Chapter 2: Mark Arrives at the Pool
The silence between us was a physical thing, thick and charged with a kind of electric dread. I was frozen, staring at the man who wore my face, watching his chest—my chest—rise and fall in panicked hitches. My own breathing was shallow, my new lungs seeming too small, too efficient, pulling in quick little sips of air that did nothing to calm the vertigo.
Then, the crunch of gravel.
A familiar engine rumble rolled into the driveway on the other side of the house. The deep, diesel grumble of Mark’s lifted Ford.
“No,” the word slipped out of me, a feathery whisper. My head snapped toward the sound. Mark. He was coming over for a swim, like he did most Thursday evenings. We’d drink a couple beers, bitch about work, float in the pool until the mosquitoes drove us inside. A ritual. Simple. Normal.
Now it was a catastrophe.
“Who is that?” Sabrina’s voice, from my throat, was strained. She was still backed against the sagging fence, my large hands clenched into fists at my sides.
“Mark,” I breathed. “You have to… you have to go inside. The guest house. Now.”
“I’m not going anywhere like this!” she hissed, gesturing wildly at my body. The motion was all wrong, too broad, too aggressive for the delicate panic in her eyes. “This is your house! You fix it!”
“How?” My voice climbed, squeaking. “You think I have a manual for this?”
The truck door slammed. Heavy footsteps echoed on the front walkway. My mind was a racing static. I couldn’t let Mark see us like this. He’d think… God, what would he think? That I’d lost my mind? That something had happened to Sabrina? The explanations were impossible. The only option was to pretend, for just a few minutes, that everything was normal. That I was Sabrina, and the bearded guy freaking out by the fence was just her weird cousin Justin.
The decision clicked into place, cold and desperate. “Listen to me,” I said, forcing the strange, melodic voice into a commanding tone. It sounded like a child playing tough. “You are Justin. Act like Justin. Go sit in the chair. Be quiet. Let me talk.”
I saw the conflict warping my own familiar features—the furrowed brow, the clenched jaw. But she gave a jerky, terrified nod just as Mark’s broad silhouette filled the side gate.
“Hey, Zygurski! You out back?” Mark’s voice boomed, easy and familiar. He pushed the gate open, a towel slung over his shoulder, a six-pack of local IPA dangling from his fingers. His smile was white and easy in his tanned face. He saw the figure by the fence first. “There you—“
His words died. His eyes, tracking past ‘me,’ landed on me.
On Sabrina’s body. In the tiny turquoise bikini.
The change in his posture was immediate and profound. The casual slouch straightened. The friendly smile softened, then widened into something different—appreciative, stunned. His gaze was a tangible pressure, a laser scan that moved from the top of my wet-blonde head, down over the curves I could feel pressing against the flimsy triangles of fabric, down the length of bare, tanned legs to my tiny feet in their sandals. It lasted only two seconds. It felt like an hour.
Every inch of my skin screamed under that look. The weight on my chest seemed to amplify, a gravitational pull directing his attention. I was acutely aware of the gentle, unstoppable jiggle that happened with my slightest heartbeat, the way the bikini bottom cut deep into the crease of my hips, the absurd exposure of my entire back and most of my ass. The thong strap was a constant, maddening filament of sensation.
“Oh, hey,” Mark said, his voice dipping into a warmer, smoother register. He looked back at Sabrina, who had frozen in a half-crouch near the chair. “Sorry, man. Didn’t know you had company.” He gave a nod that was meant for me. “You must be Sabrina. Justin’s told me about you. I’m Mark.”
He extended a hand toward me. A large, calloused hand. I stared at it. The protocol was simple: reach out, shake. My own hands felt like foreign objects, delicate and useless. I lifted my right arm. The movement caused a pronounced shift of mass on my torso, a soft, bouncing sway that made my face burn. I slipped my small hand into his. His grip was firm, engulfing, careful not to squeeze too hard. His skin was rough and hot. The sensation shot up my arm, intensely intimate.
“Hi,” I managed. My voice. I had to use my voice. It came out breathy, unnatural. “Yeah. Sabrina.”
