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Author's Note:I forgot to post this chapter yesterday. I don't know what else to say.I appreciate any kind of feedback or comments that people might have :).
 

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4.

Taylor's phone buzzed for the twelfth time in five minutes, the glow of the screen casting jagged shadows across her bedroom walls. She lay sprawled on her bed, one socked foot tapping restlessly against the headboard as the video played again—her own body ascending the gym rope with inhuman precision, the muscles in her arms flexing in ways that still didn't feel entirely real. The view count ticked upward like a stopwatch with a broken hand.

Kayla's voice drifted through the wall, muffled but unmistakably annoyed. "Would you quit thumping? Some of us are trying to study." Taylor stopped tapping her foot immediately, but the silence that followed felt heavier than the reprimand. She muted the video—not that it helped, since she'd already memorized the exact second when the camera zoomed in on her sweat-damp collarbone.

What's worse is that someone had identified her in the comments, so everyone knew she was one of the girls from Ridgewood that had The Bug. From there it didn't take long for YouTubers to find everything they needed to know, including the specific strain and variant.

The name "GammaGirl" was now trending just as much as the video was.

She groaned, running her fingers through her hair. Her mother had gone to such great lengths working with Dr. Jones and the CDC to keep her out of the media. No interviews, no photos, no news stories of any kind. Then she went and blew it all in one day. She even promised her mother she'd keep a low profile and act like a normal teenage girl.

The bedroom door creaked open without warning—Taylor barely had time to slam her phone face-down before Kayla's head appeared in the doorway, her eyebrow arched in that particular twin-telepathy way that meant *I know what you're doing.* "Mom's home," Kayla announced, leaning against the doorframe with exaggerated casualness. "And she's got that look."

Shit.

Taylor’s phone hit the mattress with a muffled thump as Kayla stepped fully into the room, her arms crossed. The overhead light caught the faintest shimmer of Kayla’s lip gloss—the same shade she’d borrowed from Taylor’s dresser that morning without asking. "You gonna tell her," Kayla said, tilting her head toward the hallway, "or should I?"

Taylor scoffed. "The way I'm trending, I bet she's already seen it"

The sound of their mother's footsteps climbing the stairs made Taylor's pulse spike—each creak of the wooden steps louder than the last. She sat up abruptly, tossing her phone onto the pillow as if it had burned her. Kayla smirked, leaning against the dresser with arms crossed, her socked foot tapping impatiently against the carpet. "You're screwed," she mouthed.

The footsteps paused outside Taylor's door—one heartbeat, two—before the knob turned with deliberate slowness. Their mother stood silhouetted in the doorway, her work blazer still on, phone clutched in one hand with the screen lit by Taylor's climbing video paused mid-frame. The silence stretched thin enough to snap.

Taylor's mother stepped into the room, her expression unreadable in the dim bedroom light. The glow from her phone screen illuminated the fine lines around her eyes—lines that hadn't been there before Gamma. She didn't speak immediately, just held up the device so Taylor could see her own frozen image mid-climb, ponytail whipping behind her like a banner.

Taylor’s mother exhaled through her nose—a slow, measured sound that made the air between them feel charged. The phone screen dimmed as she lowered it, casting half her face in shadow. "You promised," she said quietly, each syllable precise. "No attention. No spectacle."

Taylor's fingers curled into her bedsheets, the fabric bunching under her grip as her mother's disappointment settled over her like a weighted blanket. "I didn't mean to—" she started, but her mother's raised hand silenced her mid-sentence.

Taylor's mother didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to—the quiet disappointment in her eyes was worse than any shouting. She tapped her phone screen once, and the video of Taylor climbing the rope filled the room with tinny gymnasium echoes. "Eight hundred thousand views in four hours," she said, her thumb hovering over the pause button. "The CDC media team just called me. They're scrambling to contain this."

Shit.

Taylor's mother sat heavily on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight. The phone screen went dark as she turned it face-down on her lap, her fingers tightening around it briefly before relaxing. "Do you understand what this means?" she asked, her voice softer now, almost resigned. "The media knows. After everything I did to protect you, to keep them circling like they did with Jasmine".

