Chapter 2: Pleas and Promises
The buzzing was a drill to the skull. My phone—Justin’s phone—lit up the dim room with Andrea’s name and that heart emoji I’d added months ago in a fit of hopeless longing.
My body—Sabrina in my skin—stared at the device like it was a live grenade. Her hands, my large, blunt-fingered hands, were shaking.
“Answer it,” I hissed from Sabrina’s mouth, the sound too high, too sharp.
“How?” she whispered back, my voice ragged with a panic it had never held. “What do I say?”
“Put it on speaker! Just do it!”
She fumbled, thick thumbs sliding across the screen. The call connected.
“Justin? Hey!” Andrea’s voice filled the room, warm and familiar, a splash of sunshine in this nightmare. It twisted something deep in my gut, a place that felt different now, lower and softer.
“Hi,” Sabrina croaked into the phone. She cleared her throat, a deep, rumbling sound that was so bizarre coming from my body. “Hi, Andrea.”
“You okay? You sound… rough.”
“Yeah. Yeah, just woke up.” Sabrina’s eyes, my blue eyes, were locked on mine, wide and pleading. I mimicked taking a slow breath. She followed, the broad chest I knew so well rising and falling visibly under my old gray tee.
“Listen,” Andrea said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “I’m at the farmer’s market. They have those apple cider donuts you mentioned liking a while back. And the line for coffee is short. Want to join me? I could use a hand carrying stuff back.”
An invitation. To me. To Justin. Andrea was asking my body out for coffee and donuts.
The longing that flooded me was a physical ache, a hollowing out behind Sabrina’s navel. It was my dream, manifested in the worst possible way. Sabrina just stared at the phone, her face—my face—blank with terror.
“Say yes,” I mouthed silently, frantically.
“I… yeah. Okay. Yes,” Sabrina stammered.
“Great! I’ll text you where I am. See you in ten?”
“Ten. Yes.”
The call ended. The silence that followed was thicker, heavier. Sabrina dropped the phone on the bed as if it had burned her.
“Oh my god,” she breathed, looking down at the expanse of my torso, at the hairy legs sticking out from my boxers. “Oh my god, I have to go. I have to go out. Like this.” She brought a hand to her face, flinching as she touched the beard. “This is on my face. It’s always on my face. It itches. Everything itches. And I feel… heavy. So heavy and clumsy.”
“You have to go,” I said, my own voice feeling useless in this small, tight throat. “You can’t blow her off. It would be weird. Justin never says no to her.”
“Justin is you!” she cried, throwing her arms up. The gesture was wildly expressive, nothing I would ever do. “I don’t know how to be you! I don’t know what you talk about! What if she wants to talk about comics or servers or whatever nerdy shit is in all these boxes?” She gestured wildly at my shelves of collectibles.
“Just be quiet. Nod. Say the donuts are good.” Even as I said it, it sounded pathetic.
“No. No way.” She stood up, unfolding to my full height, and the sheer scale of my own body from this five-foot perspective was intimidating. She loomed. “You’re coming with me.”
“What? How?”
“As my wingman. My friend. I don’t know! You just are.”
I laughed, a brittle, sharp sound. “Andrea knows Sabrina. Sabrina is her roommate. If I walk up with you, as me, and start talking to you both, it’s going to be the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to her. ‘Why is my roommate hanging out with my neighbor who she’s never spoken to?’ She’ll think you’re hitting on me. On her. It’s a mess.”
Sabrina began to pace, my long legs eating up the small room in three strides. She moved with a restless, agitated energy, all loose limbs and frantic turns. “Then what? I go alone and have a panic attack and scream because a bee lands on me? I can’t do this.” She stopped, and her expression—my expression—crumpled. “Please. I’m begging you. I’m trapped in a giant, hairy meat prison and my center of gravity is in my shoulders and I’m so scared.”
The raw plea in my own eyes was something I’d never seen. It undid me.
A text chimed on the dropped phone. A location pin. The market.
“Okay,” I said, the word leaving me in a sigh. “Okay. But not with you. I’ll… I’ll go separately. I’ll be nearby. If you look like you’re drowning, I’ll… create a distraction. I don’t know. But we need to move. Now.”
