Lane woke up in a cold sweat, he’d gone to bed with a headache that he thought would go away by morning, and now he lay awake in the middle of the night, staring at the spinning ceiling fan, wondering if it was going to fall on him while he debated with himself, weighing the effort to get a glass of water to possibly ease the headache against the effort it would take to do so. His eyes darted around his sparsely decorated room, wanting for some posters or glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars or anything to make it feel a little more lived-in. 

Groaning, he slowly convinced himself to get out of bed. His center of balance felt off, getting to the kitchen was a journey. The water felt cool and refreshing as he poured it down his throat, despite its pronounced tap-water flavor. It seemed to help the pain at least a little, so he decided to head back to bed and try to salvage what he could of the night. He’d just stop to use the bathroom first.

* * *

Susan had finished setting up her workshop the night before, and she hadn’t wasted any time getting to work. She had started a project during the day, and now the sun threatened to rise over her as she continued into the unreasonable hours of the night. Susan was jolted from her focus on tinkering with the detection device she’d been fixated on by a shriek. Her equipment clattered onto the workbench as she bolted out of her workshop. Light leaked through the bathroom door. She knocked.

“Lane, is everything okay?”

Confused stammering came as a reply.

* * *

With a mechanical whirr the drawer rolled out from under the homemade body scanner, a slightly haphazard looking cylindrical metal structure that took up half the room. Lane glanced at his sister while her eyes ran back and forth over a printout. His heart beat in anticipation as he waited for Susan’s diagnosis. He had no idea what happened to him, but the result was something he had a guess for, as unlikely and strange as the prospect seemed. 

“So, you’re not sick or injured.”

Lane exhaled a sigh of relief.

“According to all my tests, you’re a perfectly healthy young woman.”

Pages rustled in Susan’s hands. Lane blinked.

“Well, I wasn’t yesterday!”

“What, did you catch a cold or something?”

Lane groaned, letting his head drop back onto the drawer’s pillow.

“Should I be concerned?”

“I don’t know, blue isn’t normally a natural hair color.”

“It must be this town.”

Susan thought for a moment.

“I’m not so sure, it’s only those born here who get—”

“You know what?” Lane said, swivelling into a standing position. “I’m going to go back to bed, wake up from this strange dream, and avoid thinking about it for the rest of my life.”

“Sure, let me know how that works out,” Susan said without a hint of irony.

* * *

The kitchen was the kind of kitchen that was just slightly too small for two people, with a sink that seemed to fill up with dishes a little too quickly, and a dishwasher that seemed to hold about half the dishes Susan expected it to. Susan poured milk into her bowl of sugary cereal. With deep creases under his eyes, Lane shuffled into the kitchen and buried his face in the refrigerator. 

“Morning, Lane.”

“Mrrg.”

“So, was it a dream after all?”

Lane shot her a look. Susan turned her attention back to her breakfast, which was quickly becoming something of a soggy paste. The coffee machine began to gurgle.

“Are you sure you want to go to school? I can call in sick for you.”

Lane sat by his backpack, lacing his shoes up. They felt a little loose, but he was ignoring that.

“It’s the first day, and you said that I was perfectly healthy.”

“Mental health is as valid a reason as physical health.”

“I’m fine.”

Susan looked at her brother and decided to drop the conversation.

* * *

The bright morning sun cast long shadows and reflected off of the near-white sidewalk into Lane’s still-adjusting eyes. The street crawled with parents on their way to school with their kids in tow, waiting for their turn to go at the intersection. A car passed by, and visible from behind it stood Sammy. She waved excitedly at Lane, crossing the street to join him on the walk to school. Lane smiled at her weakly.

“Hi, Lane! I love what you’ve done with your hair.”

Lane blushed, tucking a piece of blue hair behind his ear.

“I… thanks.”

Sammy grinned.

“You look almost like a different person! Like in a good way, I mean you looked good before too, I just mean—”

“I get what you mean, Sammy.”

They walked in silence for a while, passing by the occasional commuter, Sammy moving around the sidewalk haphazardly in some sort of game only she knew the rules to. Lane had expected Sammy to ask some questions. He kind of wanted her to ask some questions, to maybe help put their tribulations into perspective.

“So, um, Sammy?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever heard of anyone changing sex?”

Sammy didn’t miss a beat.

“Well, sometimes people find out that the gender they were assigned at birth doesn’t feel right for them, and they might change the way they present themselves to be more comfortable. So, from your perspective, it might look like a change, but they’re the same person, they’re just expressing themselves more honestly.”

Lane didn’t think that was what he was talking about but nonetheless that explanation made him feel something familiar yet scary, the kind of feeling he’d had for a long time with no words to put to it and had tried not to think about, especially not since he woke up that morning. Was that okay? Someone could just change like that? 

“H-how do they figure that out?”

“From what I hear, some people have known for as long as they remember, some people slowly piece it together over years, some people just kinda realize it suddenly. It’s a really personal and individual process. I’m not really the expert on this, but I can recommend some books or I can ask some of my transgender friends if they can talk to you.”

“If that would be okay…” Lane paused. “Wait, I’m getting off track, I’m talking about, like, a spontaneous, physical change!”

Sammy tapped her finger in thought.

“Nope, never heard of anything like that, but you should ask the correct way to refer to them anyway!”

“Sammy, I’m talking about me!”

Sammy looked at him and blinked.

“Oh!”

Lane turned his face away.

“So… what are your pronouns?”

* * *

Lane carefully closed the front door behind him and put his keys on the nearby hook, shuffling his feet at the doormat. Susan stuck her head out from inside her workshop.

“How’d school go?”

“Everyone was very understanding.”

“That’s good.”

Lane collapsed face first onto the couch.

“How are you feeling?”

“I dunno.”

Susan took off her welding mask and joined him in the living room. Lane rotated to face the ceiling.

“You don’t know?”

“I’m just… questioning some stuff.”

“Ah,” Susan said, wandering into the kitchen. “Want some tea?”

“I dunno.”

Susan set the kettle to boil, and took two tea cups out of the cupboard. 

“Want to change back?”

“...I don’t know.”

She poured the boiling water over the teabags, watching wisps of steam dissipate into the window-lit air. She set a timer, and it ticked away.

“Well, I’m here for you whatever you decide.”

“...Thanks, Suse.”