After the drama of the first day the rest of the week could only be easier, and it was, which didn’t mean it was normal yet. I woke up Tuesday morning both burning with questions we had no time for and not knowing how to act with Carl and May. Neither did they, exactly. May’s morning greetings felt careful. Carl just gave me a once-over and a nod, which, weirdly, felt better than May’s tentativeness and enabled me to get through breakfast and ask for another ride. I’d abused my body yesterday and my transformation obviously hadn’t gifted me with any of the physical enhancements some displayed; I’d woken up so sore that I could barely move, and Carl drove me to school as my muscles warmed and loosened up.

  The ride was silent, but easy, Carl’s company not giving me conflicting feelings like May’s did.

  I returned the whistle when I changed for gym but was excused from the calisthenics to do a lot of slow limbering exercises. Joy took the opportunity to discuss my fitness program and level goals; build endurance, gain more muscle, and raise my Modified Body Mass Index at least a little.

  After school I asked my questions, so many questions about the People, which May and Carl and Sophie couldn’t really satisfy. My guess had been spot on; apparently the seniors were the ones to decide what else I could know, and they’d take forever to do that. I’d also correctly guessed that they’d sent Sophie to evaluate me when told of my transformation and May and Carl’s plans, obviously not trusting them to be at all impartial about what I could be trusted with.

  But what kind of alien race “invades” and goes so native their grandchildren barely understand them? And what kind of alien intervention was “Let’s drop a ship on them to get their attention . . . and randomly gift them our space-elf abilities while we’re at it.” That sounded less like an intervention and more like a fucking insane Hail Mary pass or sociology experiment.

  Was it reassuring at all to know that even a race of supremely advanced aliens didn’t seem all-wise compared to us humans still in our own racial childhood?

  As for how I felt about last night’s revelations about me; maybe Don’t think about what you can’t change, wasn’t the healthiest response, but for me it was the go-to place to start. At least until I rediscovered my equilibrium.

  And that night Pinky’s mother called May to ask if I could sleep over at their place Friday night, a first week Sister’s Night. I didn’t hear the conversation, but May seemed to be under the impression that, having lost her previous little sister to California, Pinky was making an extra effort to bond with me. She was of the tentative opinion that it could be good for me, and I said yes before even thinking about potential complications.

  Things felt easier between us on Wednesday, and after school May took me to see Dr. James to get the IUD implant, which meant getting back in the chair with my legs in the air for her to open me with her speculum and insert the T-shaped piece of plastic in my uterus. I also got my HPV vaccine shot—the first of a three-dose schedule given months apart. Through the whole thing, the guilt practically radiated off her and, now that I knew what to look for, I realized that a lot of her carefulness over the past weeks had been thick with it. Every moment that I’d found hard to handle, well, that had been her fault.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Almost as a distraction from all that, I told Dr. James about my “complication.” Sleep-squirting.

  It was horrifically embarrassing, but I did get something out of it; an explanation for why I was squirting only nocturnally. According to Dr. James the female ejaculation phenomena wasn’t fully understood even now, but involved a “non-typical” action of a woman’s pelvic floor muscles when sufficiently aroused. A kind of “relaxed arousal” allowing it to happen and apparently I was reaching that comparatively rare state of peak relaxed arousal in my sleep, so it sounded like May had been right. Having sex-dreams so regularly was itself a bit unusual, and Dr. James suggested it might be my brain’s response to its new hormone levels—implying it might lessen as it adjusted—but nothing to worry about. Her solution was the same as May’s; night pads or masturbation.

  I tested my alien sense throughout the week, reporting to Grace about it. While I couldn’t feel her or anyone else across town, I could pick them up from pretty far away; I knew when Grace was home and a couple of times when she wasn’t just before the Twain Street Station stop. At Hadley I could tell where Papa was from anywhere on the school campus. I couldn’t text for confirmation like I did with Grace, but I picked times when I could get visual confirmation (Thursday morning I pinged him off campus before the first bell and wandered out to the gates to watch him get out of a car).

  And of course I could “ping” the others from the same distances, too, and after pinging them while they were right in front of me, could tell them apart. I could “hear” their tone, to use Grace’s phrase, though not their tunes (thank God). Though of course I couldn’t tell Grace about them; the People were May and Carl’s secret to share and they might never get permission. But it did leave me with a moral dilemma. I knew that Papa was a changeling, and he didn’t know that I knew. Should I tell him?

  What to do?

  When Friday night rolled around, I almost chickened out of going to Pinky’s. Wasn’t eighteen a little old for a sleepover? May talked me down from my nerves; Pinky and I were going to talk school and probably boys a bit, paint our nails (which I’d learned how to do) or play video games, maybe watch a movie. Just do things that friends did and sleep afterwards. And she put Hads in my overnight bag with everything else; the Hadley teddy bear had become my sleeping companion over the last week, something to wrap my arms around that I’d quickly grown used to.

  Carl drove me to Pinky’s house, a small suburban home at the end of a short street in solid picket-fence territory. Sitting in the car we looked at the place.

  “So, here we are again,” he said. “Think you’ll last longer this time?”

  I drew in a breath. No pressure; just my first girlfriend thing without any structure provided by school, not even the social expectations of a party. Pinky and I just had to . . . enjoy each other’s company. Be friends. Girlfriends. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” I groaned.

  “Just be yourself.” He chuckled. “You were a good man before, considerate, thoughtful, and you’ve turned into a charming young lady, old man.”

  I groaned again, dropping my head on his shoulder.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Hey, it’s a mom’s job to be all sweet and supportive but it’s a dad’s job to give their kids a hard time.”

  “To fuck with them, you mean?”

  “Language.”

  I giggled. Somewhere in all this old man and language had become our something just ours. Straightening I unbuckled and started to get out.

  “April?”

  I looked back.

  “Have fun. You deserve to have fun.” There was a little worry there but he had a smile on his face, like, regardless of how I’d got here, he was happy for me, like he wanted me to be happy. Whatever my feelings about May, with Carl they weren’t complicated at all and for the second time in a week I listened to my instincts and took a leap; leaning over the gearshift, I kissed him on his stubble-rough cheek.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  I was a girl now, paid for with all my confusion and angst, maybe, but I got to do that.

  Climbing out of the car I stood on the sidewalk in front of Pinky’s house. I was going to make this fun.