My Shallow Regret, Chapter 4 - Reunion free porn video

"Do you, Andrew Carlysle, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" I heard the question, but didn't quite believe it. Even given everything that had happened in the past 24 hours, it made no sense. Why was I suddenly getting married? And why did the preacher call me "Andrew"? I looked at Bryce, standing there in his tuxedo and his Air Jordan 11 Concords -- the same shoes he was wearing at the club -- and so many questions were running through my mind. I tried to speak, but I just stood there, mouth agape, unable to form words that would even begin to logically explain what was happening. "Well," the preacher said, waiting for an "I do." "Maybe this would help," Bryce said, as he took off his tuxedo jacket. Suddenly, underneath the jacket, he wasn't wearing a shirt and tie... he was wearing a wedding dress. And he wasn't Bryce anymore. He was Monica. "Aww, look," she said. "We're twins." I looked at her dress then looked down to realize I was wearing the same exact one -- a white, strapless ballroom gown that seemed to puff out three feet in each direction at the bottom. Only while hers fell perfectly on her flawless frame, mine was a mess on my 300-pound body. That's when it hit me. The preacher called me Andrew because I was Andrew. Except in a wedding dress. Holding a bouquet and getting married to Monica. Or Bryce. I wasn't sure anymore. Just then a man tapped on Monica's shoulder. "Can I cut in?" he asked. Monica stepped aside and now standing in front of me waiting for my answer was none other than my best friend Mark. "Are you confused?" he asked me. "I am," I said, finally able to speak, in a voice that sounded like a hybrid of my own and Alana's. "Do you want this to be over?" he asked. "I do," I said. Before I could even follow up with a question of my own, the preacher continued. "Then by the powers vested in me by the State of Confusion, I now pronounce you husband and wife," he said. "You may kiss the bride." My eyes widened with panic as I realized what I'd done. Mark leaned in to kiss me. I closed my eyes and right as our lips touched, I snapped up in bed. "Ohmigod, it was just a dream," I said to myself. Wait... it was a dream. Then maybe the whole thing had been a dream and I was still Andrew -- though an Andrew with some obviously psychological issues to be worked out in years upon years of therapy sessions. I looked down at myself. No such luck. I was in the same four-post bed with the same fluffy bedding as yesterday, still wearing the bra and panties I'd fallen asleep in last night. I glanced over at my pillow and saw the unmistakable marks of smeared makeup, realizing I'd forgotten to take mine off after Monica dropped me off well after closing time. I managed to survive the rest of the night without anyone else's tongue or any alcohol ending up in my mouth (the latter of which probably helped me stay focused on the former), but I was still feeling like crap this morning. My stomach was churning and for the second consecutive morning I found myself rushing to the bathroom to make a sacrifice to the porcelain gods. I made it just in time, before vomiting into the toilet, and once again immediately felt better, though I wasn't looking to make this a daily habit. Though that did remind me of something I was fairly certain Alana did daily. I pulled out the scale from under the sink and weighed myself. 103.6 pounds. 16.2 BMI. +0.3 pounds. Well, that was... interesting. I barely had anything to eat yesterday AND I worked out AND I just vomited again and yet I'd gained three- tenths of a pound. I guess what I considered a workout -- 45 minutes of light jogging while checking Facebook -- wasn't exactly the kind of workout Alana's body was used to. I made a mental note to hit the gym harder when I got the chance. The last thing I wanted to do was wreck this body for Alana before I could give it back to her. Taking a look at myself in the mirror, my makeup looked bad, but wasn't the Joker-esque disaster I'd been imagining. My hair, on the other hand, was an utter mess. I started undoing the braids Monica had done the night before and began to wonder just how I was going fix this situation. Not the hair, the whole "being in the wrong body" thing. I didn't have the first idea how this had even happened... well, I had a ton of ideas but none of them were remotely plausible and sounded more like something out of science fiction than real life. And even if I knew exactly how this had happened and what was happening, that wouldn't mean I'd be able to fix it overnight. So life goes on. I started washing the dried and smeared makeup off my face when I heard a voice behind me. "Rough night?" she asked. I turned around to see my little sister Alana -- or now Alexis "Lexi" Carlysle -- in a pink bathrobe and fuzzy bunny slippers. My sister, or at least the sister I had two days ago, would've never been caught dead in fuzzy bunny slippers. I didn't want to make too many snap judgments, considering how much my opinion of myself changed over the course of the day yesterday, but it was clear that growing up with a loving older sister rather than a distant older brother had done wonders for this girl, regardless of how appropriate of a role model the Alana version of me actually was. "No, not in the way you're thinking," I said. "Oh, really," she said, pushing past me to get her hair brush. "Didn't I hear you coming in at 2 a.m.?" "Was it that late?" I asked, playing coy. "It was, which reminds me, what are you doing up so early?" she asked back. "Early? What time is it?" I asked, as we continued to have a conversation in which we answered questions with questions. I hated it. "It's 7:30," she said, finally breaking the string. I'd only slept about five hours and despite the cross-dressing, groom-morphing nightmare and the morning vomit, I felt totally refreshed. "I just couldn't sleep anymore," I said. "I really wanted to get up and get going." Yeah, going back to my normal life. "Going where?" she asked. "And will this 'going' require use of your car?" "You really want to borrow my car, don't you," I said. "OK, fine, if I'm not 'going' anywhere, I'll let you borrow it, and if I am, you can take it as long as you drop me off and pick me up." She hugged me, put her brush back on the bathroom counter and started running down the hall back to her room. "Ohmigod thank you so much I promise you won't regret it I'll be super careful with it and..." she started to tail off as she got out of earshot. I gave my face one last splash of water and headed back to my room. I don't know if it was the realization that it was only 7:30 or just the weight of my situation hitting me again, but I was suddenly tired again. I slipped out of my bra and threw on the camisole from the night before and jumped back into bed. I had to admit, I wasn't entirely hating the oversized comforter, the satin sheets, or even just the ability to be in bed on a hot summer day without sweating out of every fold of fat in my body. But before I drifted off to sleep, I whispered to myself. "I want to go back." ***** I woke up to the ringing of my iPhone, which, embarrassingly, had Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" as the ringtone. At least I knew it wasn't Aiden calling. I wasn't looking forward to the inevitably awkward conversation with him now that I knew I was cheating on him. Rolling over in bed, I picked up the phone and saw it was Bryce calling. My first instinct was to throw the phone out the window, but I pressed the answer button instead. "What do you want?" I asked, angrily and pointedly. "Whoa, calm down, Ali," he said. "I just want to talk." "So talk," I said. He could talk, but I didn't have to listen. And as he rambled on with some half-assed explanation, I let the words go in one ear and out the other. I was far more interested in fixing my own problems than