“It’s great to finally meet you,” Mark said, holding the handshake a moment too long before releasing. His eyes lingered on my face, on my mouth. I could smell his cologne, something woodsy and clean, mixed with the scent of his truck and the open air. It was a smell I knew. Now, in this body, it smelled stronger, more complex. It triggered a faint, unwelcome stir low in my abdomen, a visceral, chemical response that had nothing to do with me.
He turned back to Sabrina. “You alright, man? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Sabrina, in my body, stared at him. Her eyes—my eyes—were terrified saucers. She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She just nodded stiffly, a bizarre, robotic motion.
“He, um, he’s not feeling great,” I interjected, stepping slightly between them. The act of walking two steps was a revelation in imbalance. My hips seemed to roll on their own, a swaying motion that felt exaggerated and unavoidable. My center of gravity, so much higher now, made me feel top-heavy, precarious. My thighs brushed together with each step, a soft, continuous friction that was utterly foreign. “Just had a… a dizzy spell. Right, Justin?”
Sabrina blinked. “Right,” she croaked, using my voice like a ill-fitting tool. “Dizzy.”
Mark’s concerned look was sincere, but it quickly drifted back to me. “That’s no good. But hey, at least you’ve got a good nurse here.” He grinned at me again, a charming, lopsided thing. “So you’re all moved into the guest house? Justin treating you okay?”
I was trapped in a conversation with my best friend, who was looking at me like I was a prime cut of steak. Every second was a lesson in this new physical prison. The breeze kept teasing the loose hairs at the nape of my neck, a tickling, irritating sensation. I was aware of my own plush lips, the way they felt when they touched, the taste of faint, waxy sweetness from Sabrina’s lip balm. My tongue felt smaller. The world was louder, brighter, the edges somehow sharper.
“It’s fine,” I said, crossing my arms again over my chest. The defensive gesture only succeeded in pushing the soft flesh up higher, creating more cleavage. I saw Mark’s gaze flicker down for a nanosecond before snapping back up to my eyes, a flush of guilt on his cheeks. I dropped my arms like they were on fire, letting them hang awkwardly at my sides. “It’s a nice little place.”
“I’ll bet,” Mark said. He hefted the six-pack. “Well, I brought the usual. But maybe we should skip the beer if you’re under the weather, Justin.” He said it to Sabrina, but he was still half-looking at me. “We could just float. The water might do you good.”
The idea of getting into the pool, of having this body submerged and the bikini plastered to it, of Mark swimming nearby, was unthinkable. “He should probably lie down,” I said quickly. “I was just heading in myself. It’s getting chilly.” A blatant lie. The evening air was balmy.
“Already?” Mark’s face fell, genuine disappointment in his eyes. “I just got here. Come on, at least have one drink with me. For old times’ sake.” This last part was directed at Sabrina, a plea to his best friend.
Sabrina looked at me, a silent scream in her eyes. She was paralyzed.
“One drink,” Mark pressed, already walking to the outdoor cooler. He pulled out a bottle, popped the cap on the edge of the table with a practiced flick, and held it out. Not to Sabrina. To me.
The brown bottle looked enormous in my small hand. My nails, that perfect shell pink, tapped against the glass. I had no choice. To refuse would be weird, rude. Sabrina wouldn’t refuse a beer from her cousin’s friendly friend. I took it. The weight was substantial, requiring a firm grip.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
Mark opened another for himself and one for Sabrina, placing it on the table near her. She didn’t move to pick it up. He leaned against the patio table, his muscular frame blocking the path to the gate. He was settling in.
“So, Sabrina,” he began, taking a long pull from his beer, his eyes never leaving me. “Justin says you’re from upstate. What brings you all the way down here?”
The question hung in the air. I was holding a beer I couldn’t drink, standing nearly naked in front of my best friend, while my consciousness screamed from inside a teenage girl’s skull. I saw my own body, across the deck, standing stiff and silent like a forgotten puppet. The story was collapsing before it began, and the only anchor was the overwhelming, excruciating sensation of being alive in a body that was not mine—every jiggle, every brush of fabric, every hungry, confused glance from Mark—pinning me to a reality I could not escape.