"I don't know what happened, Mom" she admitted honestly "I was in PE. I was doing my thing and then the teacher started goading me after I ran. I didn't mean to put my all into it but there's something about me, something competitive that I never had before. When Ms. Poole goaded me up the rope, I couldn't stop myself."

Taylor's mother reached out, her fingers brushing a loose strand of hair behind Taylor's ear with a tenderness that made Taylor's throat tighten. "I know it wasn't intentional," she murmured, her thumb tracing the curve of Taylor's cheekbone—a gesture so familiar it ached. "But intention doesn't matter to the people who are going to dissect this frame by frame." Her gaze flicked to Kayla, still leaning against the dresser. "Either of you."

Taylor's breath hitched as her mother's fingers lingered against her cheek—the same way she used to comfort Tyler after scraped knees or failed tests. Kayla shifted uncomfortably by the dresser, her socked feet scuffing against the carpet. "What do you mean, *either of us*?" Kayla's voice cracked on the last word, her usual bravado fraying at the edges.

"You have the same face, right?" Their mother stated a fact. "Its not easy to tell you two apart if they don't know"

Taylor's stomach twisted as the implication landed—Kayla's widened eyes mirroring her own realization. Their mother sighed, rubbing her temples with fingers still clutching the phone. "The CDC wants both of you off social media until this blows over. No posts, no tags, nothing that could lead reporters to start digging deeper." She paused, her gaze flicking to Taylor's laptop open on the desk, its screen frozen mid-scroll on a Reddit thread titled *GammaGirl IRL??* "Especially you."

Their mother left, leaving them alone.

"Sorry Kay" she said, her eyes starting to water.

The moment she started to full on cry---her first real tears since becoming Taylor---Kayla was at her side.

Kayla's arms wrapped around Taylor with unexpected fierceness, her chin digging into Taylor's shoulder. "Stop apologizing, idiot," she muttered, but her grip tightened when Taylor shuddered against her. The scent of Kayla's shampoo—strawberry and something synthetic—flooded Taylor's senses, overwhelming in its familiarity. This was the first time they'd really hugged since the transformation.

Kayla's grip loosened slightly, her fingers tracing the back of Taylor's t-shirt where the fabric had ridden up. "You're getting snot on my hoodie," she grumbled, but didn't pull away. Taylor huffed a wet laugh against Kayla's shoulder, the tension in her ribs easing just enough to breathe. The smell of Kayla's strawberry shampoo mixed with the faint chemical tang of her deodorant—a scent so intrinsically *sister* it made Taylor's chest ache differently than before.

"So" said Kayla, trying to lighten the mood. "Does this make me internet famous too?"

Taylor wiped her nose on the back of her hand, smearing tears across her knuckles as Kayla finally pulled away. The damp spot on Kayla's hoodie glistened under the bedroom light. "Internet famous for being the boring twin," Taylor muttered, kicking at a crumpled sock on the floor.

Kayla snatched the discarded sock off the floor and whipped it at Taylor's face. "Boring twin? Please. I was trending before you even had boobs." She flopped backward onto Taylor's bed, her hair fanning out across the comforter in a messy halo.

Taylor flopped down on the bed next to her sister.

Taylor stared at the ceiling, her fingertips brushing against Kayla’s sleeve where their arms lay parallel on the bed. The silence between them was comfortable—a rarity since the transformation—until Kayla abruptly rolled onto her side, propping her head up on one hand. "So," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "did you at least have fun?"

Taylor blinked at the ceiling, Kayla's question hanging in the air like static. The taste of gymnasium disinfectant still lingered in the back of her throat—that sharp, medicinal tang that clung to her skin no matter how many times she showered. "Fun?" she echoed, rolling the word around like a foreign object. Her fingers twitched against the comforter, remembering the burn of rope fibers against her palms. "It felt... like winning."

The bed creaked as Kayla shifted, her elbow digging into Taylor's ribs with deliberate playfulness. "Winning, huh?" Her smirk was audible. "Guess Gamma gave you more than just a killer ass." Taylor swatted at her, but Kayla caught her wrist mid-air—their hands hovering in the space between them, palms pressed together in a mirror image that made Taylor's breath catch. Same fingers, same freckle near the thumb. Different calluses now.

That was it. She sat up, realizing. It was her thing. Jasmine had whatever happened to her and Taylor had this massive, impulsively competitive streak.

