Don't Drink The Gene Juice

9

The rest of the week... could've gone better.

Jenna shut herself up inside the house for most of the week, playing games and reading. Mom had considered it a great accomplishment to at least get Jenna out in the yard, where someone might see her.

Mom and Lily kept trying to get Jenna to go out to eat with them in public, or something, but Jenna did everything she could to avoid that. She was desperate enought that she willingly did chores.

What was harder to avoid was her friends trying to get her to come and do something. They'd had a bunch of stuff they were going to do on the break, and were somewhat pissed that Jenna was refusing to participate.

But eventually the week ended, and that meant... school.

Jenna timidly got out of the car, and set it to drive to Mom's work. The school loomed above her, despite its architecture trying to be pleasant to the eye.

As she walked through the doors inside, she tried to casually stick her hands in her pockets, but her tighter fit jeans barely fit her phone, let alone her hands.

The feeling of awkwardness only grew more intense as she began to attract stares. Despite Zoey's efforts, what had happened to Jenna had been spilled to the whole school. Everyone knew that, not only were Jenna and her friends messing around with gene juice, but it had permanently made her a girl.

Jenna had purposely avoided any place online that people from school congregated, as it was probably rife with mocking.

No one said anything to her as she shyly made her way through the halls. But they all had knowing smiles, inwardly laughing at her.

She went to her coding class, and sat down. She set her phone on the reading pad, and the computer in front of her immediately booted up to her account.

Seeing the name "Seth Jones" there didn't make her feel very good. She felt a pain in her stomach, knowing that they were probably going to have legally change her name.

"Hey," Wyatt said, sitting down next to her.

"Hi."

"You look cute today."

Jenna curled her lips into a grimace. "Wow, of all the ways you could've tried to comfort me, that's probably the worst one."

"Sorry," Wyatt said.

Jenna heard a canine-like whimpering coming from Wyatt.

"Dude," she said, "you gotta get that under control."

"I can't," he said in a defeated tone. It's a hard habit to break. Plus the furry side of me kinda likes it."

The class started, and their teacher began outlining the day's assignment. Jenna still felt very dumb - she couldn't remember her professor's name exactly. She had some European last name that Jenna couldn't pronounce. Or remember.

It also didn't help that the early hour of the class had always made it hard for Jenna to focus. And the fact that Wyatt sat right next to her.

Today though, she didn't feel like talking to him. As she began her assignment, she felt like she might actually be able to get her work done in cla-

"So are you feeling better?" Wyatt asked.

"No," Jenna said, typing in some nonsense about "deltatime."

"Well," Wyatt said, "technically it seems like you're feeling better. You aren't crying hysterically."

"It's because I lost the ability to feel emotion," Jenna said.