“So, um… you feeling any better?” I ask Blake as I shut the front door of my house behind us. She slumps into one of the living room chairs, letting out a small yelp of pain and rubbing her injured shoulder.

“A little…” she replies sadly. “Mostly feeling more hurt emotionally than physically.”

“I think that’s probably good, all things considered.”

“Yeah…”

“Like, first you slide on some wet floor that the janitor forgot to mark as slippery--”

“Angel…”

“And then you slide down the hallway right into someone’s open locker--”

“Angel!”

“And then the door slams shut on you, trapping you--”

“ANGEL!” Blake yells, startling me. I stop talking as she takes a few breaths, calming herself down. “Can we just not, please? I really don’t want to talk anymore about this.”

I nod and rub my arm guiltily. “Right, right, of course. I’m sorry Blake.” She’s been taking the last couple of failures pretty badly. I’ve managed to keep her together for the most part, but the longer this drags on the worse she feels. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if the real curse she has isn’t what she claims, but is actually an inability to ever get a girl interested in her in the first place. In the last few weeks of helping her, I’ve seen far more mind-boggling and ridiculous incidents get in the way than I’ve seen in eighteen years of watching cartoons. She can’t even so much as start to get a girl interested in going on a date with her, let alone actually get close to a kiss, before something always seems to get in the way.

It really makes me feel just awful, seeing her like this. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I’ve grown really attached to our friendship during all this time, and even though it scares me to admit it, Blake is kind of really important to me. I really just want to see this whole thing finally succeed and have her become the girl she’s always wanted to be.

“How about we um, do something to take our minds off things today?” I ask, eager to potentially cheer her up or at least change the subject. “We’ve been so focused lately on getting you a kiss that maybe it’ll do us some good to just relax and disconnect from that for a little!”

Blake is quiet, staring off into space. After a few moments like that she sighs loudly and nods. “Yeah. That sounds like a good idea. I definitely could use something distracting right now.”

“Great! Then let’s head upstairs and, um… play some games!”

She smiles. “Sure. That sounds like fun.”

And with that we race off to my bedroom. I boot up the game and get ready to only moderately destroy my best friend in one of my favorite fighting games. In truth, Blake and I are actually pretty close in skill, but I usually manage to get the edge just because I have slightly better reaction times.

We pick our usual fighters and get to fighting. As usual it’s a tough match for me, but luckily I’m used to Blake’s playstyle by now and I’m getting better at abusing my character’s enhanced ranges. One KO, two KOs… then she gets serious. I drop from three lives to one in less than a minute. Where did this come from? My eyes dart to my side to get a look at her and what I see makes me catch my breath. She’s focused, her eyes glued to the screen, biting her lip. Her hair is ruffled, scruffed, yet shining in the light from the television. I see the sight of a determined Blake intent on going for the kill, and it makes my heart stop in my chest.

Player 2 is the winner!

I look back at the screen to see that while I was caught up stealing a look at her, she was stealing a win. “Ha! Take that!” she yells triumphantly. “Not bad for a warm-up, huh? You’re gonna have to step your game up!”

“Heh, yeah, I guess so.” But in my mind, the loss is worth it. 

 We move on to the next match and things are just as heated as before. “Oh, god dammit!” she curses under her breath as I take the first life off of her. I glance over to see her making this adorable pout. “Such a bullshit move…” I smile. I know she’s taking this seriously, but I can’t help but love how cute she looks when she gets frustrated. 

The “slam” sound effect of my character hitting the screen shakes me once more out of my distraction. Wait a minute, already?? Again I lose a match to this! Ugh, this has gotta be on purpose, right? How does she keep stealing away my attention from the game?

Blake lets out a victorious giggle that echoes through the room. “Yes! I got another win off you!” She looks at me and flashes a determined smile, the hazel in her eyes seemingly shining with glee. Has her smile always made her eyes light up like that?

I blush furiously and look back at the screen. “It’s just two matches! That doesn’t mean anything!”

“Sure it doesn’t,” she replies with a playfully mocking tone that just makes me blush more. “Seems to me like you’re off your game today!”

“Wh-whatever! Let’s just go another round,” I stammer back. Definitely not my strongest retort ever. 