"It did change me," she whispered.

Kayla's fingers tightened around Taylor's wrist, her grip warm and familiar. "Yeah, no shit," she snorted, but her eyes flicked down to their joined hands—the same freckle on both their wrists, the same crooked pinky fingers from when they'd broken them falling off the jungle gym in third grade. Taylor's palms were smoother now.

"It's not just physical," she murmured, pressing her palms flat against her thighs—the fabric of her sweatpants rough under her fingertips. "Gamma rewired my brain too."

"You mean the competitive thing?" Taylor nodded. Kayla thought for a moment. "That's still not Jasmine crazy though"

Kayla rolled onto her stomach, kicking her feet up behind her like she used to when they'd binge-watch cartoons as kids. The familiarity of the motion made Taylor's chest tighten. "So what else?" Kayla prodded, chin propped on her hands. "Besides suddenly wanting to crush everyone at PE like some anime rival. Any weird cravings? Sudden urge to organize my closet by color?"

She scoffed. "I'm afraid of getting swallowed whole if I step in there".

Kayla lightly punched her arm. Then she sat up, satisfied. "My mission is done".

"What?" asked Taylor as Kayla scrambled off the bed. "What mission?"

Kayla smiled. "Cheering you up".

Taylor grabbed a pillow and threw it at her but Kayla dodged it and darted out the door.

She laughed, shaking her head.

Then her phone with a text. She grabbed it from where she'd tossed it earlier, expecting either Callie or Liz.

It was Benny.

Three letters: WTF.

She groaned, sucked it up and dialed him. It rang more than four times. She was certain he wasn't going to answer but he finally did.

"What the fuck do you want?" snapped her pissed off friend.

The venom in Benny's voice made Taylor's fingers tighten around her phone. She'd heard him pissed before—when she'd accidentally overwritten his Minecraft world back in eighth grade, when she'd laughed at his failed attempt to ask out Hannah Chen—but this was different. This had teeth.

The silence stretched between them, broken only by Benny’s ragged breathing on the other end of the line. Taylor clutched the phone tighter, her freshly manicured nails digging into her palm. "Benny," she started, but he cut her off with a sharp exhale.

The line crackled with Benny's sharp inhale. "Don't 'Benny' me," he spat, his voice cracking on the last syllable. Taylor flinched—he'd never sounded like this, not even when his dad walked out two years ago. "You ghosted me all day. Then I see you doing fucking Cirque du Soleil shit on YouTube like nothing happened?" A thump echoed through the phone, like he'd punched a wall. "What the *actual* fuck, Ty—Taylor."

Tyler. He was about to say Tyler.

"It's Taylor, Ben," she said, her voice cool and calm. "I'm not Tyler anymore."

"And that's the problem" Benny snapped again. "Ever since the virus, ever since becoming a fucking chick, you've all but fucking ignored me. We used to game all night, we used to text like a hundred times a day. But now, now its like you're a whole different fucking person!"

She took a deep breath. "I am a different person, Ben. It's hard to put into words but I'm different. It's not just the gender thing either. I hate games now Benny. I eat grapefruit for breakfast and fucking salads for lunch. I went shopping yesterday and fell in love with a dress. Some guy hit on me in the food court and I'm not going to lie, I kind of liked the attention. I do this stupid thing with my foot when I sit and...and... I HATE crunchy peanut butter now!"

There was a long silence.

"Seriously?" Benny finally said. Then another long silence. "Have you tried eating it with jelly? Maybe if you..."

She grunted. "Tried that, it still sucks".

She could hear Benny laughing away from the phone. It went on for a whole minute before he got back on.

"I'm pissed at you, stop making me laugh" he sulked.

Taylor pressed the phone closer to her ear, catching the faint rustle of bedsheets—Benny shifting positions in that way he always did when he was trying not to admit he'd been worried. "You could've *told* me," he muttered finally. "Like, 'Hey Ben, I'm turning into Spider-Girl, gonna go climb shit now.' A heads-up would've been nice."