getting deep into Alana's. "Ali..." he said. "You there?" "Sorry, Bryce," I said. "I just need some time to process everything." "What's there to process," he said. "Just call Aiden, tell him you're done and we can be together." "And Monica?" I asked. "What about her? We're over," he said. "Yeah, but we aren't! I'd like to still have a friendship with her. Look, you just don't get it, and I don't want to have this conversation right now, so why don't you call me back when you're ready to be an adult." I hung up the phone and pulled the covers back over my head. "God, I didn't ask for this," I said, not expecting an answer. But I got one. I threw off the covers and sprung up from bed. Wait a minute, I thought to myself. I did ask for this. Well, not this exactly. But I asked for something. A reboot. I wanted a reboot on my life, and my re-installed operating system asked me "do you want to reboot" and I clicked yes. Holy crap, did I do some kind of magic OS rewrite of my own life? Was this "A. Carlysle 2.0"? I mean, it certainly wasn't unheard of for a character to switch genders in a reboot. "Battlestar Galactica" had a female Starbuck. The new "Green Arrow" show is supposed to have a female Speedy, and I heard the "Evil Dead" reboot has a female Ash. This seemed like a longshot, but it was no less stupid than any of the ideas I'd had yesterday. I headed over to my vanity and pulled out the yellow notepad where I'd written everything down. My four quadrants were still there, with nothing written under them. But I finally had something to add to the page. Under "What", I wrote "life reboot". Under "Why", I wrote "because I asked for it", then added "karmic joke?" in parentheses. Under "How", I wrote "magical software update" with a huge question mark. And then I underlined the question mark. And added another one for good measure. Then I got to "Fix". This was the stumper. The one thing I hadn't done with my actual reboot of my computer was restore from Time Machine, but I didn't see how that would help me now. Even if Alana regularly backed up her computer to a Time Machine drive, restoring from it would just restore her life. At least, that's what I think would happen. But I guess erasing her computer and restoring the software from scratch was as good a start as any. But I didn't want to do that until I was sure I had a backup of what was on there. Which meant I'd have to buy an external drive. And that meant a trip to my old stomping grounds, the Apple Store. I walked down the hall to Lexi's room, where I could hear her talking on the phone through her closed door. I waited for her to finish the conversation -- taking care not to eavesdrop on what she was saying -- then popped my head in. "If I let you take my car, can you drop me off at the mall, and pick me up when I text you?" I asked. "Sure thing," she said, with a bubbly smile on her face. "So when are we leaving?" "Just give me half-an-hour to get ready," I said. "OK, so two hours," she said back. I couldn't tell if she was kidding or, if like Monica, she really thought I'd take that long to get ready. "30 minutes," I said, closing the door. "I promise!" I went straight to the bathroom and took what I thought was a super- quick shower but turned out to have eaten up 22 of my allotted 30 minutes. Washing this long hair was no joke. I dried off, wrapped a towel around my body and then plugged in a hair dryer to speed things along. I'm sure it's not what Alana would've done to keep her hair in perfect condition, but I just threw the switch to the highest setting and ran the dryer over my hair a few times while brushing it with my other hand. As I did, the towel around my body came loose and fell to the floor, exposing my naked body in the mirror. I looked up and couldn't help but admire my own beauty. Why was I in such a rush to give this up? A chance to experience life from the other side -- people would kill for this? And with a healthy, stunning body, a loving family and a massive group of friends? What was I rushing back to? After getting lost in my own reflection, I only snapped back to reality when I heard a knocking at the bathroom door. I scrambled to pick up the towel and cover myself when I realized the hair dryer had long since been put away and my hair had been pulled back into a side French braid, and a light application of makeup had appeared on my face. "Oh, thank god you're almost done," Lexi said as she opened the door. "It's been..." I looked down at my phone on the counter before continuing that statement. I'd assumed that maybe I'd gone 35 or 40 minutes, but I was shocked when I saw that it was now almost Noon. "OK, 90 minutes... So I was a little off." "A little?" Lexi asked, with an annoyed tone. "You're not even dressed yet." "I'm just gonna throw something on real quick and then we'll go, I promise," I said, though those words had meant little earlier this morning. "Fine, whatever," she said, sounding a bit more like the sister I'd known. "I'll be waiting downstairs." I put down the mascara brush and headed back to my room, once again a little worried about the cruise-control mode I'd gotten into. Both times it had happened, I'd been looking at myself in a mirror, so I made a mental note to try and avoid that for a while. Which was certainly going to make getting dressed a bit of an adventure. Still, I forged forward, opening my drawers and picking out clothes. I couldn't believe I was doing this, but I decided to embrace a fashion trend that I absolutely hated. I put on a pair of black leggings to wear them as pants. I always thought it looked incredibly stupid when girls did that, like they'd forgotten a piece of clothing, but after spending all day yesterday in either a skirt, bikini bottoms or a dress, I wanted to at least wear something that felt like pants, and most of Alana's jeans looked like they'd be a struggle to put on and walk around in. The leggings felt a bit like a second skin while not leaving me feeling like I was exposing myself. The first T-shirt I grabbed was a white, one-shoulder number, and putting it on quickly reminded me that I needed to be wearing a bra, unless I wanted my nipples poking out all day, because the A/C at the mall was always ridiculously cool. So I pulled out a solid pink bra, similar to the one I'd worn the night before without quite the same push-up effect, and put it on before throwing the T-shirt back on. It wasn't the hottest look, but it was certainly something I could get away with for an afternoon. I found the black ballet flats Monica had picked out last night and slipped my feet into them before grabbing my sunglasses off the vanity and heading downstairs. "I hate you," Lexi said as I descended the staircase. That felt like it came out of nowhere. "What?" I asked. "You can get dressed in ten minutes and look like a movie star," she said. "I take an hour to pick out my outfit and I look like this." She was wearing a low-cut ruffled blouse, a matching blazer/skirt set and some silver shoes and, honestly, I saw nothing wrong with the outfit. "Don't be silly," I said. "You look fine." "FINE?! I look... FINE?!" OK, clearly that was the wrong thing to say. "Lexi, don't be like that," I said. "You look amazing and you know it. Now, are you going to drop me off at the mall then go impress whoever you're meeting for lunch with that stunning outfit, or are we going to stand here and be bitchy to each other all afternoon?" "How'd you know I was meeting someone?" she asked. "It's a big sister's job to know," I said, before pulling the car keys out of my purse and tossing them to her. And in that instant, all was forgiven as she raced out past me to the car. ***** Lexi drove off with a huge smile on her face, as she went to meet Ryan across town. Just two days ago a 10-minute drive with my sister had been a total chore -- and nearly a total disaster -- but in the 10 minutes it took to get to the mall