A Probability Experiment Turned Me Into A Clockwork Girl And I Really Don't...

11:30. Spring Tension (pt. 2)

The wind howled.

For a long moment, I just stood there, that metaphorical sinking feeling permeating every cog, pawl, worm-gear, and God-knew-what-else in my body. There was no getting out of it now - she knew. Oh, sure, it was one thing for my roommates, for my classmates, for all my friends and acquaintances to know, here in this safe, isolated space - but for my family...my mother...?

I hadn't realized 'til now, but some part of my brain was convinced that, if nobody knew about this - for certain values of "nobody" - then it wasn't truly real; that the cat was neither alive nor dead until observed. Part of me believed - or wanted to believe - that if I could just muddle on through and get to the point of changing back without being discovered, that it would be as if it never happened, and therefore didn't "count." That I'd never have to face explaining to...to her...what I'd become...

This was patent nonsense - the odds of becoming the old me again were astronomical, if it was even possible, and it was absurd to think that if I became a male demi-human, it wouldn't raise nearly as many questions. And it wasn't like becoming what I used to be would undo what I'd been through in the last two months - everything I'd done, experienced, felt...

...and it didn't matter anyway, because now she knew.

It was absurd to think that this could ever have been avoided. I could hardly have cut off contact, vanished into the night, and gone to "start over" on the far side of the world even if I'd wanted to. But for the past couple months I'd been living under the illusion that everything here was somehow separate from my old life, compartmentalizing it and putting the issue out of my head. Now there was no getting around it...no way to avoid admitting the truth about what I'd allowed to happen to myself...

I couldn't get consumed by things like fear or panic the way I could as a human, not without that hormonal charge. I knew this by now. So why - and how - did I feel this suffused with embarrassment? She knew - she knew - that I'd screwed up, that I'd done something stupid, that my life was never going to be the same and it was all my fault. I felt my tempo slowly accelerating... What must she think of me? I was supposed to be going out into the world, fulfilling my potential, becoming something to be proud of...and now I was this. A freak, a changeling, a bizarro girlified simulacrum of her son...

"Stuart, talk to me." I whirred in surprise as the familiar voice snapped me out of my thoughts, accompanied by the familiar sigh. "It really is you, isn't it?" she muttered nervously, half to herself. "I wasn't sure whether to believe them, but I'd know those habits of yours anywhere."

(Emma looked like she was about to make a smart remark, but Tammy shot her a Look and brandished her caudal fin meaningfully.)

"I, uh..." I stammered, wondering what I could even say, "I...can explain..." But I couldn't for the life of me think of how I could explain in a way that didn't give exactly the same impression as a straight recounting of the events leading up to this would.

"I got the story from your roommates," she replied. "But can you explain why something like this happened to my child and this is the first I'm hearing of it?" Her voice was firm and cool, but began to quaver a little. "Why I've barely heard from you for two months, and when I asked, you told me things were fine? Why you were a no-call-no-show on Thanksgiving? God in heaven, Great-Grandma Drosselmeyer was asking about you the whole time and I didn't even know what to tell her...!"

...Oh. Right. That.

"Wait, did you seriously ghost your mom?" Emma said, astonished. The "smoke" billowing from her neck formed little surprised curlicues that I half-expected to turn into interrobangs like this was a Felix the Cat cartoon or something. It'd make as much sense as the rest of my life right now...