She grunted. "Its messed up. I'm all weirded out by it. Its not just the running thing either or the climbing. Its..." She paused, picking at a loose thread on her blanket. "I want to win. Ms. Poole goaded me to test my limit and so I did. I crushed it and I felt so fucking pumped afterwards"

Benny took a moment. "So Jasmine got Ditz and you got Jock Rage?"

"Eww, that sounds like a crotch fungus or something" She crinkled up her nose.

She heard Benny spit out whatever he was drinking and start coughing. 

She pulled her knees close to her chest on the bed. A gesture completely feminine and completely unlike her old self. But she didn't give a fuck anymore. 

"I'm sorry I forgot to find you today" She sighed. "The day was just a fucking mess. Fucking Jess sent my picture to Sierra then that dumb bitch posted it to Confessions. Some asshole said he wanted me to suck him off or something..." She shuddered. "Everyone kept staring at me all day"

"Well dweeb turns into hottie I kind of a big deal" Benny laughed then paused. "You weren't in lunch either. I was forced to sit with Henry. He used to be kind of cool before but now..."

Wait. What.

"Hold on a sec, you know Henry?" she asked, confused.

"Duh" Benny said "You do too. He was Clara".

Clara?

"Doesn't ring a bell" she finally admitted.

Benny grunted. "Clara Wilkes. We spent the whole summer with her at Camp Meadow Lake. You know---short girl, big glasses, brown hair, kind of pudgy?"

She tried to picture said girl but it was coming up nothing. "Nope, sorry"

"Well anyway, she was only in our grade for a year," Benny quickly explained. "Her parents got divorced. She went with her Mom first but moved back here at the beginning of the year to live with her Dad. She was totally different, lost the glasses and the wait, she was kind of hot actually..."

She tried to picture a girl like that. First as a kid then as their age but she was still drawing a blank. "Still can't remember her".

"Henry is one of those hard cases," Benny continued. "Dude bitched about injustice all through lunch. I think The Bug did her dirty."

She sighed, remembering Henry from this morning. "We met".

"It scared me" Benny finally confessed after another long period of silence. "I so a friend acting so different and after everything today---you ignoring me---I thought maybe..."

Taylor sighed. He was right. She had been ignoring him but it wasn't intentional. "I'm a shitty friend." 

"Yes you are" Benny said triumphantly as if he won a prize. "So as a shitty friend, I demand you give me a pic of your bo..."

"Not on your life" she interrupted, Benny chuckled.

She was pretty sure he was joking around this time.

"In all seriousness though, today sucked. For you and me both. I'll try to be a better friend too. I don't want to lose you."

His sincerity surprised her. 

She thanked him for keeping her honest before hanging up. She then sighed heavily, tossing her phone on her bed again. No sooner than it hit the mattress, it rang again.

She wanted to scream out loud.

Taylor's phone buzzed against the comforter like a trapped insect, the screen flashing with the one number she'd been avoiding all week. CDC-Atlanta. Dr. Jones' direct line. She let it ring three times before exhaling through her nose and swiping answer with a fingernail that still had flecks of midnight-blue polish on it.

She took a deep breath before speaking, trying to keep her voice polite and calm. "Hello."

The phone crackled with Dr. Jones' usual brisk professionalism, but Taylor caught the undercurrent of something sharper beneath his clipped syllables. "Miss Carver. When we made the arrangement with your mother to keep you out of the spotlight, we were under the impression you'd stay out of the spotlight."

Taylor sighed heavily. "It wasn't my intention, it just sorta happened"

Dr. Jones didn't waste words. "Breaking a shoelace just happens, Taylor. Beating both your school's track record and rope climbing in a gymnasium does not just happen."

"I beat the track record?" she asked, surprised.

Dr. Jones sighed heavily. "We told your mother it was going to be hard to keep you under the radar. It was one thing with Miss Whittaker, our hands were tied" Taylor could only imagine what with Jasmine's Dad and all. "You're not like Jasmine though. She's an attention seeker by nature, for you it was only a matter of time."

"What does that mean?" she asked, not understanding.

There was a pause. "That's even scarier" She could hear Dr. Jones clicking away at her keyboard. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you this but you are a very attractive young woman now. Might I add much prettier than Miss Whittaker and your little stunt is only going to make it worse. Have you seen what they're saying online about you?"

"Some of it" Taylor had only seen the "GammaGirl" bits actually. 