“Sure,” she laughs, “I’m more than happy to wipe the floor with you again.” 

We start up a new match on a different map and this time I’m really trying to focus. The match starts to get close once more, both of us neck and neck, but this time I actually look like I have a chance of winning. All I have to do is focus on the game and not look or think about Blake at all. Not about her bright eyes, or her cute smile, or her lovely ash-brown hair, or --

Player 2 is the winner!

I drop the controller and hold my head in my hands as I groan. Dammit dammit dammit! What the hell is wrong with me today? I just can’t focus at all! Blake giggles victoriously again. “Maybe you should switch characters or something, Angel,” she says, “It’s obvious you just can’t handle my skills today!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I sigh, looking at the ground. “You’re really kicking my ass today it seems.” I pick back up my controller and cycle through the other fighters. An entire roster of powerful female characters. All of them I’ve played before and beaten her with. However, right now they look dull and uninteresting. Normally I enjoy playing all of them and just losing myself in the moment of fighting as that character. Today, though, I only want to be in this moment -- with Blake.

I drop my controller to the ground and stand up quickly. “H-hey, I, um… I need to head to the bathroom real fast.”

“Okay,” Blake replies cooly. She leans back in her chair and pulls out her phone. I walk past her, intent on focusing on the door. My heart pounds in my chest. Just before I leave the room, I can’t stop myself from stealing a look back to see her relaxed and tapping away on her phone, legs crossed over each other. She looks so content. So normal. So… Blake.

I practically sprint to the bathroom and lock myself in. My legs finally decide to give out at that moment and I collapse onto the toilet seat. I hold my head in my hands and stare at the ground, my breaths quick and short. “Jeez, Angel, what’s wrong with you?” I whisper to myself. “It’s just Blake. Your friend. You’ve seen her dozens of times. What makes today so different?”

I examine the facts. I’ve known Blake since we were kids, but we’ve only been friends like we are now for the last month. We’ve gone through a lot, trying to get a girl to kiss her so she can transform. At least a dozen or so attempts at this point. Frankly, I think we’re running out of girls in our school that are good enough to kiss Blake.

Wait. Good enough to kiss Blake? That’s an odd way to put it. I mean, wouldn’t just anyone work? All we need is the kiss and then Blake can just ditch the girl or something, find someone she actually likes. Right? 

I shake my head and grumble. For some reason that sounds terrible. Blake is an amazing person, and she can’t have her first kiss with a girl be with someone awful or mean or gross. Plus isn’t viewing the girls as just tickets-to-womanhood for Blake also kind of bad? It feels kind of like objectifying my classmates or using them as tools for our own agenda. No, no, this has to be done right. This kiss needs to happen from a girl that is kind, and sweet, and someone who actually likes Blake. She’d have to be doing this because she legitimately likes Blake and wants to kiss her. 

I groan loudly and slump further. There’s no girl out there like that! I mean, the only person who could possibly be that invested in Blake would have to be a close friend or something! Which is practically impossible to do right now since that would mean having to disclose a lot of information that Blake isn’t ready or even wants to share! The only person who fits any of that criteria is ME!

My eyes widen. Wait, what? Me? Woah woah woah. What the hell am I saying? I don’t… I don’t want to kiss Blake! I’m into girls, and Blake is… Well. Okay, Blake is a girl. But her body right now isn’t! Right? So shouldn’t that matter? 

I hold my head. No. No. That feels wrong too. Why should her body matter? It’s the inside that counts, and inside Blake is a girl. She’s sweet, and funny, and anxious but also surprisingly confident when at ease. And she’s… cute. She’s really, really cute. 

“She’s… cute,” I whisper to myself. “I think Blake is… cute.” I sit and process this, staring at the mosaic shapes of the tiles that make up my bathroom floor. I try to find another explanation, but there is only one. 

I like Blake. Like, like-like Blake. I have a crush on her.

“Shit.”

 

------------------------

 

I lie in my bed, staring at the ceiling. Blake went home hours ago, before dinner. I’m left alone with my thoughts and the realization I made today. 

“I have a crush on Blake,” I whisper to myself again. I keep saying those words, trying them out. Everytime I say them, they feel more and more right. More and more undeniable. Conversely, I also get more and more scared.

