XYXX (Camren)

Chapter 17

Lauren sat on the table, holding an arm above his head to allow his eyes to adjust to the much-too-bright lights above him. After his talk with Ally, he had been rushed out of the hotel by the assistant manager and brought to a lab. Although he wasn't fond of the interruption to his day, any distraction from the inevitable conversation he would have to have with Camila was welcome. The cold medical table he was sitting on made him feel like he was a ten year old again, waiting impatiently at the doctor's office.

Ella walked in, wearing a long lab coat and holding a notebook.

"Hello Lauren." She greeted, jotting a few words down on her notebook.

"Hey Ella."

"How have you been feeling?"

"Not great." Lauren shrugged.

"No positives to focus on?"

"The bathroom lines are nonexistent for the men's room so I guess... that's... something."

"Not hyped about all this, are you?"

"I'm not thrilled about the man thing, no."

"We're working as quickly as we can to get this sorted, believe me. We're going to run a few preliminary tests to make sure your body hasn't been negatively affected by the constant chromosomal shifts."

Lauren stood up as Ella rolled out a cart with a monitor attached to it. She wrapped a pad around his arm and pumped the air valve connected to it, stopping to hear his heartbeat. Nodding silently to herself, she jotted a few more things on the notebook before checking his ears, his tongue, and his eyes. She then had him lay down on the table shirtless, pulling out a few wires and connecting them to his chest, head, and stomach and looking through a monitor at his vitals.

After a few minutes of scribbling on the notebook and muttering under her breath, Ella finally removed all the wires from his person and straightened out a few papers before turning back to him.

"That should be all for today. I'm sending over my findings to the lab uptown. If all goes well, we should be able to develop a chromosomal shift negating pill for you to take by the end of next year."

"Next year?" Lauren shouted.

"I know it's not ideal but this is delicate research and experimentation we're doing. We've got to follow strict government practice, and since the whole incident, they've been keeping close watch on us. They make us submit any and all revisions to a board of experts. It's a time-consuming process. I'm sorry, Lauren."

Closing his eyes and breathing in slowly, Lauren clenched his jaw and exhaled through his teeth. This wasn't ideal - in fact, any additional hour in this body was driving him crazy, and to know that a full year had to go by was overwhelming. Shaking his head of all the negative thoughts, he finally opened his eyes and nodded.

"Okay. Fine. Okay." He sighed. "I know it's not your fault but it's just... this whole thing's been throwing my life in the shitter. It feels as though I don't even know who I am anymore."

She paused, giving him a sad smile before pulling over a chair and sitting down in front of him.

"Look, I know this isn't easy, but your body does not dictate who you are. Your gender is not reliant on your body, Lauren. You're still every bit the woman you were before the pill incident, and yes, we have ways to go until we fix up the mishap that happened, but you're still who you are inside."