As the self-appointed only normal person on the Shawford Ranch, Andy stayed locked up tight in his room.

He does not expect his older brother Matt to barge through his bedroom door with a sleeping bag and Ryan in tow. Even more so, Andy does not expect to see David and Jamie walk in either. And yet, here they all were.

“It’s definitely changed since the last time I was here,” Jamie remarked. Andy rolls his eyes. ‘Of course it’s changed since the last time he was here, it’s been years.’

“Yeah, what happened to the racing car stickers?” David jokes as he admires the myriad of movie posters. Andy’s favorite one is the fast and furious poster, so in a way, not much on that front has actually changed.

“So how is this going to work? I take the floor in here, Jamie takes my old room and…” Matt’s voice fades out because he’s not sure where David plans on sleeping.

“I guess the couch is open?” David suggests. He’s slept in worse places. A college dorm for one. A couch would be a step up, in that regard.

David nods. He drops his bag off in Matt’s old room anyway, since leaving it out in the living room would surely upset his mother. Jamie follows him in after and looks at herself in the mirror attached to the dresser.

She was short for a Shawford. Her hair was medium length blonde, and she looked good in about everything she chose to wear. Jamie needed to psych herself up for wearing men’s clothing around mom. It wouldn’t hurt her as much as it used to- she was secure in her femininity the way many others were jealous of. But even if it didn’t hurt quite as much as it did before, appearing male would still feel like shooting herself in the foot.

What would Marty say if she saw her like that? She’d probably try to rip Jamie’s mother a new one.

The only slightly smaller boys in the Shawford household were Andy and Ryan. But even they had grown taller than Jamie. She walks into Andy and Ryan’s room and finds Andy still sitting on his bunk bed with a book in his hand.

“Can I borrow one of your t-shirts?” Jamie asks. A baggy t-shirt would hide her chest a little better than the tank top she was wearing right now did.

Andy doesn’t look up from his book as he tosses her a black shirt from the laundry pile in the corner of his room. It smells like body odor and axe, but Jamie doesn’t complain. It wouldn’t be fair of her too.

Andy tries to picture Jamie as a guy again. A normal guy. A famous tennis player known for being able to play with both his left and right hand interchangeably. James was Andy’s hero growing up. Andy looked up to him, wanting to be just like him. And then-

And then he became a she.

Jamie accepts the t-shirt with a nod and goes to change in the bathroom across the hall. Andy pretends he’s been reading this entire time, and tries to refocus his attention on the last sentence he left off on.

Andy abandons the book and stares up at the ceiling. He doesn’t hate Jamie because of what she is. He doesn’t hate Jamie at all. Andy just doesn’t know how to act around him- her. What do you say to someone who’s switched genders all of a sudden?

‘My bad- that male bonding was really male-female bonding?’ Yeah, right. It irks Andy that he had no idea that his brother was, well, a girl. What is having a sister like, anyway?

“Hey, we’re running the horses, you know, if anyone wants to join us?” David yells from the patio door. Andy is well aware that everyone else is already outside. Only he and his mother sat inside. Which meant, obviously, that David was talking to Andy.

He has two choices now. Sit inside and never know what it is to have a sister, or go and find out.

Andy decides he’s had enough of sitting inside.