Getting Sabrina into my clothes was its own surreal hell. She refused to wear the jeans I handed her, saying the rough denim felt disgusting on “her” legs. She found a pair of my softest sweatpants and a hoodie, swimming in the fabric, constantly pulling the hood up to hide her face.
I, meanwhile, had to go back to Sabrina’s room. The walk next door was worse in daylight. A neighbor washing his car did a full, slow double-take, his eyes dragging from the turquoise toenails up the leggings to the tight clutch of the t-shirt over my chest. His gaze wasn’t just looking; it was placing me on a shelf, rating me. I felt my face heat, a flush that traveled down my neck and across my chest. I wanted to fold in on myself.
Sabrina’s room offered no refuge, only a gallery of unsuitable armor. I couldn’t go to a public market in leggings and a thin tee. Rifling through her dresser was a violation that sent pangs of guilt through me, but desperation overrode it. I found a simple, long-sleeved jersey dress, dark green. It felt less revealing.
Putting it on was a lesson in a new kind of confinement. The fabric slithered over my hips, clung to my waist, and draped loosely over my chest. I still had to tackle the bra. The process was slightly faster this time, but the closure still bit into my back, the straps digging into my shoulders. The persistent, maddening pressure of the band around my ribs was a constant reminder that my breathing was different now, shallower.
Worst of all was the thong. The feeling of that narrow strip of fabric, wedged between the soft, unfamiliar folds of my new body, was an atrocity of sensation. Every step, every shift in posture, sent a signal my brain couldn’t interpret—a faint, nagging presence that was neither pain nor comfort, just relentless thereness.
I found a pair of battered Converse sneakers. Sabrina’s feet were a size and a half smaller than mine. The sensation was like having my feet bound, the shoes a firm, unyielding hug. My balance felt precarious, top-heavy.
I met my own body—Sabrina—at the end of my driveway. She was a hulking, awkward figure in gray sweatpants and a hoodie, hands shoved deep in the pockets. Seeing myself from the outside, the slight slouch, the bewildered expression, was like staring into a funhouse mirror that showed only my deepest insecurities.
“You look… small,” she said, my voice hushed.
“You look like a homeless IT guy,” I whispered back. “Let’s go. You first. I’ll follow. Remember, don’t talk too much. Smile. Nod. If you have to talk, keep your voice down. Try to sound… thoughtful.”
She nodded, a jerky, frightened motion, and began trudging down the sidewalk toward the town square where the market was held. I followed a minute later, the strange, swaying rhythm of this body asserting itself with every step. The dress brushed against my thighs. My breasts moved independently beneath the bra cups, a slight, bouncing jiggle that made me intensely aware of their mass. The sun felt warmer on my bare arms, the breeze more tactile. I passed a shop window and caught my reflection—a young, tattooed woman with a frightened, determined look, moving with a stiffness that didn’t belong to her.
The market was a riot of color and sound that assaulted Sabrina’s sensitive ears and my overwhelmed nerves. I saw Andrea first. She was at a flower stall, her curly hair catching the sun, a wicker basket over her arm. She looked happy, comfortable in her own soft, curvy body. My heart, Sabrina’s heart, hammered against my ribs.
Then I saw Sabrina-in-me approach her. My body stopped a few feet away, rocking slightly on its heels. Andrea turned, and her face lit up with a smile that was meant for Justin. For me.
“You made it!” she said, and she reached out, giving my arm—Justin’s arm—a friendly squeeze.
I watched from behind a pyramid of apples, twenty yards away, as my own face froze, then attempted a smile. It looked more like a grimace. Sabrina-in-me said something I couldn’t hear. Andrea laughed, tossing her head back, and linked her arm through mine—through Justin’s arm.
And I felt it. A sharp, hot spike of something that was jealousy, but also a profound, disorienting loss. That was my arm she was holding. My smile she was eliciting. My chance.
And it was being lived by someone else, while I was stuck here, in this foreign, jiggling, too-small skin, the ghost of a thong a constant, cruel punchline, watching my own life happen without me.