from our house, we didn't fight at all. She did most of the talking, telling me about how dreamy Ryan was and how she couldn't believe someone like him wanted to go out with someone like her and how amazing this all was, and it actually made me not completely hate everything that was going on with me for a few minutes. But even so, I was still firmly resolved to reverse this situation, and that started with getting a hard drive. I walked into the Apple Store and headed right back to where we'd always kept the external hard drives. I really just wanted to grab the first one I saw, pay for it and get out, because as soon as I entered the store, I got this nagging feeling that something was wrong. It wasn't quite the vomit-y feeling I'd been dealing with for two days, but something else. Like my Spider- sense was tingling, only I wasn't Peter Parker (though given my current state, Ultimate Jessica Drew probably would've been a more appropriate analogy). I bent over to look at the bus-powered drives on the bottom shelf when I heard the unmistakable sound of an iPhone camera shutter. That's when I realized that these leggings -- as comfortable as they were -- left nothing to the imagination and bending at the waist the way I'd been doing was putting on quite the show. I snapped back up and walked around to the other side of the hard drive island, where any bending I'd do would have my butt pointed at the store's back wall, rather than a crowd of people. I bent down again, this time bending at the knees, when one of the store's employees approached me from behind. "Can I help you find something?" he asked. I didn't need to turn around to see who it was. The voice was unmistakable. It was Mark. I hadn't even considered the possibility that I'd run into him here, I was so focused on just fixing my problem. Then I remembered the dream from this morning, and our near wedding-sealing kiss, and started blushing. I took a deep breath to compose myself before standing up and turning around. "Mark?" I asked, trying to play it cool. "Oh..." he said, as if disappointed to see me, "it's you." Not only was I not disappointed to see him, I was pleasantly surprised that he didn't look much different from the way I remembered the Mark from my life. From my new perspective he certainly looked taller, but he was still in shape, still sporting a blonde crew-cut, still wearing the blue store T-shirt, baggy jeans and a pair of beat-up old Jordans. About the only noticeable difference was a tattoo of a dagger on his left forearm. But he didn't recognize me, at least the me I wanted him to recognize. "Yeah, it's me," I said. "Alana Carlysle." I was hoping he'd say "no, you're Andrew and what the hell is going on", but I had no such luck. "I'd heard you were back in town," he said. "I'm surprised you bothered to show up here." "Well, I needed a hard drive," I said. I was getting a really angry vibe from him, and I didn't want to pry, so I tried to stick as close to the basics as possible and hopefully just end this interaction quickly. "OF COURSE," he said, loudly, "because it's always about what YOU want, isn't it, Ali?" OK, so it was becoming really clear to me that despite Mark's non- existence in Ali's contact list, Facebook profile or e-mail history, he wasn't a non-entity in her life. "I didn't think..." "No, you didn't," he interrupted. "Because you never think. You just do. Like when you ran away to New York just to get away from me. You didn't think about how that would hurt me, did you, Ali?" The disdain he had for me dripped off his words, especially in the way he said "Ali". I desperately wanted him to stop saying it, to call me Alana or Andrew or literally anything else right now. He was my best friend in the world and having him yelling at me like this, in a place where we'd shared so many good times, it was... well, it made me feel even tinier than I already did. I could feel my lower lip quivering and my hands starting to shake. "This was a mistake," I said, barely getting the words out. "Just like saying you'd marry me was a mistake, right, Ali?" he asked. "You make a lot of mistakes, but they're never your fault, are they, Ali?" Oh, God. Alana's memories flooded my mind like an emotional onslaught. Four years ago, nearly to the day, Mark had proposed to her, and she said yes. But a week later, she had second thoughts. She left the ring -- and a note - - on his dresser, and left for New York. I felt all the blood rush from my face, and tears started to roll down my cheeks. "Oh, don't start with that," Mark said. He'd seen the "Alana uses emotions to get what she wants" show before, and wasn't interested in falling for it again. But as I continued to cry, his demeanor changed. He quickly calmed, and motioned to another employee to get him some tissues. "Look, don't cry, I shouldn't have gotten so angry," he said. "I just... I haven't seen you in years and then you just show up here and it brought up a whole bunch of stuff that..." He trailed off. A female employee who I didn't recognize handed me a stack of tissues, but I couldn't stop the tears from coming. I just turned around and started walking quickly to the front of the store. "Ali, wait," Mark yelled out after me. I pushed through the crowd of people as best I could, as some moved out of the way and others moved closer to get a glimpse of the scene. I even saw one person recording the whole thing on an iPhone, and wondered how quickly "Crazy girl has emotional breakdown at Apple Store" would go viral on YouTube. But I didn't break stride. "Ali, please don't do this again," Mark said. I was five steps outside the store before I turned around and looked back at him. Tears were starting to well up in his eyes too. I'd clearly opened an emotional Pandora's Box that none of us were ready for. I wanted to say something, anything to reassure him. I even thought about telling him the truth, as insane as it would've sounded at that moment. But instead I just turned back around and ran down the hall as quickly as I could. So many things had changed in the last day and a half, and the thing with Mark just really pushed it over the top. But one thing that hadn't changed is that when I got emotional, I got hungry. So I made my way to Panera Bread, because I needed something constant, something unchanged. I needed a Smokehouse Turkey Panini and a large Diet Pepsi. I walked into the restaurant and I could tell people were looking at me, and I couldn't blame them. I hadn't even bothered to try and clean up my face, which had to be a mess of smeared makeup and dried tears. I just headed straight for the counter, and people actually got out of my way to let me move up in line. That was a decidedly nice perk of having an emotional breakdown, though certainly not enough to make me not feel like shit. As I approached the ordering spot, I reached into my purse to pull out my compact and more tissues, to try and at least start to clean myself up. I brushed away the two longest streaks on my cheeks, and looked up to see Panera Bread Girl standing behind the register, not even looking up at me. "Smokehouse Turkey Panini with a..." I hesitated. Alana didn't seem like a soda drinker, at least not at lunch. "A bottle of water," I said, ordering what I thought would be right. The redheaded object of my unrequited affections punched in the order then looked up to tell me the price. "Alana?" she asked. "Alana Carlysle, is that you?" I just looked at her, dumbfounded. Panera Bread Girl knew who I was. "It's me," she continued. "Sara Carpenter. From Hartt?" Hartt... where Alana had gone to school for two years, before moving to New York... after breaking off her engagement with Mark... and with that reminder tears started to well up in my eyes again. "Oh, honey, is everything all right," Sara asked. "I've just... I'm having the worst day," I said. That was a vast understatement, to say the least. I tried