The next day, Thursday. Tomorrow I’ll see my Dad, hopefully with Audrey in tow. I can’t stand my Dad sometimes, he’s emotionally abusive and brash. A recovering alcoholic, sober for 25 years. The man never completed recovery though. Instead, he’s a jaded pessimist with a heart of iron.

That’s not what I’m doing now, however. Right now, I’m at the library. We all went into town with James this morning after a chaotic yesterday.

Audrey is at the store, clothes shopping for me, and I’m surrounded by rows of books with a backpack and a cup of coffee. It’s a small library, it’s so small to me that I wonder why they even bothered making it. It’s basically three rooms. Not much to see.

I’m a little scared and also excited to see what she picks for me. This morning she asked, “So do you like skirts?” Right in front of James.

“I don’t hate skirts…” I reported, lying through my teeth.

The truth is, I fucking love this skirt I’ve borrowed from Audrey.

Why? Well, think about it. For all the downsides to a skirt, like the potential of seeing up it, there’s one huge advantage you simply can’t get around. I hope somebody is taking notes here!

The upside is that it’s like you’re wearing nothing at all.

As a person who hates wearing clothes when I don’t have to, there’s nothing better. Breezy doesn’t even begin to describe it. Sweatpants are breezy, a nice mid length skirt is nonexistent.

This begs the question: why don’t more girls wear skirts?

I was about to be hit over the head with the answer.

Eyes.

Before this, I’d definitely felt somebody's gaze on my back before. Who hasn’t felt that at least once? But as a woman, it was like I had a superpower sense for people looking at me. For instance, the librarian let his eyes wander down to my chest for a brief moment. It made me shiver.

It felt like holes were being drilled directly at my thighs as I walked away from the counter. So, with more skin exposed wearing this skirt, my self consciousness went through the roof. I could even tell when he stopped staring at my butt…

No matter what anyone says, attention like that is unwelcome. There’s a time and place for attention, I’m sure. But maybe my anxiety is getting to me? I had no proof he’d been checking me out at all.

There were only two tables to sit at. One of them was occupied with a young teen girl, and another had an older man with a scruffy mustache.

Not even a choice. “Can I sit here?” I asked the girl in a hushed tone.

“Yeah,” she said with a beam, showing her white teeth. She had short auburn hair let down with a black hat on. Looked to be around 15 years old.

“I’m Morgan,” I said. I put my backpack on the table and started opening it, getting my laptop.

“Sofia. What’s your shirt say?”

I grabbed my shirt at the hem and stepped back for her to look. “If you look at it from an angle, it says ‘Palace.’”

“Like the skate brand, Palace? No way!” Sofia mock yelled. She crossed her arms. “I’d never thought I’d find a skater in this town.”

“Oh—I’m just visiting. I don’t live here or anything. Check out my shoes, these babies are limited edition,” I lifted up my foot.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“No way… those are sick, how’d you get them?” She nodded with approval. “I’m jealous, even. Damn.”

I took a look at what she was wearing… “Wait, is that hat Supreme?” I’d know that hat anywhere. I’d been trying to get one for years. “Stone Ocean collab, right?”

“Yeah. It’s my boyfriend's—he’s rich.”

“Well then.”

“I’m just in it for the money.”

“Well then! Missy, even if it’s true, you shouldn’t admit that!”

Sofia covered her mouth, trying to subside a hard laugh. “Oh god, you’re funny Morgan.” I opened my laptop and pressed the power button. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m a lesbian.”

“Oh, you’re a lesbian… Wait, huh?”

“Maybe I should put it more gently… I’m sapphic.”

“That’s the same thing!”

The librarian made a loud shushing sound.

Guess my mock yells were getting too loud.

“So, is your name even Sofia?” I asked.

“I didn’t lie about that. Wanna go outside with me and smoke?”

“You smoke? You’re definitely too young for that.”

“You sound like my dad, jeez. I’ll see you in a bit.” Sofia got up and left, leaving her backpack on the table. That’s too trusting… We just met. What if I was a bad person?

I went to the dream affliction database—daDB—on my computer and searched by species. Amphibians—frogs. Only three results. You can only access this database while connected to library wifi, however that works.

I checked the images of each result. They all looked just about the same to me, if hard pressed I’d just say they were the same green frog from different angles. The titles were this: brown belly frog, spotted frog, fools frog.

I clicked the top one, brown belly frog. Indeed, it has a brown belly. Researchers in a lab summon afflictions, even dream afflictions, and take these pictures of them as they study them. They’re not technically real however, they just look real. Sometimes they’ll hire an artist to sketch their best guess of what it looks like.

Symptoms: Gender Change. Bingo.

Cure: Revelation. What the hell does that mean?

I click on the link and it opens in a new tab. Revelation is when a major mental change comes over the user of the affliction, curing it. This can’t be it… Well, it could. I close the tab, click back, and click on the next frog.

Spotted Frog. Sure doesn’t look spotted, by the drawings of it.

Symptoms: Gender Change. Are all of them similar? It’s not unheard of for afflictions to be like that, especially in the same species like this. The picture is just a diagram drawing. Reminds me of something Da Vinci drew.

Cure: Unknown. Great. Let’s take a look—the spotted frog is only theoretical.

I guess that’s why there’s only a drawing of this one. Moving on—fools frog. I don’t like the name of that, now that I think about it.

Symptoms: Gender Change. Yep, they're all similar…

Cure: Giving Birth. This was the one James was talking about, no doubt.

There was just one problem. Usually, you can self diagnose a dream affliction. You just look at the picture and see which one matches. But not this time. The mental image of the frog that attacked me is the same as all three images I’ve seen.

And they all have the same symptoms. There’s no real telling which is mine, unfortunately. I bite my nails.

That’s bad. It could be either three!

I’ll have to make an appointment with a specialist, that’s my only option at this point. Dream specialists usually have a high co-pay, too.

This sucks…

I close my laptop lid and start putting it away. When Sofia sits back down. I can smell the cigarette smoke wafting off her.

“It was nice meeting you,” I said.

“Leaving already?” Sofia said.

“Yeah, I got what I wanted.”

“See ya.”

= = =