(("Hey, hey you! Yeah! Listen, due to, uh, 'episode budget', we had to omit certain details from the previous chapter. We're including them here. Oh, and we changed the name of the dad!" - A Pesky Fairy))
Jocelyn Davis-Kazinski silently pouted as she quickly fixed herself a pumpkin spice expresso and politely marched her butt out of the kitchen, through the spacious dining room, across the foyer of her large home and into the expansive living room. She dropped her backpack unceremoniously on one end of the huge poofy couch and practically collapsed into the cushions.
"At least she didn't tell me to go change..." The ridiculously attractive eighteen year old whispered to herself before taking a swig of her drink, savoring the flavor and allowing it to somewhat brighten her mood. It wasn't fair, she was eighteen. Again! And dad was right, a slice wouldn't ruin her figure but it wasn't what mon wanted...
She took another sip of her drink and set it on the coffee table behind her before reaching over and digging her phone out of her purse. She unlocked the screen and resumed her previous late night research topic; gemstones. Specifically magic gemstones. Or any kind of actual magic. Anything that would help her escape this life that was, and at the same time was not hers.
Jocelyn Davis-Kazinksi was, in one reality at least, an eighteen year old boy named Bill Strasserman. He'd found the magical gemstone, wished away his worst enemy into his gorgeous girlfriend, and then had somehow lost the thing about two hours later, only for it to wind up in the hands of Eve Kazinski, the Queen of Shermer High, an infallible goddess that was as talented and skilled as she was popular and gorgeous. By the time Bill had realized the Stone was missing he'd tried to get it back...Onmly to be caught in the shockwave of a wish from Eve which left her in the body of sixteen year old Willow Strasserman; Bill's female form. And then they'd put together a plan, both of them sneaking out of their homes to meet up and fix themselves with the wish granting artifact before Bill's personality was consumed by the implanted personality of the girly, shy, well mannered and sheltered Willow. But that had all gone wrong, with a friend of Willow's ambushing Bill at the planned rendevous and somehow making him swoon for the greasy haired loser. Bill had realized what had gone wrong far too late, and had run away right as Eve had arrived and in her haste, collided with a park bench. Eve had gone full 'nurse' mode making sure Willow was okay, and Bill had crossed a line with his impatience, insulting Eve, forgetting she had the all powerful wishing stone. She had screamed a wish, there had been a flash of light...
And then Bill/Willow/Jocelyn was four years old again, waking up in the middle of a pre-K classroom during naptime, in the year 2002. She wasn't even in Shermer Illinois anymore, she'd somehow been transported to California! And what had been an equal surprise is how dark her skin had gotten, a far cry from the pale shades that she'd had as Bill and Willow. And her curly hair had turned a brown-red. She'd been understandably upset, but her young age meant she was largely disregarded and her mother called.
As for Evelyn Davis-Kazinski...The displaced janitor realized a moment too late, Eve's personality cooling just enough for him to gasp in fear as the wish was granted. And then he was a far cry from chilly Shermer Illinois, his clenched eyes opening to a golden beach and the cool ocean breeze across her tanned swimsuit-clad skin. The magical gemstone had gone dark and dim, catching the warm Californian sun but not warping the light as it had before. Would it still even work? But after a few minutes of collection herself, Eve wasn't sure if she WANTED it to work. Eugene was still younger, yet older than he'd been moments before. But the change didn't shock him as much as he'd thought...The body he was in felt completely natural. In fact, Eugene was pretty sure there was precious little of his original personality left. Instead she was just Eve now; mother of three, a loving wife to an NFL star, an actress, former nurse, and founder of several charity organizations. On top of being extremely well off as the daughter of the Kazinski family...Eve had made her own success with her work. Between her own riches and Roland's substantial NFL salary, the Davis-Kazinskis were set for life.
