“Have you plotted your revenge?” May asked with a fond smile as she tucked me into bed.

  “How did you know?” I muttered sleepily.

  “I’ve known him half my life, been married to him for eight years,” she chuckled, stroking my forehead. “I recognized that look.”

  Back upstairs, we’d put the rest of her haul from today away in the wardrobe and drawers, put the new sheets on the bed, talked about thoughts, things she’d like us to do tomorrow, and then she’d walked me through a bedtime routine. I’d changed into the nightshirt and sleep shorts she’d handed me (they were like my boyleg panties but thicker and a bit longer in the leg) and brushed my teeth and washed my face with a “hydrating cleanser,” then layered on more moisturizer. When I complained she explained that men have literally thicker skin than women, so for girls it’s all “Hydration, hydration, hydration,” for skin-health as opposed to trying to control oil and acne in teen skin afflicted by surging hormones.

  There are so many extra steps to being a girl.

  “I just . . . warned him,” I admitted sleepily. “And is this a new routine, now? Tucking me in for the night?”

  To my amazement she actually blushed and I got to see what it looked like on another pale-complexioned redhead. But her fingers just moved up to my scalp, lightly massaging my hairline.

  “Confession?”

  I nodded, not imagining what she would say.

  “I love you. We love you.” Her fingers paused at my hitching gasp, then continued their gentle scratching. Her voice was soft. “When we moved here, we didn’t know what to expect. We put ourselves out there and hoped for the best. And there you were. Slightly grumpy, a little sad, and a friend with so much to give.” She looked away, obviously seeing a memory. “When my . . . complications came in the middle of your recovery, you were as worried about me and Stephanie as Carl was. You didn’t talk about it, but he told me you checked to see if our blood types matched just in case Steph or I would need it. It broke our hearts to know that you might not— That you wouldn’t be here with us forever.”

  She sniffed, eyes bright, and gave me a look full of determination. “So when we came over this morning to find that you’d become a beautiful young woman who would be with us for a long, long time, well.”

  “But I’m not me,” I choked. I’d had no idea, but— “I’m not David. None of this is me, not anymore.”

  “Really? Do you still love Steph?”

  I nodded jerkily.

  “And do you still love us?”

  I bit my lip, eyes pricking as I nodded harder. Hormones, yeah.

  “Then all the important bits of you are still here, as much of a stranger as you might feel to yourself right now. And we love you. As for this.” She ended the gentle scalp massage, stroking the blanket beside me and pulling it a little higher. “I think it’s been too long since you had anyone to give you kisses and tuck you in. So you’ll have to put up with me. Maybe not every night? Not forever, just, special occasions. And when it’s irresistible and it’s probably going to be that for a while.” Dropping a kiss on my forehead she straightened and slid off the bed.

  “And don’t worry. As lost as you might feel right now, you’ll find yourself again. Goodnight.”

  She turned off the light on her way out, closing the door to leave the light from the street outside the window the only illumination. And leaving me wide awake staring at the closed door.

  I finally rolled over on my side, mind completely blank.

  Staring at the wall didn’t help.

  Last night I’d almost died in my bath. And a part of me couldn’t help but think that might not have been so bad; after the years of depression and then the last year of just fighting for every day, I’d been so tired. If I hadn’t been in panic mode in the agony of the moment, I might have thought that Friday, ending with my favorite friends’ company at movie night and getting sneezed on by my unofficial goddaughter, might have been a perfect day and a good place for me to fold up my tent on.

  I snorted. Fold up my tent. That had been one of Father’s expressions. Fold up my tent. Break camp and move on. He’d been ready for it, with Mother gone on ahead of him. He hadn’t given up, but at eighty-three it had been easy for just one more thing to get him when he didn’t try as hard.

  If I’d had my heart attack before I’d met Carl and May . . . I wouldn’t have fought so hard to not fold up my tent and go. I’d never let them know that I’d changed my will after the attack and before my surgery. All my assets had been slated for my parents’ favorite causes and a few of my own, a Ross Family Legacy Fund, but I’d changed it, trusting my two new friends to do good things with it all. Sell the mortgage-free townhouse and fund an Ivy League education, for starters. Then I’d survived the surgery, and with them there I wasn’t ready to break camp just yet.

