrassment. “Oops. I shouldn’t, um, giggle like that if I’m trying to pick up girls probably…” I can’t help myself but laugh at that. God, Blake is just so cute sometimes. How did I not notice how feminine she was before?

“Probably. Although… as much as I say you wanna seem manly, that’s kind of against the whole point of this, right?” 

“Yeah, that’s true.” Blake looks at the ground and hugs her chest. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to get a girl, though, if I act like one.” 

I lean back in my chair and think. Asking Blake to act less like a girl feels wrong. Real wrong. But what kind of girls would be into her if she was acting like a girl too? Ugh. This is hard. 

“Well… some girls are into sensitive guys, right? And like, you’ll kind of appear like that, at least for now. Maybe we should lean into that approach?” I offer. “Besides, I think the kind of girls that’d be into manly men would freak out if the dude they just kissed transformed into a girl in front of them.”

Blake giggles and blushes. “Y-yeah, it’s probably for the best that I don’t go after girls like that…” 

“Exactly! I think how we need to approach this is you acting like yourself!” Blake stares at me with a frown and a little bit of uncertainty in her eyes. “Ok, well… a more confident version of yourself. Confidence is key, after all.”

“Confidence, huh…” Blake whispers. She looks pensive for a moment, then nods with determination. “Alright! Confidence! Let’s work on that!” 

I smile, excited to see her really getting into this. “That’s the spirit! We’ll be getting you a kiss from a girl in no time with an attitude like that!

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Ughhhhhhhh, Angel, this is HOPELESS!!!” Blake cries, collapsing onto my couch and burying her head into her hands. “I’m NEVER going to get a girl, let alone become one!”

I sit next to her and sigh, rubbing her back to try and show some affection. Our first attempt to get a girlfriend for her didn’t work out quite so well. It had been going good at first, but then, well… somehow a car drove by and hit a puddle of water, splashing it completely onto Blake and soaking her clothes. The weirdest thing? It hasn’t even rained today! After that happened, the girl couldn’t stop laughing and Blake was way too embarrassed to keep talking to her.

It was honestly kind of incredible. I’d never seen an attempt at flirting or even just trying to get to know someone go that badly. Blake’s taking it real hard, though. She’s been unable to stop crying basically since we got some dry clothes for her. 

“I just, ugh, I-I don’t know why I thought just realizing I was trans and getting your help would be enough to solve my terrible luck. It’s obvious that I’m cursed not only by my family’s curse, but also with a complete inability to ever actually get a girl to kiss me.” 

I frown sadly, not really sure what I can say to make Blake feel better. “It’s gonna be okay, Blake. That was just one bad attempt is all. We’ve just started, you know?”

“One attempt with you, maybe. I’ve tried dozens!” she sobs, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Every single time, something like this happens!”

“I-I… I know you’ve had a lot of tries, but,” I start, my brow furrowing as I desperately try to find the right words to console her, “do you really wanna give up already?”

“I… no, but… I just don’t see the point.” She wipes some tears from her face and looks at me with puffy eyes. “I thought working on my confidence with you would help, but it didn’t at all!”

I smirk. “Well, I can see we just haven’t worked on it enough is all. You’re definitely not being very confident right now.”

Blake looks surprised at my joke, then giggles softly. “Hehe… I guess I’m not, huh?” 

“Not even a little,” I reply with a wink. 

“Can you blame me, though?” Blake sniffles, looking despondently at the ground. “After all this failure, it’s hard to stay positive.”

I sit silently next to Blake for a moment. It’s true, I can understand why she’d be so upset. Being trapped in the wrong body, and the only way to fix yourself being such a herculean effort completely dependent on variables mostly outside of your control; I can only imagine what that must feel like. Still, she wasn’t alone with all this. I was going to help her, and I just had to get her to see that. 

“You failed before, Blake, because well… you were trying to do this alone,” I start. She turns to look me in the eyes as I continue, “Also before you were approaching this without really even being aware of who you are, and what you really wanted from all of this. Sure, this first attempt didn’t go much better, but eventually one of these attempts will. And all the rest that failed? They won’t matter anymore. They’ll all be in the past, and you’ll have the entire rest of your life to enjoy what you got.” I smile. “Try to remember that, okay? I’ve got your back, and together we’re going to turn you into a girl!” 

 Blake lip quivers as she looks at me after my little mini-speech. Then she buries her face into my chest and once again starts crying. “Oh, Angel…!!” 

I wrap my arms around her and rub her back. “I’m sorry, was that too much?”

She shakes her head and hiccups. “No, no, that was just… It was such a ‘you’ thing to say. And you’re… you’re just the sweetest guy I know, Angel. You’re such a good friend.”

I smile at that and hug her back. Or well, at least outwardly. Inside I feel a tinge of this weird feeling at her saying it like that. Something about it just makes me feel… kinda bad? But I shove that down. It’s not really important. 

We stop hugging after a minute and Blake wipes the tears out of her eyes once more. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna try, Angel,” she says quietly. She’s not really smiling, but her face isn’t as sad as it was before. “I keep wanting to give up, but, with you by my side… I feel like I can do this.”

I feel really touched by her saying that and flash her a proud look. “That’s great, Blake. That’s really great. Together, we can do this!”

“Y-yeah! You’re right!” Blake hugs her chest and nods with sudden determination. “I’m gonna kiss a girl. And then look out, world, cuz after that I’m gonna turn into the cutest girl ever!”