to hold back the tears, but this body reacted to emotions far more rapidly than I was used to, and I could feel them starting to flow again. "Alex, can you cover for me for a few," Sara said to one of her co- workers, a gangly teen who quickly stepped in behind the register and kept the line moving as Sara came out from behind the counter and walked with me to a table. She sat down across from me and took the mirror from my hand, holding it up to my face. "Here, let me help you with that," she said. "Thank you," I said, through my sniffles. I got the crying under control and cleaned up my makeup as best I could, as one of the other employees brought over my sandwich and my water. I took a bite, then a sip of the water, and started to compose myself. "So Sara," I said, "what've you been up to?" We both laughed. Her laugh was melodic, like a Disney princess. It was almost enough to make me swoon. "When was the last time we saw each other?" she asked. "Professor Smith's Intro to Music class?" "God, that was what, four years ago," I said. "You were such a natural," she said. "I always loved the way you moved on stage. I heard you were performing in New York?" "I was," I said. "But I'm back here now. What about you? You work... here?" "Oh, this is just a temporary gig," she said. I guess it was possible. I'd only seen her there starting a few months ago, and it's not like she was there every day. And what reason did she have to lie to me? "So what do you do the rest of the time?" I asked. "Well I've got one semester left to get my master's degree and then I'm going to go into teaching," she said. "Teaching?" "Oh, I'm still working on my music too," she said. "But I want to have something solid to fall back on." I took another bite of my sandwich, a big one. My appetite was starting to come back, and on top of that I was too nervous to say anything. Here I was having a conversation with my dream girl like it was no big thing, and I couldn't even tell her how I truly felt. "It's funny," she said. "I'm actually going to be in New York next week to try and hit up some singer/songwriter nights. I was going to look you up, but here you are." "Yeah, the world works in mysterious ways," I said, in another incredible understatement. "Hey, do you want to hear my demo?" she asked. "Sure," I said. I tried balancing my internal desire for her with what I thought should be Alana's more measured reaction. "Do you have it here?" "It's online," she said. "I can send you the link." "That'd be awesome," I said. "I could use something good today." "Yeah, you were kind of a mess when you came in," she said. "What's going on?" "Oh," I said, letting out a big sigh. "Where to start? Umm... well, how about... I ran into Mark today, for the first time in years." "Mark, as in your ex Mark?" she asked. "The very same," I said. "Obviously it wasn't a happy reunion." "At least this one is going better," she said. "I'd toast to old friends, but I don't have a drink and your water is almost empty." "Well, do you, maybe, want to get a drink?" I asked, hesitantly. "It's 12:30," she said. "And I'm working for another few hours. But..." "But..." I asked. "No, I'm sure you already have plans," she said. "Try me." "Well, I'm playing a gig tomorrow night at the Red Door," she said. "I'd love it if you came. I mean, you are practically the reason I'm still doing this." "I am?" "Yeah, if you hadn't been there for me freshman year, I probably would've given up on music entirely," she said. "I would've dropped out, taken a job like this full time, and who knows where I'd be now." "Probably still here, questioning every decision you'd made in life," I said, speaking from experience. Sara laughed. "Oh, god, could you imagine," she said, still chuckling. "Letting so much potential go to waste, working in a mall your whole life?" Great, now I wanted to cry again. But I took my last sip of water and held it together. "Well, then, I guess it's a date," I said. "Yeah, I guess so," she said. "Hey, I've gotta get back to work, but it was great catching up." "And if you need to talk or anything," she added, taking a pen out of her pocket and writing her number on a napkin, "just call me, okay?" "OK," I said, with a big smile on my face. Sara went back behind the counter and resumed working, giving me a little wave as she did. I smiled and waved back, and then texted Lexi asking if she could pick me up. "Did you get what you needed," her response asked. In some weird way, I think I did. ***** "Whose car is that?" Lexi spotted the car parked in front of our house as she pulled around the corner. "I don't know," I said. I'd never seen it before -- at least not as Andrew -- but right now I could only think of one person in Alana's life who would have a red Porsche 911 with "B MONEY" vanity plates. Lexi drove past the car and pulled up our driveway, and, to my total non-surprise, there was Bryce, sitting on our back porch. "Is that Monica's boyfriend?" Lexi asked. "Ex-boyfriend," I said, making sure to emphasize the "ex" part. "So what's he doing here?" "I wish I knew." Lexi walked right past Bryce without him saying anything to her, but I knew I wouldn't be so lucky. "Where you going so fast," Bryce asked as I tried to quickly follow Lexi inside. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "Well," he said, sitting back down on one of our patio chairs. "I thought we could talk." He was wearing black skinny jeans, an Affliction T-shirt and the same Concord Jordan XIs from the club. Aside from the sneakers -- my favorite pair ever -- he looked like a total douche. I wanted to punch him, but in this tiny frame, I was fairly certain that wouldn't do any good. So, instead, I sat down in the chair across from him. "So," I said. "Talk." "You sure you don't want to go upstairs," he said. "Fix up your makeup, put on something nice?" "Holy shit," I said. "Are you TRYING to make me hate you?" "Oh, come on," he said. "You know you like it when I talk shit to you. It gets you all hot." He leaned back in his chair and started to take his shirt off. "No," I said. "NO. That is NOT happening." He slid his shirt back down his torso. Well, that was at least one crisis averted. But I still had to deal with this guy who apparently I'd been sleeping with for six months, despite the fact he was dating my best friend at the time. And of course I didn't even remember doing it, because up until two days ago, I was a guy named Andrew, not a girl named Alana. "So you talk to Monica?" he asked. "Yes, we talked a lot last night," I said. "About us?" he asked. "As I told you last night, there is no 'us'," I said. "We're not a thing. We might've been before, but we're not now. And we never will be." "What the hell is up with you?" he asked, growing angry. "Last week all you could talk about was wanting to be with me and now you're acting like you hate me. And last night at the club you said you liked my shoes..." As he said that, he popped his feet up on the patio table, as if to throw the shoes in my face. "... but you've always hated that I wear sneakers all the time. It's like you're a totally different person." "Maybe I am," I said. I stood up, trying to send a signal that I was done talking, but Bryce was too full of himself to pick up on non-verbal cues. "What does that even mean?" he asked. "It means I'm done talking to you," I said. I turned around and started to head inside, but Bryce kept talking. "Fine, be that way," he said. "I'll come back when you're off your period." Oh. Hell. No. I'd been a girl for less than 48 hours and in that time I'd suffered plenty of indignities -- not the least of which was having this asshole's tongue in my mouth -- but I was not about to stand here and listen to some douchebag accuse me of PMSing when I was the only person in this fucked-up love triangle who was trying to be an adult about the whole thing. "My period?" I asked, in a tone that, well, to be