The truth

There’s no stat on the app to prove it, but you’re self-conscious enough to know that you are a terrible liar. There is no way in hell you could actually pull one over on Gerald. So you wave an arm, tell him, “Come inside and I’ll explain,” and once he’s in the house, you decide to jump straight to it. You gesture at your body and say, “Dude, I’m Jake.”

He looks you over, from feet to head and back again, which sends a weird feeling through your stomach. Then he cracks a smile, and starts looking around the place. “Okay, Jake,” he said, calling out loudly, “Good one, you tried, man.” But when you and he wait for half a minute, and there’s no ‘real Jake’ to be found, Gerald looks at you with genuine suspicion. “Gonna ask again, where is Jake?” For a moment, you fear that he’ll do something to you, but that’s quickly replaced with annoyance.

You suck in a breath and pinch the bridge of your nose. “You are making this so much more difficult than it needs to be.” Then you slap your hands together and point them at him, and clearly enunciate every word, tell him, “Gonna say again, I am Jake.” It looks like he’s going to argue, so you decide to hit him with a double whammy. You lift up your shirt, which actually makes him blush, but just enough that he can see the area around your belly button. Sure enough, just a few inches to the right is the birthmark in the shape of random splotch. “Birthmark.” Then, you run through your head for something particularly damning, and tell him, “Also, that time you spent the night at my place after graduation, I walked in on you masturbating in my bathroom because you forgot to lock the door.”

Those both clearly catch his attention. Either could be faked, probably, but hopefully the combination is enough to convince him. He’s definitely looking at you differently now, as if only now seeing the similarities between the Jake he knew and the Jake in front of him. Finally, he tells you, “Okay, let’s pretend I believe all of this. What the hell happened to you?!” It was a good question.

“One sec,” you tell him, and quickly run into the bedroom to grab your phone. You bring it back to him, and let him look over the app on his own. As he’s checking out the different pages, you tell him, “You know I’ve been feeling stuck in a rut for a while now, so I decided to get one of those habit tracking apps. Of course, with my luck, I downloaded the only app that actually changes you based on what you do. Apparently a bunch of the things I did last night were ‘girly’, and so it made me a girl. Hopefully, you can help me fix this.”

To your relief, Gerald nods his head and hands the phone back to you. “Alright, I’ll do what I can.” But then he starts to look kind of embarrassed, and tells you, “So...one thing. Check the Tasks, you missed a new one, I think.” Confused, you check the list...and see Kiss your friend has been added. Now you’re blushing with him, and trying not to think about what it would be like to reenact some of the steamy scenes from the book you read with your friend. Instead, you look over all the available Tasks, and try to think of what would help.