There was another long pause. "Agent Kellogg is arriving tomorrow evening with some associates. They're going to discuss your situation going forward. The CDC doesn't have the resources to handle something like this" She sighed. "I'm afraid its going to get more complicated for you now."

Great, she thought, as if it wasn't complicated enough.

"There's also that other matter of yours" Dr Jones added, sounding almost like she had a headache. 

Other matter?

Then Taylor remembered. The text message. After she and Callie had talked about it and decided to let the government handle it, she had sent an email to Dr. Jones. With everything that had been going on, she completely forgot about it.

"Did you guys find the girl?" she asked, hopeful.

"I don't know the exact details because Agent Kellogg is handling the investigate. I'm sure he'll brief you on it tomorrow" She paused. "For what its worth, I hope they find whoever it is so someone can be punished. Its a terrifying thing if there really is someone out there who deliberately infected you."

After that Dr. Jones wished her luck, said she'd keep in touch and ended the call. 

She no sooner got off the phone when Kayla shouldered her way into the room with a look of determination on her face. "Was that Dr. Jones?" she asked, Taylor nodded.

"The government is coming here tomorrow, they want to discuss what happened at the gym today" Taylor explained as Kayla flopped onto her bed. "They're going to be doing some damage control."

"Me too" her sister announced, getting off the bed with a purpose.

One that was leading her right to the closet it seemed.

Taylor raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

"Today a tomboy came to school" She said, pulling a few things out. "Tomorrow a princess is coming"

She held up a dress.

Taylor groaned and threw a pillow at her sister. Kayla dodged it, tossing the dress onto Taylor's bed with a dramatic flourish. "You're wearing what I pick for tomorrow," she declared, hands on her hips. "No arguments."

The dress landed on Taylor's lap like a surrendered flag—silky emerald fabric pooling over her sweatpants. She stared at it, fingertips brushing the cool material. "I'm not wearing a dress."

Kayla crossed her arms. "You're not going looking like a bum either"

The emerald dress lay draped across Taylor's lap like an accusation. She flicked the fabric with two fingers, watching the way the silky material shimmered under her bedroom light—an effect that would undoubtedly make her look like some kind of fairy princess. Exactly the opposite of what she wanted. "Absolutely not," Taylor said, tossing it back at Kayla. "I'll wear jeans."

"Jeans?" Kayla scoffed, draping the dress over her forearm like a salesperson. "You might as well staple ‘I’m insecure’ to your forehead."

"A lot of girls wear jeans" she said, her arms crossed.

"Yes but I think you need to distance yourself from Tyler" Kayla said, pulling out a pleated skirt much like the ones she liked to wear. "I'm not saying long term but right now, everyone is looking at you. They're judging you, questioning you."

Taylor stared at the skirt dangling from Kayla’s fingers—forest green with crisp pleats, the kind that swished when you walked. It looked expensive. "You want me to wear that?"

Kayla sighed. "I want you to wear something that makes people stop thinking about you being a boy."

Taylor blinked at Kayla like she'd grown a second head. "No one thinks I was ever a boy," she said, plucking at the hem of her sweatshirt. The words tasted strange—too big for her mouth. "Even Benny calls me Taylor now." The cafeteria chatter, the locker room whispers, Sierra's predatory interest—none of it had been about her past. Just her present.

Kayla tossed the skirt onto the bed where it landed with a soft *whump*. "That's only what you saw" She sighed. "I heard what happened in the locker room. Liz had to save your butt because those girls were afraid you were still a guy on the inside."

Taylor's fingers froze mid-air. The memory hit like a gut punch—Liz's hand grabbing her breasts, the nervous laughter that followed, the way the other girls had stared at her stretching in the too-tight gym clothes. She'd thought it was about her body. Not her... past.

"Sure, they started to accept you" Kayla continued "but they doubted you. They saw the boy you were, not the girl that you are".

Taylor stared at the skirt on her bed—its pleats catching the light like folded paper wings. The silence stretched until Kayla exhaled sharply through her nose and grabbed Taylor’s wrists, pressing their palms together. Same freckle near the thumb. Different calluses. "Look," Kayla muttered, "I’m not saying you have to wear skirts forever. Just tomorrow. While they’re still deciding what box to shove you in." Her grip tightened. "Make it harder for them."

