He didn't want to cry, but doing so felt so cathartic. Standing in the girl's bathroom, tears running down his face, Jacob stared into the mirror, torn between disliking and liking the face that was staring back at him. After a moment he realised that he had ducked into the girl's lavatory without even thinking about what he was doing, which made the low feeling he was experiencing seem worse. A door opening and not wanting to be seen crying, he sniffed, rubbed his eyes and turned on the tap.
As he leaned down to splash cold water on his face, a subdued female voice quietly said, "Listen, I'm sorry. It was my idea you two should hook up. I thought you and Michael would be perfect together."
"So did I," Jacob morosely said before he could stop himself and it suddenly coming to him what he'd said, he started crying harder.
Madison, reaching out and hugging him close, didn't say anything. Feeling oddly comforted by this closeness, Jacob leaned in, allowed himself to be held and simply stood and cried. After a moment, he gently pushed Madison away and turning back to the sink, he began using the cold water to wash his face.
As he did this, Madison asked, "So. Is it true you called him teeny-weeny Jones?" before starting to giggle.
Jacob, nodding, reached into one of the pockets of the flannel and without thinking about what he was doing, began to reapply the lip gloss. After he'd done this, he stated, "The arrogant piss-head had it coming," to which Madison snickered some more, then whispered, "I wonder if it is true that his boy parts are really small."
The laughter became infectious and Jacob found himself smiling. Tittering, he said, "I don't know. I've never seen anything but his face. Which is enough to make a horse barf, now that I think of it."
Peals of laughter reverberated off the bathroom walls and Madison had to steady herself by grasping the nearest sink. Gushing, "Oh, my, gawd," she doubled over in a fit of giggles as Jacob, who was confused as to why he'd said he seen only Michael's face, turned off the spigot. Reaching for a bit of paper towel, he dried his hands, then tossed the wad into the garbage as he exited the loo.
Outside the bathroom, he was about to ask Madison something. But, before he could, the two were confronted by a teacher Jacob recognised as Ms Berg, who promptly told him, "I understand it can be difficult for a young girl to be confronted with the things Michael Jones might have said," and holding a hand up, she cut him off from replying with, "But. Regardless of whether he said anything or not, I cannot have you creating a ruckus like you did. Another outburst like that and I'll have to give you after-school detention. Am I clear?"
A slight nod from Jacob, who suddenly felt abashed, he listened as Ms Berg told them, "Good. From now on, keep your relationship issues out of the school halls. Now get to class. I understand you two have study hall?" to which both he and Madison quietly affired, "Yes, ma'am."
The low feeling returning like something heavy and crushing returning, Jacob followed Madison to their next class. There, without really paying attention, he silently worked on the history assignment Mr Torres had given out whilst carrying on a whispered conversation with Madison. As he did this, he silently reflected on all that had happened, how he felt like he was losing himself and, with a start, realised that he had started to answer to the name of Emily without to many qualms about it when teachers, his mom and other others addressed him so. Trying to reassure himself that his name was Jacob, he was struck by how strange it sounded to call himself by a boy's name as the bell rang. Gathering up his stuff, he hurried off to his next class.
The next class dragging out so much, it came as a shock when the bell rang and he realised it was PE and that, again without thinking about what he was doing, he had walked into the girl's locker room like he actually used it. Confronted by the sight of over twenty teenage girls in the process of changing, Jacob found he felt like the sight of so many half-naked to full-naked girls wasn't anything new to the sensation that he was a pervert for by in the girl's changing room. Wanting to suddenly leave, he turned and was about to, but was stopped by coach Jennison, who demanded, "Get changed, Emily."
Not wanting to, Jacob fumbled for a response before stating, "I can't. I'm having, personal issues."
"I understand. But, unless you have a doctor's note or something from your parents, that isn't going to fly," Mrs Jennison replied. Pointing to the bathroom section, she told him, "If you need it, get a pad or a tampon. I don't care which. So long as you are changed and out in the gym in five minutes," before glaring at him meaningfully.