entirely honest, didn't exactly disprove his point. "You have got to be fucking kidding me. I've spent the last two days putting on makeup, parading around in dresses, bikinis and every other embarrassing piece of clothing I could possibly imagine, I've had my entire life stripped away and replaced with someone else's -- someone who I thought was pretty awesome but now I'm learning is pretty much a selfish bitch -- and you're gonna sit there and accuse me of being on my period?!" "Oh... ... kay... " Bryce's eyes got wide, as he tried to process the crazy I'd just dumped on him. I quickly realized I'd gone a bit too far in my freakout, so I tried to do a little damage control. "Ohmigod, you're right," I said, giggling. Playing the ditz was probably the best thing to do here. "I'm acting so totally crazy. Women, amirite?" Bryce just sat there in shock. "Like, I'mma just go take a Midol and lie down and like why don't I call you later, OK, bye-ie!" And with that I headed inside. I definitely laid it on a bit too thick there, but it was better than the alternative, trying to explain what I'd meant when I said I'd had my life replaced. That was certainly a one-way ticket to the crazy house. Instead, I was safely in my house, one of the few things that was familiar to me in these two days of drastic changes. Unfortunately, one of the unfamiliar things -- my vastly changed sister -- was standing in my way. "Did I hear him right?" she asked. "Are you sleeping with him?" Shit. How much had she heard? OK... I needed to play this cool. "HIM," I responded with mock indignation. "Hell no. He's pissed at Monica and blames me for their breakup, so he was threatening to tell her that I DID sleep with him, even though I totally didn't." "Really?" Lexi asked, not quite believing my story. "I mean, just look at him," I said, as Lexi did just that, looking out our kitchen window as he walked down the driveway to his car. "He's totally not my type." "Oh, good," she said, with a sigh of relief. "'Cause you and Aiden are like totally perfect together. How great is it gonna be to see him next week?" "So great," I said, faking enthusiasm. Truthfully, I was dreading it. I'd barely had time to adjust to all the changes in my life and now I was going to have to fly all the way across the country and spend two days alone with a man I literally knew nothing about, aside from his name and how we'd met. And I was going to have to act like I was in love with him, despite knowing that I'd been cheating on him from the day we started dating. And here I thought my life as a guy sucked. Lexi grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and headed up to her room -- probably to gossip with her friends about her lunch date with Ryan and the Drama with a capital D between her sister and her sister's best friend's ex-boyfriend -- and I headed into the living room. I turned on the TV, and went to turn on some baseball. Only, as it turned out, in this reality, we didn't have the MLB package. Which meant with the Red Sox off, watching any American League action was out. So I settled for the only other local option on our cable system, the Mets. Plopping myself into the familiar leather recliner, the one that had been in our living room for more than 15 years, felt kind of good. I leaned back, kicked off my shoes and just... exhaled. For the better part of the last two days, I'd been living in a non-stop state of chaos, and I was beginning to feel weighed down by it. Ironic, since I'd had such a literal massive weight lifted from my body. Just getting a chance to sit here and watch a baseball game -- even one I had no interest in - - felt... well, right. I got up to get myself a beer from the fridge, but before I could, I was jolted back to my new reality, as my phone rang with Aiden's specific ringtone. "Hey sweetie," I said, trying to play the role of the dutiful girlfriend. "What's up?" "Are you all right?" he asked. I had to admit, though I still felt no physical attraction toward other males, the sound of his voice - that strong, deep voice with that Australian accent - kind of made me melt. "I'm fine," I said. "Ohmigod, was I supposed to call you this morning? My head's been kind of all over the place... you know, with the move, and getting ready for next week, and everything." "No, I just heard about what happened between you and Mark and I wanted to make sure you were doing OK," he said. Wow, word traveled fast. "No, it was really no big thing," I said. "No big thing? You ran out of the store blubbering with your makeup a total mess," he said. I didn't know what to say, but my silence spoke volumes. "How did you..." "Someone showed me the video," he said. "You're quite a smash on YouTube." I heard him laugh a little as he said it. "Oh, is my pain funny to you?" I asked. "Well, you have to admit, you were a bit... shall we say, 'dramatic'," he said. "It's a shame you couldn't have channeled that emotion at your audition." "My audition?" Once again, my lack of knowledge of my own life was lacking, leaving me in an awkward position. "Oh, speaking of which," he said, continuing on as if I had any clue what he was talking about. "I spoke with some people here and they're willing to meet with you when you're in town. They can't promise anything but... fingers crossed!" "That's great," I said. "But back to the thing where you were laughing at me crying my eyes out." "I wasn't... I didn't... I just... " he said, stumbling over his words. "I'm sorry. But I did call to see if you were all right, right?" I have to admit, he did. Plus, if I'd seen the video of how I'd acted at the store, and it had been anyone but me, I probably would've been laughing at the crazy girl too. "OK, fine, you're off the hook," I said. "And I do appreciate you calling." "So you're OK then," he said. "I am. I'll talk to you later, okay?" "OK. I love you." "Love ya too." I still couldn't bring myself to say "I love you" like an actual loving girlfriend to this guy. I'd at least like to see him in person first. Hanging up the phone, I grabbed a bottle of Heineken from the fridge and headed back to the living room. I sat back in the recliner and popped open the beer, but before I could even take a sip, I was interrupted by someone walking into the room. "Careful, now," the man said. "I wouldn't want my little princess getting a beer belly." I turned around as best I could in my chair and saw who it was. My father. "Come here and give your old man a hug," he said. He seemed happy, which was a nice change of pace, and he wasn't yelling at me, my mom or my sister, which almost never happened. I got up from my chair and gave him a half-hearted hug, and he pulled me in tighter. "Oh, I'm sorry I missed you at the party yesterday," he said. "Your mom said you went out with some friends." "Yeah," I said. "I... I wasn't trying to avoid you or anything." "Oh, I know that, sweetie," he said, taking the beer from my hand and sitting in the recliner. "I'm just glad I got to see you before you headed out of town again." "So..." I didn't even know what to talk to him about. I'd never had much of a good relationship with my own father, and 95 percent of our conversations were just about sports -- at least when he wasn't yelling at me for being a lazy freeloader. But given that this dad had divorced my mother years ago, I was even more lost on where to start. "So..." I continued. "What brings you over today?" "Oh, Ron and I were talking about the Camero last night and he had an idea for getting rid of that clunking sound," he said. "So he told me to bring it over this afternoon. Any idea where he is?" "No, I just got back in," I said, sitting down on the couch across from him. "So how've you been?" "Good," he said, taking a swig of the beer I'd gotten for myself. I really wanted a drink of my own right now. "The construction business is finally picking back up, and I think Marie and I might finally