Never before have I been nervous for a talk with the principal. It almost feels like I'm overreacting as I press my ear against the door for fifteen minutes, desperately trying to catch something of the conversation. I don't understand much, but the principal and Damian raise their voices a few times. The principal tells 'me' and Damian to apologise, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Thank God that girl didn't mess up. I mean, she did still stutter a lot and made me sound like a wuss, but it could've been a lot worse. I hear footsteps approaching the door, so I jump back right in time, and pretend to have just walked past.
Damian walks out first and I give him a hard glare, to which he gains a confused expression on his face before Allison blocks our eye contact. The principal closes the door, and immediately Damian snarls at Allison.
"You got fucking lucky, Zach."
It's so strange that it's not directed at me. Nonetheless, I still listen.
"Could you please let it go already?" Allison sighs, obviously exaggerated.
What!? I never told her to act like such a pushover! Did she act like this the entire meeting long!?
"You're the one that went feral!" he growls.
"You're the one that started, idiot!" I pipe in.
Both the boys turn around startled, with Allison in particular looking mortified and softly shaking her head.
"Who are you?" Damian asks.
"I'm in the same class as you two, and I saw what happened."
Damian grumbles to himself, and realising he can't do anything, calms down and walks away.
"You're lucky you have this tattle-tail vouching for you," he snarls over his shoulder.
There we go. That's dealt with.
"Why did you say that!?" Allison asks me annoyed, "Now he has a vendetta against me as well! Don't drag me down with you!"
"Please, he's too much of a wuss to harm you," I scoff, "All talk, no balls."
"You think so?"
"Probably."
After that, we decide to head over to the library. We both agreed that we're going to have to spend at least another night in each other's bodies, so we need a plan and some rules.
"No groping my boobs!"
"Calm down, would you?"
"Agree with me then. No getting naked, or any other sexual stuff."
"What about getting dressed?" I casually ask.
"Dress with your eyes closed!"
"What about taking a shower?"
"S-Shower with your eyes closed!"
"Oh come on, you can't seriously think that's a good idea!"
"Stop making excuses so you can do your horny deeds! Why is that the only thing on a boy's mind!"
"No it's not! Not all of us are freaks."
"You already groped my boobs! You can't say anything!"
"Ok, yeah, fair enough, but I was confused and thought it was still a dream," I say without shame, "Besides, I could've gone further, but I didn't."
"My mom probably walked in, didn't she?"
How did she know!?
"You know what, I'm willing to forgive you if you apologise and promise never to do that again," she offers.
"Fine, sorry," I force out.
We continue with the negotiations, adding more and more rules. Eventually, the librarian kicks us out at around five o'clock. The ground rules we established are pretty reasonable:
No doing sexual things.
No ruining the other person's life on purpose.
And most importantly: no telling anyone about this swap.
Basically, once we get back to normal, it will have to be as if nothing had happened at all.
Together with these rules, we also decided to give some information on our lives, to help the other keep suspicion low. I just told her that my parents are gone and I'm living with my sister, Sarah, and also who my friends are: Evan and Sam - oh yeah, and I made sure to let her know Evan is gay. Luckily she didn't press on about my parents, which I can't tell is because she's polite, apathetic or just dumb.
When it's her turn to give her backstory, she reveals something I realise I fucked up hard on.
The man I thought was her dad, isn't her dad. Her mom is dating him right now, and his name is Chad. That's who her friend - who I now know is named Megan - was referring to. Also, she doesn't like Chad, she doesn't like him at all.
"Why do you look so uneasy?" Allison asks after finishing her rant about Chad.
"I might have... called him dad this morning..."
"You didn't," she says bluntly.
"And I got into a bit of an argument with your friend, Megan. She suspects Chad is the reason you're not acting normal, and I got defensive - because that Chad guy didn't seem like a bad guy this morning, so how was I supposed to know anything was up?" I cautiously tell, "Anyways, um, I think she thinks you have amnesia now," Maybe I shouldn't have told her that until I fixed it.
"NOOO!!! Oh my god, Megan probably hates me now! You better fix this!" she commands me.
"If she's really your friend, she'd forgive-" I stop when I notice she's tearing up.
"This is just great!" she pouts, "I'm stuck as some delinquent boy whilst he ruins my life!"
I want to hurl something right back at her, but I don't. I've never made anyone cry before. It's mostly been me who's cried because of others. I didn't know causing someone to cry felt as bad as crying yourself.
"I'll do something about it, okay?" I mumble.
"You better," she sniffles as she wipes away her tears.
Before departing to the other person's home, we exchange contact info and begrudgingly share our most used and important passwords. After that, just a quick and final rundown of our plan going forward.
"Tomorrow, after classes, we meet up in the library again to research about this body swap thing. Understood?"
She nods.
"Remember our rules," she reminds me sternly.
"Yes, I know," I sigh.
"Ok, I'll trust you." She turns around and starts walking towards my house, "Good luck," she wishes me, with a faint smile.
"Good luck," I wish her back, with an even fainter smile.
Then I turn around and head towards her home, with only one thought on my mind:
This girl is a pathetic loser, and I'm stuck in her body.
YOU ARE READING
The Swap
Teen Fiction"Where am I? This isn't my room. Wait, this isn't my voice, either! This isn't my body!" Allison Par is a timid girl. She just moved to a new town and her mom started dating a new man. Allison just wants him gone, but she's too terrified to speak up...