I’m scared for a couple of reasons. First off, I’m scared because I’ve never felt a crush this quickly before. I mean, obviously I’ve crushed on girls before. I’m an eighteen-year-old guy who’s had like three girlfriends. Crushes aren’t new to me. But this one I’m feeling for Blake…wow. It’s on a whole other level. Now that I’ve admitted it, I just can’t stop thinking about her.

Earlier it was nearly impossible for me to focus. We ended up just hanging out and watching a movie together after it became obvious there was no way I was going to be able to focus on games today. And even then, I just kept sneaking more looks in her direction. I started gathering bits of random information that most likely are useless, but felt incredibly important for me to know. Like the way she sits with her legs off to her side and her back leaning against the couch when she’s on the floor. Or how her fingers look when she tucks her hair behind her ears. Or the exact pitch and tone of her laugh, as well as the quality of the sound when it echoes through the room. 

I turn to my side and bury my face into one of my pillows. Dammit. I’ve fallen for her hard. How did this happen?

I guess… I guess it must have started when she first came out to me. I remember feeling really impressed that she would share all that with me. I remember feeling a sense of joy and pride at seeing how happy her realization that she was a girl made her. It’s why I promised to help her. I wanted to see her happy like that more. I… wanted to always see her smile like that.

Dammit, that sounds so corny now that I’m actually saying it. But it’s the truth! Blake’s happiness is really important to me! It’s why I’ve also been hanging out with her too. After every failure she gets depressed, and I feel obligated to somehow fix that and make her feel better. I don’t like seeing her sad. And if I had my way, I’d just transform her myself and make her happy forever!

Ugh, but that’s a whole other problem. I can’t give that to her, because unfortunately I’m not a girl. I could kiss her until I’m blue in the face and she still wouldn’t change. Which sucks. A lot. Because that means we have to get someone else to kiss her instead. And like, while that doesn’t necessarily bother me in and of itself, I still don’t like the idea of someone random that she doesn’t actually like kissing her. I mean, Blake is her own person and I’d totally support her being with anyone she likes. I just want her to be with me, too. 

Huh. That’s kind of weird. You’d think I’d only want her to be with me or something. And I mean, in a way I kind of do. But it’s more like I just don’t want her doing something meaningless or without any real feelings. So… what if she actually liked someone? Would that be okay?

I roll over and smush my face into a third pillow. This is way too much to think about on top of everything else. I need to focus on what’s immediately important -- my crush on Blake. So, right, anyways, I can’t transform Blake myself. Which means that if I’m liking her right now, it’s gotta be wrong, right? Like I like her and find her cute while she’s in a form that she hates. That’s gotta be all sorts of wrong, isn’t it? What if I just like her for how she currently looks and I won’t like her anymore after she transitions?

I frown. Well, okay, that can’t possibly be true. I’ve never liked a guy before in my entire life. And Blake, like… sure. She was born with a different body than most girls. And she’s going through a similar puberty to mine. And she has a deeper voice, and presumably some body hair and facial hair. And… you know. A penis. But that doesn’t matter to me! I don’t see anything other than a girl when I think of Blake! Instead I see how happy she gets when she’s gendered correctly. I see how excited she looks when she thinks about wearing dresses and skirts and blouses and all these, frankly, extremely-feminine clothes. I see the way she moves her body, the way she sits, the way she talks, the way she acts. All of it screams femininity to me. There’s nothing “male” about her. 

So… what then? Do I just not care about her body?

I… I guess not. Yeah. I don’t care what her body is. I just like her. And whatever that means if we ever got intimate, um. Jeez. I don’t even know how to think about that right now. I’m still a virgin, after all. But, I think if we ever did, even if she hadn’t transformed yet… it wouldn’t bother me. Nothing about her would. Because Blake is perfect to me. In every way. And I love everything about her. All that matters to me is her happiness and being able to be a part of her life.

...Damn. When did I get so sappy? I guess I’ve really fallen head over heels for her. 