A sensation like he was trapped washing over him, Jacob heaved a sigh, turned and trudged toward Emily's locker, stopping on the way to grab a pair of clean shorts and a t-shirt off the table. Undoing the padlock, unaware that he'd done so without knowing the combination, he found himself wondering how much worse his day could get. Stripping down, he thought about leaving on the bra, but at the last minute changed his mind. Pulling on the tight shorts and t-shirt, he slammed the locker shut, slipped his feet into Emily's gym shoes and followed the other girls out of the locker room.
Once again, things seemed to slow down and drag out as Jacob was confronted by what he felt was the worse PE class he'd ever been in. Mrs Jannison seemed to single him out over the others for a number of activities; when he flubbed a number things he was sure Emily would have been able to do, most of the girls uttered sneering comments, whilst only Madison and a handful of others commented, "Good try," and other positive things along those lines. And when PE was over, Jacob found himself confronted once again by the sensation of both familiarity and being somewhere were he was supposed to be as he stripped, deposited his gym shorts and shirt in a hamper, then headed for the showers, of which he was glad that at least the girl's locker had separate partitions instead of a communal-type open showers.
There, he stood under the warm water and stared at the bottles as he tried to recall all that Emily had shown him earlier. The same shift he had perceived a couple hours previous flashed across his mind suddenly and as he thought, "I am Emily," Jacob understand not only how to bathe his female body, but also why he had been taught to do so.
Afterward, a towel wrapped around his head and another his torso, he headed back to his gym locker. There, he found that, among the things Emily kept there, she also kept extra underwear and after putting in a fresh pantyliner, he dressed, deposited the pair of panties he had been wearing in a bag, which he carefully hid in the stuff he carried out of the locker room. Heading for his locker, Jacob put everything he was carrying in his bag and telling Madison, "Catch up with you in a bit. I've got to go look for someone," he shut his locker and began searching for Kaitlyn.
To his annoyance, he couldn't find her. Asking a couple of people, including Matt, if they had seen Jacob Smith, he found the response was always the same, that nobody had seen Jacob all day. Distraught about this, he trudged toward the cafeteria, where he collected a light lunch without really thinking about what he was getting. Heading over to where Madison was already sitting, Jacob sat and numbly ate his lunch, hardly paying attention to what the other girls were saying or the ways he was responding when the conversation brought him into it.
After lunch, things once again seemed to slow down. He got in an argument with a teacher in his 1pm class and was threatened with detention, whilst the last two classes of the day passed uneventfully. And when the final bell sounded, Jacob was only glad that school was done for the day. Following the crowd out, he collected his schoolbag and, after telling Madison, "Talk to you later," and promised to either call or come over, Jacob headed home.
---
He lay on the patio chair, still staring up at the sky, thinking about the day and how bad it been and how it seemed to drag on forever. When he'd went over to the Smith residence to see if he could find Kaitlyn, he was dismayed that once again nobody had answered. Heading home, he dropped his bag on the kitchen table and found a note from his mom saying that she'd taken his sister clothes and necessities shopping, and that, before he did anything, he was to do his homework. Yet, Jacob hadn't felt like starting on any of the take-home assignments and instead wandered out back and flopped down in one of the patio chairs.
His mind still wandering, even after he'd retraced the events of the school day, Jacob eventually settled on thinking about his predicament. He knew that until either he or his sister could find Kaitlyn, he was stuck in the body of fifteen-year-old girl. This led him to mulling over all the things that had happened and the ways he was slowly losing himself. Trying to recall things of his past that could be linked to his male life, he was dismayed that more and more memories seemed off and that he could only remember growing up as a girl. This led him back to the sensation that he was losing the biggest part of himself that tied him to his male life, which was his name, which was something he couldn't understand how it was possible. Yet, oddly enough, he also realised that at some points he was starting to believe his name was Emily and that Jacob was the boy who lived up the street who had been friends with him when they had been younger.
Confused, dismayed, a turmoil of other emotions washing over him, Jacob wondered how bad it was going get before he could go back. Turning so that he was lying on his side, he curled up and thought, "At least the day cannot get any worse," as he considered how much he was sure his name was Emily and how it seemed so right to believe this, as people called him so he addressed himself as so, and that he answered to such a name.