Winter woke to a number of things that morning, the most notable perhaps being the alleviated weight off her chest and an added weight farther down south. It was a surprising and unpleasant feeling, one her mind failed to process and recognize, like it was near as confused as she was.
Slowly, her dark eyes opened, and though her head was ringing with pain, she found herself listing changes of her body.
1: Lack of a chest.
2: Lack of a form.
3: No cramping (and she was quite happy about that)
4: Not near as much pain as she normally had in her back
5: She was now a boy.665Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWvUozW8IfO
Perhaps the normal person would have flipped out, ran to the living room, and demanded what the [insert not-nice word] was going on, and overall just panic. But she didn't. She knew she probably should have, but she didn't. Was she confused? Yes. Worried? Yes.
She was a metathesiophobic after all, which, in English, translated into "fear of change".
Yet, she was also curious, and in such situations, curiosity overpowered that phobia.665Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD8qgxJbwGh
Before she got up, she paused to reflect on her luck that it was this specific weekend the change had occurred. Her family was out at ComicCon (she would have gone, but she was a claustrophobe, too), and her baby sister was at their grandma's house.665Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7imhjoGjTI
How wonderfully convenient. 665Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGDRgU88VMf
She supposed she should've tried figuring out the cause of this change to her. Had she outraged a gypsy on her recent trip to Europe? Was it some curse laid upon her ancestors? Did someone kidnap her and force her through a sex-change overnight?
She decided it was none of those, the first two being far too superstitious for her liking, and third because she would need time to recover from surgery, and she was pretty certain she was female the day before.
So she stopped thinking about causes.
Instead, her thoughts wandered to if her life had changed with the gender swap, and started her investigation. Being a teenager, she immediately went straight to her phone. 665Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxQk77imppn
Turns out, the answer is yes.
Contact names: John, Brad, Flatscreen (even without her initially being a boy,she knew who that was), Wyatt, and Brandon.
At least she knew now that she remained as unpopular as a boy as she was a girl. Imagine that?
She had never particularly liked Brandon. He was sexist. Very much so, in fact. Thought all girls were the same game-playing cheats who craved attention. Normally, she would agree wholeheartedly, except for the fact he exclusively used the term all. 'All' is a word to never use lightly.665Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdw6b66Tgxt
Wondering what this boy thought, how such an idiot conveyed thoughts, she read the previous texts.
And when reading, two words popped into her mind: fantasies and expectations.
And those words weren't directed towards females.
He complained much about the things he always complained about, only her mind took it...differently, somehow. What feeling was it?
Oh, right. Pity.
Brandon, as much as he complained about woman, was searching for the perfect one, the one who would heed his worries without complaint or argument, who wasn't so easily offended/too feminist, one who cared enough to tell him what's going on. That explained everything about his views on woman.
He was broken that no girl met his fantasy dream.
A trivial thing to Winter; she never paid much heed to relationships, and thought drama over them was rather immature and pointless. But still, she found himself understanding him, much more than she might have in the past.
The reason why he and so many guys acted the way they did was much simpler to answer: it was expected. They're expected to play the bad boy, to be the rebel, because that's what they're told. They're told it's only the bad guys girls want (entirely not true, but that's the teaching). They're expected to be athletic, to be superior and better because history made them like that. And the reasons why some emotions aren't so easily expressed was because as little boys they were told "real men don't cry".
They have to be the head. They take responsibility. That's how they're taught. 665Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkIgP3Kg1ow
But what if they aren't leadership material? What if they break too easily under stress due to no fault of their own? What if they hate being the bad boy, and thus hate themselves?
It was entirely likely.
And just like that, her entire day was spent reading the texts of the boys she hardly associated with, learning about them, understanding him, and by nightfall, she came to a conclusion:
Both sides have fantasies and expectations for the opposite gender, and both sides were completely oblivious.
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and then Add to home screen.