  If I’d died last night, they’d have gotten everything. That was what I’d wanted for them in the end, but instead they’d gotten . . . me. Grumpy and sad. Well, now confused and terrified.

  Not a great exchange.

  I inhaled at the thought. Stop that. Change mental tracks.

  One thing I’d taken away from the brief counseling I’d gotten last year had been to recognize my depressive spiraling. Cognitive therapy, mindfulness of my own regressive thoughts. Rolling onto my back again to stare at the ceiling made me think of Steph. I was her opposite and couldn’t stomach-sleep, never could. This afternoon before tucking into research, I’d napped on my back for a bit while she’d napped on top of me, settling me with her own light weight. Maybe I need her for my insomnia tonight? The thought made me giggle.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I’m a giggler now. I’d stopped being afraid of my new voice pretty fast though it still sounded weird. Maybe I’m not a wreck, if I can laugh.

  May had laughed today, too. So had Carl. For all that I’d upended everything, they’d laughed. And they seemed determined to keep me around. They’d pushed. Hard. Both of them had the selling side of their jobs down solid, and they’d used every closing technique I’d ever seen to make the sale.

  Well, I wasn’t going to be a burden. I’d been adulting for decades, and I was going to be the best babysitter ever.

  And I was afraid to even look in a mirror. Yeah, still a wreck. No fun for anybody.

  Stop that.

  Baby steps. Or bigger steps. What was I afraid of?

  The shower’d been sort of traumatic.

  I should shower.

  Their master bedroom was right below, even with new pipes in these old houses they’d hear the water running.

  Dammit.

  But the shower wasn’t all bad, was it? There’d been progress. And I wasn’t going to change again—I needed to face what I was. So okay, I could do this.

  Closing my eyes I remembered, letting my breathing slow. Starting with a twitch, I moved my left hand over my chest. My breast. Resting palm and fingers lightly on the soft swell beneath them, like laying my hand on Steph’s back, I swallowed. Could I go any further?

  Being afraid of my own body couldn’t be healthy, and was really going to get in the way of not being a burden. My hand twitched again as if agreeing it should get moving, so I did. Slow circles. Light touches.

  It really does . . . feel good.

  I’d read in my research that before puberty a girl’s chest was about as sensitive as a boy’s but with estrogen-driven inflation the whole area became more sensitive. I’d discovered that fast just this morning and now my right hand joined my left in stroking and lightly squeezing, the soft fabric of my nightshirt feeling both silky and rough against my new breasts, until I started to feel oddly warm and swollen there. This is me, now.

  When my nipples stiffened into little bullets I froze before continuing. This is me, too.

  Then the warmth moved down as my breath quickened and— Holy shit, I’m aroused.

  It didn’t feel the same, not at all. The place I’d been ignoring as much as I could all day felt . . . tight, not like a stiff or even painful erection but the sensation, and it could only be female arousal, felt more diffuse between my legs, even deep inside, and frozen I almost stopped breathing. Coward. Pulling in air I moved my hands again, resuming the pattern I’d fallen into and sighing as tension crept into my back and legs, making me pull my knees up and straighten my feet. Stretching back out I let them fall wider as, biting my lip, I slid my right hand down my stomach to tug my nightshirt up to the edge of my sleep shorts.

  And froze, fingertips touching bare skin.

  Coward. Carl said you can do anything, you can at least touch yourself. I pushed my fingers beneath my shorts, moving slowly like I was advancing into enemy territory.

  Past the dip in my belly my touch discovered the smooth swell at the apex of my emptiness, making me gasp. Mons. That’s my mons. This is me, too.

  Fingers shaking, I breathed to relax. On my breast my left hand squeezed lightly, reminding me what felt good already. Biting my lips I moved a finger down, finding my crease and running two fingers down the hot flesh there. Labia. Labia Majora. Look at me, rocking the Latin. I felt swollen and hot down there now, far more sensitive than I’d been in the shower and I shuddered, almost yanking my hand back.

  Taking deep breaths, I started with easy strokes, like May’s fingers on my scalp. Up and down, up and down, flattening my hand to move fingers to either side and give both labia soothing attention. It wasn’t soothing, it was— Something fluttered and I gasped, freezing again.

  I didn’t call myself a coward again, beyond that and drifting in what felt like panic but wasn’t, scared, pulled, excited, feeling feelings I couldn’t name as exhaling I forced every tightened muscle to relax.

  Pushing my fingers back into motion after a long minute of just breathing, gathering myself as the warmth spread again, I pushed a finger into my crease and hissed when what I touched sent back a burst of sensation that was almost pain, jerking my finger back. Ow, ow, ow! That had to be my clitoris and wow it felt raw, almost like a scrape with the top layer of skin gone. After a moment to settle, I tried that again and hissed. That’s not any better. Well, there’s plenty more to explore. I giggled at that and didn’t let the strangeness of the sound stop me.

  Resettling my hand to rest my palm on my mons, I curved my fingers to pass over that spot and touch myself lower down. I didn’t hiss again but the folds of flesh below it felt almost as swollen and sensitive, it was hard to scale it. Stopping there I squeezed my eyes shut and just breathed. I wasn’t lightheaded, I still felt a pulling, but the panic was spiraling. You can stop. Progress. This is progress. Bet you’ll be able to handle the mirror tomorrow without almost fainting.

  Coward. I was back to that, but my toes were curling and I’d never felt anything like this before. Or if it had felt anything like this when I was younger, I’d forgotten. Hormones, Carl had said. Hormones through the roof compared to what I’d had at sixty, in a body designed by evolution to want this friction, an answer to what I knew of male desire. Suck it up, you can do this.

  I dipped a finger further down, below the folds there, and Oh!, found it with a gasp. My new hole, my vagina. And it was wet.

  Drawing my hand back, I rubbed my finger against my thumb. It felt sort of like pre-come, which yeah, it came from the same kind of glands? But there seemed to be a lot of it. I’m self-lubricating now.

  Slipping my hand back into my shorts and moving my finger back to my impossible new entrance, I held my breath and slid it up inside my body. I was tight, even for my small finger, and I shuddered to feel it up inside me where I’d never felt anything before. I wasn’t . . . smooth inside, my finger finding bumps and ridges in my vaginal wall and the weirdness of all of it dropping my excitement a little I pulled back to leave just my fingertip inside me, moving the rest of my hand on my vulva and squeezing my breast to build up some warmth again.

  This is, this is, wow.

  Finally I pushed deeper, against tight but slick resistance, and my breathing quickened as the fluttery tension came back. Pulling out and switching to my middle finger, I pushed in again until the bend of my second joint lay flush with my body. In, out, in, my palm brushing my mons and my other fingers stroking my plumped labia, an aching grew low inside. More squeezing through my nightshirt coiled the tension tighter and I opened my legs wider to let myself feel every little sensation. Even bits I wasn’t touching were more sensitive; it felt like the tiny hairs on my legs (Vellus hairs, hah!) were standing up where they rubbed against the bedsheets. Biting down on my lower lip I pushed deeper, curling my finger, and hit something deep inside and that was that; the winding tension inside me snapped like a big rubber band and I sucked in all the oxygen in the room as my vagina contracted around my finger like the core of me was seizing in a fit. My stomach muscles twitched and fluttered and I tried to pull everything in but my shaking legs had no strength in them; all I could do was twitch and breathe and feel everything.

  Eventually the shivering spasms died and I realized I’d been gasping and sobbing with every breath. All tension gone, letting my hands drop to my sides I just lay there, trying to clear my head and think of anything at all. Wow.

  I burst out laughing. That was . . . Wow. No way was that just lots of teen hormones. I wanted to sing. Jump up and dance. Move, though I didn’t think I could. It felt like I’d just run a race. I hadn’t run a race, I’d just come, orgasmed, and it hadn’t ever felt like that in my whole entire life. Finally getting some strength back I curled up on my side, just existing. Floating, really, I was floating on all the endorphins.

  Wondering if I’d ever dare try that again, I fell asleep.