be ready to settle down." "Marie?" I asked. "Oh, that's right, you haven't even met her yet," he said. "Well, we've been going out for about a year. She's really sweet. Your sister loves her." "That's great," I said. "I'm glad you're happy." I really was. My father and I had certainly had our differences over the years, but it wasn't like I wanted him to suffer. And it's clear that staying with my mother had been causing him to do just that. This was so confusing to me. For every horrible thing I found out about my life as Alana, I seemed to find out some great thing too. I really couldn't decide if this version of my life was better or worse, and what lessons I was supposed to be learning -- if any at all. "Are you happy?" he asked me. "I know leaving New York must've been hard on you." "Not at all," I said, which was true. Leaving New York hadn't been hard on me since I wasn't the one who left New York. "It's a new chapter." "Oh, come on," he yelled. I thought for a second it was at me, but I quickly realized he was reacting to something happening in the game. "Stupid Davis..." "Why don't I leave you to the game until Ron gets back," I said. "I've got some stuff to take care upstairs anyway." "Thanks honey," he said. "Let's make some time to catch up before you leave though. Dinner this weekend?" "That sounds great," I said, before heading back up to my room. When I got upstairs, I found that my bed had been made, and there was a basket of clothes sitting on top of it, with a note attached. "Needed to make some room for laundry, so I brought yours up for you. - Mom" I tossed the note aside and started sorting the clothes. There was plenty of stuff that made me shudder when I thought about wearing it, a few things that were perfectly acceptable and one thing that caught my eye - a silver ankh on a black string necklace. It looked like the one Death wore in the Sandman comics, which felt a little symbolic given my current state. I ran my fingers over the edges of the ankh. It was cold, which was strange, given that it had been sitting on top of the warm laundry. I slipped it over my head and onto my neck. "Death becomes me," I said to myself. I liked how the necklace looked on me. It fell right between my breasts, but somehow didn't look particularly sexual. As I packed up everything else, I decided to leave it on. I looked out my bedroom window, and saw my father and Ron working on the car, which meant the living room was once again likely vacant -- if my mom had started a laundry cycle, she'd likely be bouncing between the basement and the bedrooms for the rest of the afternoon. I grabbed my computer off the vanity to do a little more "Alana" research -- hopefully to find out more about Aiden and who else I might be meeting in Los Angeles -- and figure out exactly what I needed to back up before I wiped this thing clean. Just as I did, my phone beeped with a new text message. It was from Monica. "Call me." Before I could even text back, another one came in. "NOW" Uh-oh. ***** "What the fuck were you thinking?!" Monica hadn't even waited for me to call her after sending her urgent text. True, I had hesitated, looking at the texts for a couple minutes, trying to figure out what to say to her. That was a long enough delay to prompt Monica to call me, and yell at me as soon as I picked up the phone. "It's not what you think," I said, hoping she would calm down at least a little. "Like hell it's not," she said. "I can't believe you'd go behind my back like that." Part of me couldn't believe it either. I'd been living Alana's life for less than 48 hours, and didn't know much about her -- at least not as much as I wanted to know. But it was pretty clear that Monica was her best friend, and sleeping with her boyfriend seemed like a real shitty thing to do. And now here I was, being forced to take the blame for something I hadn't even done. "I didn't... I can't... I mean..." I was at a loss for words. I briefly considered telling her the truth -- the REAL truth. But now didn't feel like the right time for that. "You promised me," Monica said, "that you were never going to see him again." Wait, now I was really confused. Did Monica know there'd been something between Bryce and Alana? Because Bryce sure hadn't made it seem that way. "I didn't mean to," I said. "It just kind of... happened." "Oh, sure," Monica said, sarcastically. "You just HAPPENED to be at the mall and HAPPENED to go to the Apple Store and Mark just HAPPENED to be working at that time." Holy shit, this is about Mark?! I let out a deep sigh of relief and actually started laughing. "What the hell is so funny," Monica asked. "I just... I thought you were pissed about something else," I said. "The thing with Mark it was totally an accident, I swear. I really didn't think I'd run in to him." "Well you did," she said. "And I saw the video. I told you nothing good would come of ever seeing him again, but NO, you didn't believe me. Well, see, I was right." "You were," I said. "So are you okay?" she asked, finally sounding like a supportive friend instead of a betrayed one for the first time in this whole conversation. "I am, really," I said. It couldn't be further from the truth. I still had to deal with the whole Monica/Bryce thing at some point, I couldn't just leave the Mark thing hanging like that and, oh yeah, I still had the problem where I was living a totally different life as the complete opposite gender I'd been my entire life, and I was getting no closer to solving that problem, thanks to having to deal with all of Alana's drama. "No you're not," Monica said. "I can hear it in your voice. I'm coming over." "That's really not necessary," I said. "I just need some time to process." "Process? No, what you need is some girl time, some 'Grey's' DVDs and maybe a little retail therapy." "Trust me," I said. "The last thing I need is some retail anything. I'm just gonna relax. I'll be fine. We can catch up tomorrow." "You sure?" she asked. "I'm sure." And with that, a crisis was averted, at least temporarily. I knew I couldn't keep Monica from the truth forever, but I was hoping I could somehow get my life back normal before I'd have to deal with that. I headed downstairs into the living room to watch some baseball and do more search into Alana's life, but my mom was in there folding laundry. Two days ago, running into my mom at home would've led to a long conversation about where I'd be living next month. Now, well, I had no idea what to expect from her. I knew we were much closer and much more congenial than before, but that almost made things harder. I couldn't ask her about my life or my family or anything like that, because I'd be expected to know the answers. "Hey mom," I said, settling into the small loveseat in the corner while she laid out folded laundry on the couch. "Oh, hi, Alana," she said. "Don't mind me. I've just got a couple more loads to take care of. Which reminds me, I put some of your laundry upstairs on your bed, and your last load is in the dryer right now." "Thanks mom," I said. It'd been years since my own mother had done my laundry for me. She made me start doing my own when I was 18 and still living at home. I guess living away from home for years makes your mother more amenable to helping take care of your chores. I opened up my MacBook Air and tried to figure out the mystery behind Alana's cryptic last Facebook status update. She posted it last week, just before moving back home, but it seemed like Monica, Gwen, Alexis -- really anyone I'd encountered -- had no insight into Alana's plans beyond the next week. I didn't seem to have a job waiting for me at home, nor any type of permanent housing solution, so why'd Alana suddenly pack up and leave New York? The thing with Bryce had made it a little clearer why she hadn't followed Aiden to Los Angeles. If she'd been sleeping with someone else behind his back for literally the entirety