You're sitting on your bed, flashlight safely hidden under your pillow and your laptop open as you try to act natural as Jack returns to the room. He sits down on his own bed and heaves a huge, depressed sigh.
"How bad was it?" You try to sound sympathetic as you struggle to keep from smiling.
"Oh, it's not bad. She'll be fine," he says quickly, too quickly. Shaking his head he covers his face in both hands.
Of all the outcomes this wasn't at all what you'd hoped for. You just wanted to torment Lisa, not make your roommate this upset. Different as the two of you are, you've come to consider Jack a friend, one of your few friends on campus, other than Gene, who you'd already known from high school. Thinking about Gene you start to feel bad as well. Even though he was happy after you changed him, in a loving relationship with the girl he'd been chasing since practically middle school, you know you really should change him back.
"So what's wrong?" you ask cautiously, not sure if you want to know the answer.
"I feel like this is all my fault," Jack laughs nervously.
"What? How?" you can't believe what you're hearing. The light's reality altering powers couldn't have done this, so there has to be another explanation.
Jack's expression grows serious, "If I tell you you've got to promise not to tell anyone, okay man?"
You nod, too stunned to respond.
"This is really embarrassing so don't laugh," he says as he gets up, makes sure that the door to the doorm room is locked, and then, for good measure goes to his laptop and turns on some music so no one can overhear whatever it is that he's about to say. Satisfied he turns to you, his expression even more intense, "I haven't told anyone this so if I hear anything I'll know you couldn't keep your mouth shut."
"You're starting to frighten me man," smile, hoping to lighten the mood.
It doesn't work, he frowns and continues, "I'll beat the shit out of you if you talk about this because I'll never be able to live it down and...I really feel like I'm at fault, okay? I mean at practice the coach always tells us to have a goal in mind each game, not necessarily to win, but to do something better than we did the previous game and it helps. It helps a lot. You keep thinking about a thing and it happens. Positive thinking or some bullshit like that."
"I've got no clue where you're going with this," you say honestly enough, far more lost that you imagined ending up at the beginning of all this. What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into?
"Well there's something I've been thinking about pretty much forever and I know it doesn't work that way, that you can't think someone into changing, but seeing Lisa like that...I had to play it off like it was a joke because otherwise I'd say something stupid," Jack rambles, growing increasingly nervous as he continues, "The thing is, seeing here like that I got scared. Once it really clicked, once I really saw what I was looking at all I could think of was that somehow, someone knew."
"Knew what?" you interrupt, desperate to hear where all this is going.
Jack looks at you, smiles sheepishly and then looks at the floor.
"I like hairy girls," he mutters.
"What?" you're not sure that you heard correctly, or if you did there are plenty of ways to misunderstand it.
"I like hairy girls," he repeats, "And not just natural looking like they don't shave. I mean I've been trying to think of a way to ask Lisa to stop shaving ever since we started dating, but that's not it. I like girls who are really, really hairy, like dudes. It's fucked up I know, but seeing Lisa like that..."
He trails off, looking at you, clearly expecting you to make some insulting comment or laugh at him, but you can't. Never once did you expect to find a common interest like that of all things. Your mind races.
Interpreting your silence as understanding, or maybe just wanting to finish his confession and be done with it he continues, "She was freaking out so I couldn't tell her how I felt. It would disgust her for sure and I don't want to end up breaking up over something stupid like that. So I lent her a razor and she shaved it all off and the only thing I could think was that it was such a shame. I mean did you see that beard she had? All I could think of was how it would feel to kiss her. I wanted to, but I didn't because she was so upset that I couldn't take advantage of her. She held out her arm...let me run my fingers over it and...she is, no was, hairier than me."
Your mind races, trying to figure out what to say, how to fix things.