When Eve had realized that she had been back in 2002 though, she used Eugene's knowledge to place a few selective stocks in a few corporations that, by the time 2018 rolled back around, there would be absolutely no way any of her family, her precious family, would ever have to work unless they themselves desired it. And then she'd gone off to meet her children. Strong Russel, her little man and eldest child, observant Lillian, aka Lily, her bright little apple and the precious gemstone of her life, Jocelyn...Her Josie, who was so distraught by something that it required Eve to drop her luxurious sunbathing on their private strip of beach to go fetch her youngest child...Who she'd find out was really Bill/Willow once the bawling little girl had collected herself enough to speak coherent words.
But it didn't really matter anymore. Those old lives were gone, washed away. Sure, being a woman, being a mother...Being stuck as Eve had terrified the former janitor at first, especially with the first night being spooned by a giant of a man...But it felt right. It felt GOOD. Especially being a mom. As a man Eugene had lost his family early in life, had struggled with a poor education, poor social skills, never amounting to anything more than a lonely maintenance worker that lived in a small apartment. But now they lived in a seaside mansion, bigger than any house Eve had ever been in, bigger than her previous home in Shermer. She was famous, they were impossibly wealthy beyond anything Eugene had ever dreamed of having. And the sex, eventually, had been absolutely amazing.
And every time that Eugene had tried to escape being a woman...his life had kept getting better.
That was the realization that Eugene finally accepted being Eve. It was MEANT to happen like this, and his original wish, after all, had been for a better life. He literally couldn't think of anything better than being part of a loving family, wealthy, and living in relative paradise. Ideally Eve would have preferred Hawaii and they did own property there...But it was just easier to live in Los Angeles, given her and her husband's careers.
Why would she want to go back to being...that? And Eugene was gone. The memories were still there, she still knew of the previous life, but it didn't matter anymore. Evelyn 'Eve' Davis-Kazinski was here now, and that was all that mattered.
So remembering her final wish on the Stone, that Jocelyn, her daughter, would have to listen to her and let her mother help her...Eve calmed Jocelyn down, feigned ignorance of having EVER known a 'Willow Strasserman', and very sternly told Jocelyn that she WAS Jocelyn Davis-Kazinski, Eve's daughter, and that any life of being some 'older boy who turned into a girl' was nothing more than a silly nightmare and that she never wanted to hear Jocelyn talk about it again.
That, of course, had been that. Eve's family had grown up, her daughters beautiful and brilliant like her, her son tall and strong like his father. Riches beyond belief (even if they did have to live through the troubles that Eve had once lived through before). And then when Roland had retired, they'd bought another massive house in Shermer, going home so that Eve's parents, who stubbornly refused to leave the town they'd lived all of their life, could be close to their grandkids (in the harsh Midwest winters they'd just return to California or their Hawaii property). Roland had voluntarily taken a job at IngerCorp (they had already been heavy investors anyway) and retirement was boring, Russel was following in his father's football footsteps and was back in California, Lily was studying to be a journalist and was preparing to transfer to a larger college...And her Josie, her little Firecracker, was getting ready to graduate high school with top honors and her choice of any Ivy League university (even if she was being stubborn and refusing to commit to a major).
Eve's life was practically perfect in every way. And the magical Stone had been carefully stored away, secure in a safe deposit box the only SHE knew about, in the most secure bank in Switzerland. There was no more need for it, and something like that loose in the world would be too dangerous.
Of course, the mistake had already been made. Jocelyn may have lived a full life and knew that the Davis-Kazinskis were her family just as much as the Strassermans had been (in some ways better) and her life was infinitely better than it had been as Bill or Willow...
But despite having to grow up all over again, despite the new memories and being in the past and everything else that was implanted into her mind now...Jocelyn was still determined to fix things. She may have been commanded by her mother to never speak of the wishing stone, or of being a boy, but she had never been ordered to never think about it. As soon as she was allowed on the Internet unsupervised, and then especially so when smart phones came around again (that had been one of the weirdest little things for her to get used to), Jocelyn spent every free moment she had between volunteering, social expectations, her studies and ugh, the unexpected attraction to men and dating along with leading the Shermer cheer team, trying to learn about magic. REAL magic. Specifically the magical Stone but not turning down ANYTHING that might help her fix the huge mistake that had been made in the original alternate 2018.
Jocelyn would find a way back. She HAD to. Even if this life wasn't so bad.