of their relationship, it would seem that she hadn't been taking it very seriously to begin with. As I went through Alana's e-mails, I felt increasingly uncomfortable with this whole situation, to the point it was once again making me physically ill. For a while yesterday, it'd really seemed like this cosmic mishap had dropped me into a better life, but I'm finding that's not the case. And the novelty of the whole situation had worn off; it wasn't "cute" anymore being in this tiny frame or having to pee sitting down or wearing a bra. It was just wrong. "What's wrong, honey," my mom said to me. Great, I was giving off that "something's wrong" vibe to everyone now. I really should've just gone back upstairs to my room to have some privacy. I closed the laptop and put it on the seat next to me, then instinctively adjusted how I was sitting, putting my right leg under me while my left foot was on the loveseat as I wrapped my arms around my left leg. I'd seen the body language before but never been on it from this side, closing myself off. "Mom," I said, hesitatingly. I wanted to ask her if she thought I... or rather Alana... was a good person, but she's my mother. Of course she'll think that. Hell, as much as my mother and I hadn't gotten along before this insanity happened, she certainly would've said I'm a good person. So I went with a different question, one that had been bugging me on a smaller level since yesterday morning. "Why'd you name me Alana?" She chuckled. "That's a funny story," she said. "I can't believe I've never told you." "I don't think you have," I said. "I mean, it's not like I don't like the name Alana. I do. Even if everyone calls me Ali. Alana's a pretty name." "It is," my mom said as she continued to fold laundry. "But it wasn't supposed to be your name." "Really?" I asked, intrigued. "So what was my name supposed to be?" "Andrew," she said, without hesitation. My jaw dropped. This was the first time in two days I'd heard that name -- MY name -- and to hear that it was SUPPOSED to be Alana's name was, well, jaw-dropping (obviously). "Yeah, up until the day you were born, your father and I were convinced you were going to be a boy. We had your name all picked out: Andrew Steven Carlysle. So imagine our surprise when you came out." "Yeah, imagine that," I said. "So how'd you end up with Alana?" "Honestly, it was always the name I'd planned on giving my first daughter, but we were so certain we were having a boy that I never even discussed it with your father," she said. "When you came out, and it was clear you weren't going to be an 'Andrew', your father wanted to just shorten it to 'Andi', but I held firm. You had to be Alana." "Interesting," I said. "Wait... so why were you so sure I was going to be a boy?" "Well, I'd love to tell you it was an ultrasound or something high tech or even based in science," my mom said. "But I'd be lying. It was just... a feeling. All my sisters had boys first, same with your father's sister. Heck, you're the only girl out of all your first-born cousins. I'd never really thought about that before... it's weird." "VERY weird," I said. I was getting the sense there was more to this sudden gender reassignment than I'd previously believed. Whatever caused this reboot went all the way back to when I was in the womb and changed me then. "But we got a girl, and we're very happy with our Alana," she said. "Now, I can't even imagine if you'd been born a boy. You and your sister get along so well, you're such an amazing dancer... who knows where you'd be?" "Probably not sitting here talking with my mom," I said. "No, I'd imagine not." She folded the last piece of laundry and put all the folded clothes into the laundry bin to bring it upstairs to her bedroom. As she picked up the basket and walked out of the room, she turned back to me. "What sparked this trip down memory lane?" she asked. "I dunno," I said. "Just... thinking about... stuff. Life... I guess." "Well, don't over think things," she said. "You've always been more of a doer. It drove me crazy at times when you were growing up, but you've really made yourself into something special." "Oh, I've made myself into 'something'," I said to myself under my breath. As my mom left the room, I stretched my legs back out, then sat back and spread them in the most un-lady-like position possible. I really wanted to stick one hand down my pants, grab a beer in the other and hope that would magically turn me back into a man, but I knew it wouldn't help. So I recrossed my legs and sat "Indian style" (I know it's not "politically-correct" to call it that anymore, but the last time I was physically able to sit like this, it's what it was called), popping open my computer on my lap. I got through about three e-mails, but I just couldn't concentrate. My mom telling me that I was supposed to have been born a boy was messing with my head. So I closed up the laptop and brought it with me as I headed upstairs. I put the laptop down, took off the "Death" necklace and then took off my shirt and bra. Having small breasts, wearing a bra hadn't been the most annoying thing about this situation, but every time I took one off, I was reminded just how uncomfortable they were. It didn't help that all of Alana's bras could easily be categorized as "fashionable", as the form was clearly much more important to her than the function. I rubbed my shoulders where the straps had dug in a little; I had to admit that a little bra discomfort was nothing compared to the pain years of football injuries had left me with. I figured Alana had probably had her share of bumps and bruises in her dance career, but I certainly hadn't felt them yet in my time as her. Unless "stomach pain" was a symptom of dance injuries. I slipped on a black sports bra and a tight blue tank top and traded my leggings for some running shorts. I needed to clear my head and I wasn't sure why, but it seemed like the best thing to do was to go for a run. It's possible that was the Alana in me talking, but it seemed like a better idea than sitting around and wallowing in my misery. Plus, this way if Monica decided to pop in, I wouldn't be home and I could put off facing her for a little longer. I grabbed my iPhone and some earbuds off my vanity. Before I headed out, I stopped by my sister's room. "Hey," I said, cracking open the door. "I'm going for a run. Please don't take the car out while I'm gone." "You know mom wouldn't let me anyway," she said. "Fair enough." I closed the door and headed out, popping in my earbuds as I waved to Ron and my dad before embarking on my run. I didn't know where I was running or why I was running. I just wanted to run. I really wanted to run back into my old life, especially when Alana's playlists started kicking in. As if the Ke$ha and Pink weren't bad enough, I'm pretty sure she had every Taylor Swift song known to man on here. And when it wasn't shuffling through a selection of Top 40 songs that made me want to stick a Q-Tip into my ears until I heard a pop, it was running through random broadway and ballet songs, which I'm sure were from her life as a dancer. The only rap album she had on here was "Take Care" by Drake, and I barely considered that rap. I made a note -- an actual note in the Notes application -- to buy some new music when I got back home. If I was going to be living this life, even on a short- term basis, I wanted it to have a decent soundtrack. As I let the dulcet tones of the scorned Taylor Swift wash over me, I just kept running. Before long, I found myself at the town reservoir, about three miles away from my house. I'd been running for three miles, and looking at the clock on my phone, I'd been doing it at about a nine- minute-mile pace, and I wasn't even winded. I decided to keep running up through the woods, to the lookout point above the lake. There was a spot along the path where the trees and been cleared out and there was a big