But, there’s still a problem though. Regardless of how I think about Blake, I have no idea if she feels the same for me. And if I pulled a move and tried to get together with her, how would she react? Would she even want to be with me? And say we did get together; there’s no guarantee everything would go smoothly. What if seeing us together would make people think she’s just a gay guy? What if someone hurt me? Or worse -- hurt her. 

Most importantly though, what if this gets in the way of her transformation attempts? It’s gonna be a lot harder for her to find a girl who wants to kiss her if they think she’s already in a relationship with someone. Let alone a guy.

I shiver in my bed and pull the blankets tighter around me. God, this would be so much easier if I was just a girl too. Then I could confess my feelings, hopefully have Blake reciprocate, then kiss her, transform her into her ideal body, and we could just be together as a couple! It’d be perfect! 

Wait… how would we be together as a couple in that story? We’d both be girls, right? So like… oh wait. Oh my god. I’m… I’m such an idiot.

Lesbians.

How did I forget they exist? I mean, dammit, I’m such an idiot. We keep trying to get straight girls to kiss Blake, which is a HUGE problem! We just need to find a lesbian to kiss Blake, and then it’d be problem solved! 

But, wait. Would a lesbian even want to kiss Blake? She might just think Blake is a boy or something. Hmmm… crap. Maybe that isn’t as easy of a solution as I thought.

I groan. If I was a lesbian I’d totally kiss Blake. I mean, how could a lesbian not see how obvious of a girl Blake is? God, that must be awesome though. Just being able to be a girl, and be together with other girls. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that before.

Ugh, okay, but I gotta focus here. This is about turning Blake into a girl, not drifting into an idle fantasy of me being one. Or, well, actually this is about my feelings for Blake and what I should do about them. Do I actually confess these feelings? Do I just keep them bottled up and focus on the bigger picture here? Like, all of this is easier if I just wait for Blake to transform first and then ask her out. Then she doesn’t feel like I’m being creepy, or that I’m actually gay or something. Also the odds of her actually wanting to date someone are far more likely if she’s in a body she feels comfortable in. 

But also, at the same time I… I just can’t stop thinking about her. And not just her physical features, but her personality. Her charms. How cute and adorable and sweet she is.

I blush into my pillow. I’m even getting butterflies in my stomach thinking about her! This is ridiculous! 

Still, though. What if she doesn’t like me back? What if this crush is entirely one-sided? I love our friendship a lot. I don’t want to risk losing that. And… I want to keep helping Blake. I want to be there for her. I want to get her transformation to happen.

That’s proving to be so difficult, though. And she’s getting discouraged. I can see it. I think the rejections hurt even more now that she knows she’s trans. I can see it on her face sometimes. Everytime something goes wrong, she looks like she’s in pain. And it just breaks my heart to see that happen to her. 

So, what? Would me asking her out somehow make everything better? How would being in a relationship with me possibly soothe her dysphoria? Isn’t it just selfish of me to want to be with her?

...Maybe. There might be some truth in there. But at the same time, I can’t help her like how I am now. I can’t keep getting distracted like this, or feeling this pit in my stomach whenever I try to hook her up with a new girl. I need… I need to know her true feelings about me. I need to be honest with her. And if she rejects me, well… then I’ll at least know then. I’ll be able to move on. I’ll be able to work on dropping all these feelings brewing inside me and focus entirely on her transition. 

Her transition. Right. That’s what’s most important. I have to let her know that when I confess to her. Tell her that even though I have these feelings, her transition is what’s most important to me. Her happiness is what’s most important to me. I know confessing might complicate things, but… I think it’s a risk I have to take. 

I roll over onto my back, curl up in my blanket burrito, and stare at my dark ceiling. I really have no idea how this is going to go. When do I even confess? Tomorrow at school? I suppose that’s probably the best time to do it. I have to confess as soon as possible and get this over with. I’ll meet up with her in the morning, in film club. We could go into the back room and I can talk to her there. Somewhere private where no one can overhear us. She deserves as much privacy as possible during all this. I can’t put her on the spot in front of others.

My heartbeat pounds in my chest. I can feel my joints tingling. I’m anxious. Oh, so very anxious. I don’t think I’ve ever been more anxious about something in my life. I have no idea how I’m going to get any sleep tonight.

I just hope that tomorrow, Blake says yes.