Taylor looked at the skirt and thought about what Kayla just said. Finally she sighed. "Fine, I'll wear the damn skirt".

Kayla squealed and pulled her into a hug. "I have the perfect accessories for it too!"

Taylor groaned. 

She knew she was going to regret this.

*****

Taylor flopped onto her bed with an exaggerated sigh, staring at the ceiling where a single glow-in-the-dark star from childhood still clung stubbornly near the light fixture. The room smelled faintly of Kayla's strawberry shampoo and the fabric softener their mom always used—familiar scents that somehow made everything feel both comforting and alien at the same time. She flexed her hands above her face, studying her manicured nails in the dimming afternoon light. The polish was chipped at the edges from climbing ropes and gripping lockers—little crescent moons of midnight blue clinging to nail beds that were somehow both hers and not hers at all.

Pressing her palms against her eyelids, she sighed. She did it until colors bloomed in the darkness—a childhood habit that felt wrong now with the unfamiliar softness of her fingers against her face. The bed shifted under her weight, the mattress responding differently to her new hips. She could still feel the phantom burn of rope fibers against her palms, the memory of her own strength both exhilarating and terrifying.

She rolled onto her side, pressing her cheek against the cool side of her pillow. The clock ticked louder than usual—or maybe she was just noticing it now that her hearing had sharpened. She could hear Kayla humming in the shower down the hall, the pipes groaning as hot water hit cold metal. Normal sounds. Domestic sounds. The kind of background noise she'd tuned out for fifteen years but now registered with crystalline clarity.

Today was rough, she thought.

She was expecting a lot less to happen than what actually did. She'd been a total idiot to think otherwise too. She had honestly thought she could just go back to her life like everything was fine and normal. Sure she was a boy who turned into a girl but she as stupid enough to think it didn't make a difference. That was in fact her biggest mistake of the day. Not the crap in PE. Not the whole confrontations with Sierra and Jasmine. No, it was her thinking that she was still Tyler.

Or rather, that she could still be like him.

Like him.

It was weird. When did she really start to think of him as a completely different person?

The memory surfaced slowly—not as a revelation, but as something half-remembered, like the tail end of a dream. It had been four days after the transformation, when she'd caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror while brushing her teeth. The toothpaste foam dripped down her chin as she froze, staring at the girl staring back—same blue eyes, same freckle near her left eyebrow, but softer jawline, fuller lips. And then she'd *smiled* at herself. Just a little. Just to see. Sure she'd smiled a lot as Taylor but it was something in that smile, something that told her this was her now.

She rolled onto her stomach, pressing her face into the pillow. That couldn't have been it, could it? Some stupid, insignificant moment like that?

Groaning, she sat up out of bed. She stared at the closet, it was still half open from Kayla's frenzy earlier. That's when she saw it, the dress.

Her dress.

The coral sundress.

She bit her lip and without even thinking, it was as if she was pulled to it. She stripped off her sweatshirt as she walked. Then did the same with her sweatpants.

The coral sundress slid over Taylor's skin like liquid sunlight, the fabric whispering against her thighs in a way that made her breath catch. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed this—the way the straps settled perfectly on her shoulders, the way the skirt flared just enough to make her feel like she was floating. Twirling slowly in front of the mirror, she watched the hem kiss her knees, the color making her summer-touched freckles glow like gold dust.

The coral fabric settled against Taylor’s skin like a second heartbeat, familiar and yet electrifyingly new. She hadn’t planned this—hadn’t even fully registered reaching for the dress—but now that it was on, she couldn’t bring herself to take it off. The way the straps framed her collarbones, the way the skirt swayed when she shifted her hips—it felt like wearing sunlight. She caught her reflection in the full-length mirror and froze.

That's when she realized it. 

It wasn't the toothbrushing and the smile in the mirror. 

It was this dress.

It was that moment that she first saw herself in the dress. 

That's when Tyler became another person. 

That's when she truly felt like herself. 

She stepped forward, cocking her hip ever so slightly. She touched the glass of the mirror, moving her fingers down her face. She didn't smile this time though, she frowned a bit. 

I'm sorry Tyler, she thought to herself.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF