About two weeks after my birthday, a letter I had been anticipating arrived in the mail, postmarked from Chicago and addressed to me. I raced into my room with the letter, and tore it open in excitement. It worked! Catherine responded! I gripped the paper excitedly as I read.

  Dear Maya,

  It was very nice to receive your letter. I’ve never had a pen friend either. I’m also in sixth grade, and I like art class. I also like reading and I like doing crafts. I also take dance lessons, but I do ballet. My dad’s name is Stephen and my Mom’s name is Joanne. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, but I have a cat named Oliver. I also put a picture of me in the envelope. Do you like Disney or horses? I hope we can become good friends.

  Sincerely,

  Catherine Marley

  That was the beginning of our correspondence as pen pals. I would write her a simple letter every week, talking about interests, school, or whatever came to mind. I knew that she had had a lonely childhood with not many friends around, so I was determined to make sure she had one, even if she was hundreds of miles away. In a small way, Matthew would be there for her, even if she would never know the significance.

  Sixth grade ended on a high note; not only did I have perfect grades (even in home economics, which proved trickier than I thought) but I had a vibrant social circle. I had survived swimming lessons in gym class, so when the pool parties and barbecues of the summer began I had no awkwardness in wearing my swimsuit. Well, perhaps a little bit, but it had nothing to do with the clothing itself. I was growing in spurts and feeling the changes to my hips and chest more and more. I found myself uncoordinated simply walking around, and it took all of my effort in dance class to not fall on my face.

  I continued to write to Catherine every week. Admittedly, it was partially a means to occupy time in the pre-digital days of 1993, but I also wanted to be a ray of sunshine in her most difficult years. I always remained upbeat and positive in our correspondence, and it was the only means I had to be there for her from afar. I just wanted her to be happy, but all I was able to do was write to her as a pen pal.

  My side gigs to earn money went on in earnest now that I didn’t have to work around a school schedule. I continued to have bi-monthly checkups with the researchers, and though I was certain they would always be boggled by my case, I was happy to deposit their checks. I also had monthly photo shoots for the catalog; they were already working on the fall and winter clothing catalogs, so I was posing in scarves and coats in the middle of the summer. It was decidedly unglamorous being a child model, but I was always floored by how much I made in a single day of simply switching between a few dozen outfits and smiling.

  The summer passed by quickly, and soon I was getting my schedule for seventh grade. There had been various meetings I had with faculty from the previous year, and there had been suggestions that I could possibly be skipped ahead as I was testing extremely well. All the benefit of my adult memories of course, but I had no desire to skip ahead and my parents agreed. School might be boring, but I was enjoying being a kid again and what's more, being a girl.

  There was an anxiety in the back of my mind though; puberty was a ticking time bomb that was going to go off at any moment. There were hairs popping up in places, and I swiped one of Mom’s razors and got rid of them as they appeared. I liked being smooth, and fortunately what hair grew in was mostly thin and sparse. Come to think of it, in my previous life as Matthew I hadn’t had much body hair. In addition to this, there was something happening with my breasts, like something accumulating behind my nipples and making them too sensitive. The extra padding of a training bra barely protected them from accidental brushings.

  While the small physical changes were slowly creeping up on me, I had an increasing sense that the boys around me were becoming bigger and stronger than me. I was tall for a girl my age, but they were quickly surpassing me in height and it made me uncomfortable. All that seemed to happen to me was my hips got bigger and my chest got more sensitive. It was awful feeling intimidated when I had to be around a male student, something that Matthew never had to experience.

  It came to a head in October, when Erin and I were stretching before our dance class. “I didn’t invite anyone else yet,” she said while touching her toes, “but my birthday party is next Saturday.”

  I was sitting next to her, stretching my leg like she was. “Oh, that will be fun. Who else will be sleeping over?”

  “Well, it’s not going to be a sleepover. I’m just going to have a party.”

  “Oh, gotcha.”

  “Also,” Erin whispered conspiratorially, “Mom said it's okay if I had a boy/girl party. Since I’m going to officially be a teenager now, after all.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “You want to have boys around?”

  “What, do you hate boys all of a sudden?”

  “I don’t hate boys,” I said, stretching my other leg. “They’re just annoying, is all.”

  “Well, I’m only inviting cool boys. And hey, maybe you’ll finally get a boyfriend at the party,” she teased.

  A boyfriend was the least thing I wanted, even the chaste type of ‘dating’ that middle school girls did. It seemed like every week my girlfriends declared a different boy to be their boyfriend, and half the time the boy in question wasn’t even aware of it. I played along, but privately found it tiring to listen to them pine about a boy or to have jealousies with other girls. That was one aspect of girlhood that I never quite understood; the needless drama!

  The problem was, however, that despite my apprehension and despite my annoyance there was another issue with boys. Unfortunately, though my mind was firm, my body occasionally responded in ways that unnerved me. There were moments my eyes lingered a second too long when a boy would walk by, or I felt a flutter in my heart when one spoke to me. I angrily shoved those thoughts aside on the rare occasions they happened. I was glad that my reputation as the smartest girl in my class intimidated them enough to keep them at bay.

  It was a struggle though, to fight my new biology. I managed to do it by keeping my distance from boys as much as possible. But I couldn’t very well not go to Erin’s birthday. She was my best friend, after all. I accepted Erin’s invitation as we bounced to our feet and started our dance lesson.

  The day of the party arrived before I knew it. I decided to wear a red floral-patterned dress over a black shirt, as well as a little blush and lipstick that I swiped from Mom’s bathroom. I don’t know exactly why I put a little extra effort into looking good, but I chalked it up to the fact that this would be Maya’s first social event with peers. So it only made sense to look as good as everyone else, or at least that’s what I convinced myself.

  Since I lived just down the street I was one of the first to arrive. I helped Erin and her mother get some of the snacks ready and to move some of the chairs around, and in no time kids started knocking at the door. Less than an hour later the house was packed and the din of middle-schoolers filled the air. Since Erin was making the rounds, I ended up in a corner with my girlfriends Danielle and Carla.

  “I don’t know,” said Carla as she sipped her punch. “Should I talk to Tony? Or should I wait for him to talk to me?” Tony was the name of the latest boy she had been crushing on for the last week.

  “If you want to talk to him, just go talk to him,” I said.

  Danielle shook her head. “No no, you have to have him come to you. Boys are supposed to ask first, you know.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s just silly. If you really want, I’ll just go over and ask for you.”

  “Don’t you dare!” squealed Carla. “I’ll…just walk past him and get more punch. Maybe he’ll notice me.” Carla dodged through the group towards the snack table in the kitchen.

  “I still think she should just ask him. What do you think, Danielle?” I glanced over. “Um, Danielle?”

  Danielle had already turned around and was talking to some dark-haired boy that I didn’t recognize. That was fast, I thought to myself. I took a swig of my drink, and realized that I was now awkwardly by myself. In my previous timeline, I had never been good at parties. Matthew was never really invited to anything, and typically ended up in the corner with no one to talk to. Or he pulled an Irish goodbye.

  Then something happened that never happened to Matthew: someone approached me. It was Pete Meyers, a boy in my math class. He also happened to bully Matthew in my other timeline, so I had always disliked him. And here he was…attempting to casually come towards me. Fuck, I thought to myself, and tried to study the curtains.

  “Uh, hey,” he said, trying to sound confident. “Your name’s Maya, right? You’re in my algebra class. My name’s Pete.”

  “Yeah, I know who you are,” I said through lidded eyes. I meant it to be rude, but he actually seemed impressed I knew his name.

  “There’s a lot of people here,” he continued, “And I know almost everyone here.”

  A distant memory of Matthew’s where Pete pushed him into a locker flashed. “You don’t say.”

  Pete gave a dumb grin and kept talking. “You into baseball?” he asked, not bothering to check my response. “I was like the best player on the sixth grade team last year. We almost got first place.”

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  “Wow.”

  ‘Yeah, and I’m probably going to be the star player next year. But first I’m trying out for the basketball team. I’ll probably get in. You like basketball?”

  My eyes bulged at the floor as I took another swig of my punch. Good lord, was I being hit on? Is this what girls have to deal with? Pete kept babbling on about the upcoming basketball tryouts, and my eyes started darting left and right trying to figure out how to get out of this one-sided conversation. I downed my punch and pretended to see something behind Pete.

  “That’s really interesting,” I lied, “but I see my friend Carla is waving at me. I’ll...be right back.”

  Pete gave a confident nod, and I practically pushed my way past him. I made my way towards the kitchen, ostensibly to refill my cup. I waited behind some boy for my turn at the punch bowl, though when he stepped aside he took one look at me and grinned. This one was named Mike Thompson, and he was in my homeroom class. He never bullied Matthew, but if I remember correctly he ended up getting two girls pregnant by the time he graduated high school.

  He took my cup from my hands without asking me. “Here, let me get that for you,” he smirked.

  “Uh…thanks,” I said as he poured out the ladle into my cup and handed it back to me.

  “No prob,” he replied, though I noticed his fingers brushed against mine as he handed it to me. “Cool party, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so,” I muttered, already eyeballing a way out of the conversation about to take place.

  “Y’know, we’ve never really talked outside of class. You look really cute today.”

  I was a little taken aback by the forwardness of the compliment. It’s true, I only ever interacted with him during assignments, but even if there was a tiny - a very tiny! - part that appreciated it, I quickly caught myself and remembered that this kid was going to grow up to be a bit smarmy. It didn’t help that he was kind of cute himself. Oh hell, I didn’t just think that!

  “Um, thanks,” I muttered looking away, slightly embarrassed. “I…have to go find my friend.”

  “Hey, maybe we’ll dance later?” he gave another wolfish grin. He certainly was confident.

  I gave a tight-lipped smile and backed away through the door-frame and back into the crowd in the living room. I felt a hand grip my upper right arm, which caused me to jump. Fortunately, it was just Erin, and I sighed with relief. I was hoping that if I stayed close to Erin or one of the other girls I’d keep safe.

  “Hey Maya, enjoying the party?” she asked, grabbing onto my arm.

  “Oh, yeah, it’s really good. There are a lot of kids here.”

  “I know, right?” she said with a big smile. “I did expect so many people, but I guess Tom brought a lot of his team mates. Here, come this way,” she said, pulling me along with her.

  “What are we…oh,” I said, as Erin pulled me over to Tom and one of his friends that I didn’t recognize. Tom was a lanky boy that I knew Erin had a crush on, and she pulled me into a circle with them. “Maya, you know Tom?”

  “Yeah. Hey, Tom.”

  Erin continued. “And this is his friend Brian. They’re both basketball players.”

  “Oh…that’s cool,” I intoned. I took a sip of my punch, wishing that it had booze in it to take the edge off. Not that I was much of a drinker in Matthew’s timeline.

  The four of us chatted for a while, and by us I mean that Tom and his friend did the same bragging about the basketball team that I had been hearing all afternoon. Erin was eating it up though; I knew that she wanted to be a cheerleader and she was happy to be chatting with some athletes. I contributed to the conversation as best as I could, but mostly because I was Erin’s wing-woman. I don’t think it mattered anyway; I’m not sure if they were interested in listening to me, they just wanted a girl or two to fawn over them.

  After a while, someone put a CD with some upbeat teen-bopper music in and people started dancing. I could see Danielle and Carla with some boys, and turned to see Erin and Tom heading in together. I made no movement into the dance group, and stood awkwardly next to Tom’s friend. I heard him briefly clear his throat and turn to me, but I quickly told him I needed to go to the bathroom and before he could get a word out I ducked into the stairwell and snuck downstairs.

  Erin’s room was in the basement, as I knew well, but I figured I could get a breather for a few minutes from the party. It was really getting to me, and it was irritating to be chatted up by an annoying boy every time I turned around. This never happened at school, and I suppose I hadn’t really hung out with a lot of boys since middle school started. I sat down on the basement couch, putting my chin in my hands and my elbows on my lap. I wondered how long I could hide downstairs before I had to make an appearance.

  As I sat staring at the floor, I heard the basement door open and shut, as someone from the party walked into the room. He looked vaguely familiar, but searching through Matthew’s memories as well as Maya’s gave no clue who he was. He was a taller boy, with blondish brown hair and striking gray eyes.

  He gave an awkward frown. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone would be down here,” the boy apologized.

  He sounded genuinely apologetic, and oddly the edge I usually felt when talking to a boy was absent. “Oh, it’s okay,” I said as I sat up, smoothing my skirt.

  “It’s a little too noisy up there, and I figured I’d take a break. Plus,” he chuckled, “I hate Joey Lawrence songs.”

  I snickered. “He’s the actor from Blossom, right? I didn’t even know he was a singer.”

  “Well,” he said as he took a seat on the far end of the couch, “as you can hear, he’s not that great of a singer.”

  He got a laugh out of me that time. “I thought everybody at school listened to this teeny pop garbage?”

  He shook his head. “Not me. I’m more into older stuff. My dad showed me a lot of classic rock stuff, like Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. Though I also think Nirvana is pretty cool.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Oh yeah, the old stuff is all really cool. And if you like Nirvana, you should check out Smashing Pumpkins.”

  “I haven’t heard of them.”

  I went a little pink. I couldn’t remember when they released their first album; I might have been too early. “They’re…sort of new. Keep your ears out for them in a few years.”

  He grinned. “I can do that. My name’s Jake. Jake Mason. What’s your name?”

  “Maya Peterson. I’m Erin’s friend, do you know her?”

  He shook his head. “No, I came with my cousin. I just moved here, and he’s the only person I know at this school.”

  “I moved here last year. What grade are you in?”

  “Seventh.”

  “Me too,” I replied.

  “So, Maya, what else do you listen to besides these pumpkin guys?”

  We started chatting again, and I have to say that Jake was a pretty cool kid. He was actually kind of sweet, which felt odd to say since it was the first time I had ever referred to a boy as such. I felt like he was actually interested in listening to me, and was impressed with what music I listened to. Our conversation shifted to other things like TV shows and video games; as Maya I hadn’t really played games, but Matthew had decades of memories in his head and it turns out we liked the same ones.

  We never stayed on one topic too long. We also talked about school and hobbies, and I was surprised at how enjoyable it was. In a weird way it was like being a guy again, with no drama or girly stuff. Not that I disliked girly stuff - but it was nice talking about stuff Matthew enjoyed in his life for a bit. And Jake was just really nice, nice enough that my anxiety dropped as we talked. Well, it dropped until his fingers accidentally brushed against mine.

  I was suddenly aware that we had unconsciously moved closer together on the couch, and that I kept staring at his eyes with a happy feeling in my chest. Once I recognized how my body was responding to this nice boy and the pleasant conversation, I felt an immense wave of guilt and disgust. He’s a boy, and I’m the victim of some weird time-travel fluke! I can’t be looking at him like this! It wasn’t right!

  And yet, I was also a twelve year-old girl. Flesh and bone, I was female. I liked being a girl, and I liked the way it felt. Yet here was this boy, and just talking to him for the past half hour made me feel something I had never felt before. Even more female, somehow. No one would look at this situation and judge what they saw was a couple of kids talking on a couch, except that I would know. I may legally and biologically be a minor, but I knew I had the brain and perhaps soul of an adult.

  Jake saw the look on my face when our fingertips grazed each other, and withdrew immediately. “Sorry about that,” he muttered sincerely.

  I regarded him for a moment. “It’s fine,” I said, in a tone that read as nervous.

  “You know,” Jake said as he leaned back, “maybe we should go back upstairs. We’ve been hiding down here long enough. Though I dunno if you can handle this awful music, let alone dance to it.”

  I smiled back, pushing back my hair behind my ear. “I mean, it would really suck, having to dance to this stuff.”

  “Right,” Jake said as he grinned. “Do you want to go back upstairs and not dance to this music?”

  I took an appraising breath. You know, I thought to myself, it’s not like it’s physical. It’s not even romantic. It’s not even close, I assured myself. I could throw caution to the wind, at least a little bit. Besides, my little heart was beating so fast that I needed to get it out of my system. I was a girl, after all, and I was responding the way a girl did. There was a line that I would not cross, but this wasn’t it. Besides, I really liked his eyes.

  “Okay,” I smiled. “Let’s go and not dance.”

  We laughed once more, and together we climbed the stairs and back into the party. The kids were all bouncing and dancing to the happy, upbeat tripe blasting through the speakers, and Jake and I joined the crowd. We didn’t even touch, except for holding our hands a little as we rocked to the music. After a couple of hours the party started winding down; well, mostly because parents were arriving to take their kids home at the designated hour. Eventually Jake’s mom arrived and it was time for him to go.

  “It was really cool meeting you, Maya. Hopefully I’ll see you at school on Monday.”

  “Maybe we will!” I was surprised to realize I was being honest. Again, he was really sweet.

  Jake took a quick glance at his mom’s car, and gave me a quick, yet affectionate, hug. The butterflies in my stomach went into overdrive, and I distinctly remembered feeling a warm, happy feeling that spread to every inch of my body. And in an instant, Jake let go and without a look back ran to the car. I remember sighing and holding my cheek with my hand as I watched him drive off. I helped Erin and her mom clean up after everyone left, with Erin lightly teasing me after watching me almost exclusively dance with Jake all afternoon. I gave her a mock angry look, but I was still riding high.

  As I walked up the street back to my house, I was still feeling good. It was harmless, after all; it’s not like it was sex or anything approaching that. Just kids being kids, and I was just a girl. A girl who had a fun time talking and dancing to terrible music with a boy. The part of me that felt wrong was out-voted by the part that felt so right, and I reasoned that as long as I kept it chaste, it was perfectly fine to explore a bit.

  I laid in bed that night sighing and smiling to myself. Perfectly fine.