rock that you could sit on and just look down at the water. It was actually where I'd gone on my first "date" in middle school. A lot of kids my age then went on "dates" there, since we weren't really old enough to do anything special. It was either have your parents drive you to the mall or the movies, or go to the reservoir. And the latter made you look "sensitive". A few minutes later I reached the spot and took a seat on the rock. Looking down on that lake now, my emotions weren't being faked. They were certainly conflicted, but they were real. The serenity of the whole scene was relaxing, but inside I was a bundle of nerves that couldn't be settled. I was impressed with my physical fitness in this new body and worried that it was going to be something I'd have to maintain long term. I wanted this nightmare to be over, but I also was in no rush to get back to my mess of a normal life. I took out my earbuds and Instagrammed a picture of the scene. The sun wasn't quite setting yet over the water, but it was low enough in the sky that it was reflecting nicely. It was, well, it was just pretty. But it wasn't real -- the "lake" was man-made, obviously. Pretty, but not real. The story of my new life. I put my headphones back in and made my way back down the hill. As I neared the bottom, I stepped the wrong way on a rock, and rolled my right ankle. I was able to catch myself before falling over, but I immediately felt the sharp pain in the joint. I tried taking a few steps, and while the pain wasn't unbearable, I definitely wasn't going to be able to run the rest of the way home. Walk slowly, maybe, but definitely not run. Before I ventured back onto the road, I headed down to the edge of the water and took off my right shoe and sock. I put my foot in the water, which was colder than I'd expected. But that was a good thing. It felt right, even if very little else about my body did at this point. ***** It'd only taken me about half an hour to run to the reservoir, but thanks to my ankle, it took me almost 90 minutes to walk home. To be fair, I'd stopped a couple times to get off my foot and massage the ankle, but it still took way longer than it needed to. Now it really was starting to get dark, and I was really happy that I was only a block away from home. I probably should've called my mom or my sister or Ron or even Monica to come pick me up and drive me home, but I had this nagging sense of pride to try and fight through the injury. I did wonder, though, if I was doing permanent damage to my ankle and if that was something that Alana would have to deal with after I got back to my life. That thought got me thinking even more. Would Alana, this Alana, exist after all this? What about Alexis? Would she still live her life, or would she turn back into my juvenile delinquent sister Alana? For that matter, were the people in my old life still living their lives? And what did that mean for me? I'd gone out on this run to try and clear my head, but now it was more muddled than ever. And things were about to get worse before they got better, because who should be sitting on my front porch as I turned the corner? Mark. My house was three houses down from the corner, and Mark, still wearing his work clothes, wasn't looking in my direction, so I spotted him before he spotted me. I thought about trying to make a quick dash up one of my neighbors' driveways then sneaking into my backyard, but with my ankle being as messed up as it was, I wasn't going to be doing anything quickly. And with the pool in our backyard now, there was much less backyard to sneak into. Any hopes of hiding or turning back around were dashed when Mark finally looked over in my direction. He dropped the bag he was holding, hopped up from his seat and quickly ran to my side. "You're limping," he said, trying to get me to use his body as a crutch. "You're not supposed to be here," I said, snippily. I pushed him away and tried to keep moving forward, but the closer I got to home, the more I was becoming aware of how much pain my ankle was in. I took a few more steps and stumbled, and Mark reached out to grab me. "I don't want your help," I yelled at him. "At least... not like this... " "Like what?" he asked. "Like... it's... never mind," I said. I was on the verge of just telling him everything, but instead I just accepted his help in getting me to my front door. He helped me up the front steps to the porch, where he'd left an Apple Store bag. "So what are you doing here?" I asked. "Didn't get enough of seeing me cry this afternoon?" "I wanted to apologize," he said, "and give you this." He handed me the bag, as I leaned back against the door. I needed the support, as I'd reached the point I could barely stand without pain. I really just wanted to get inside and get some ice on this thing. Thankfully I was already going to see a doctor tomorrow, so I didn't have to worry about making an extra appointment. Mark was standing there waiting for me to look inside the bag, so I obliged. It was a hard drive. "You said you needed one," he said. "I kind of ran you out of the store before you could buy it." "How much do I owe you?" I asked. "It's on me," he said. "For... well, for acting like an asshole. I know we didn't end things on good terms, but I had no right treating you like that today. I just, umm, well, you were kind of the last person I ever expected to see today." "You know," I said, "As bad as it was today, I have to admit I was still kind of happy to see you." Mark's eyes got really wide. That certainly wasn't the reaction he was expecting from Alana. "I'm serious," I continued. "I've had a couple of really confusing days, and it was kind of nice to see a familiar face in a familiar place." "Wow," he said. "You haven't changed one bit." "Ummm... is that... good?" I asked. "It's... you," he said. "Somehow, someway, you could always find a way to be the coldest, cruelest bitch and the sweetest, most caring girl, all at the same time." "That's quite an apology," I said. "Hey, at least you got one," he said. "I'm still waiting on mine." "Fine, I'm sorry," I said. "For?" "For everything," I snapped. "For walking out on you. For walking back in on you. For not being who you needed me to be and for being who I am. I'm sorry I'm not perfect. I'm sorry I'm a bitch. I'm sorry you had to fucking help me walk half a block home because my sorry ankle can't tolerate being rolled over a little bit. I'm just sorry, okay?!" I started to tear up again, and I could see Mark was upset that he'd made me upset, but it really had nothing to do with him. Well, it had everything to do with him, because he reminded me of my old life and it hurt to see him. Seeing him made me want everything fixed right now, so we could go back to bitching about movies and I could finally be honest with him about Monica and he could help me get my life straightened out. But instead here we were still bitter with each other about a wedding that never happened and a reunion that shouldn't have happened and then before I knew it, his lips were on mine. Oh. My. God. Mark is kissing me. My best friend in the world, the guy I've known since we were both five years old, the guy whose blindside I protected through multiple levels of football, is kissing me. I flashed back to my kiss last night with Bryce. That one had felt more wrong than right, for a multitude of reasons, but this felt totally different. As our lips connected, I closed my eyes and the tears stopped. Before I knew it, I was inside, lying on my bed with Mark propping up my ankle with a pillow, putting ice on top of it. "You know you shouldn't be here, right?" I asked, still somewhat confused about how either of us had gotten "here." "I know," he said. "So..." "So..." "Mark, I appreciate your help," I said. "I appreciate the hard drive, and I REALLY appreciate the ice, but there are SO many reasons why you shouldn't be in my bedroom, not the