You live your life in your head
Some call it imagination
I'd rather focus instead on anything except
What I'm feeling

Chapter 3: Odd One

8 am

Peter awoke the next morning and felt so refreshed that he didn't even remember why he felt so jumbled about...until he looked around the room and realized where he was and why he was here. 'That's right, I got turned into a girl and we came to Aunt April's last night.' He thought moving out of the bed and looked down to see he was still wearing the clothes from yesterday.

Peter walked out of his room for the summer and down the hall, deciding to hold off getting changed for the moment as he wasn't just quite there yet. Slowly he stopped to look at the pictures adorning it, some of them showed his aunts when they were younger, and a quite a few showed a brunette girl he didn't recognize with green eyes, the last of her being dressed in a graduation gown and wearing a beaming smile on her face. 'Wow' Peter thought. 'She looks a lot like...me.'

"Hello dear, you're up early."

Peter tried and failed not to jump at the sound of April's voice as he looked over at the woman. "Um, I'm excited to be in a new town and all, so I wanted to see the sights." He lied and hoped it sounded convincing.

If Aunt April thought he was lying, she didn't call him out on it, but she did look embarrassed for some reason. "In my surprise, I forgot to ask May what your name was."

Peter colored as he realized that too and bit his lip before answering. "It's Peter," he said and didn't need to fake the nervousness he had when Aunt April stared at him somewhat incredulously, "it's kind of embarrassing I know." He said and glanced back at the wall to try and change the subject. "Um, who's that girl with the brown hair?"

Peter saw Aunt April flinch in the corner of his eye and regretted asking the second it came out.

The woman sighed as she looked forlornly at the photos of the girl along the wall. "Her name was Zoe, and she was my daughter."

Peter didn't need to know the reason behind the past tense as he had an idea of what she meant. "I'm sorry." He said quietly.

Aunt April managed a sad, small smile as she patted Peter on the shoulder. "It's alright Peter, I've made peace with it, but the hurt will always be there."

Peter didn't know how he could handle losing a loved one, his own parents having died too early for him to fully understand the concept of death, and he had no idea what to assume it must have felt like.

The air hung heavy before Aunt April shuffled past Peter. "You must be hungry, would you like something to eat?"

"Huh?" Peter looked over his shoulder at her before nodding absently. "Um, sure, thank you." He said and gave the beaming photograph of the girl one last look before proceeding to follow Aunt April into the kitchen.

"Have you ever cooked before, Peter?" The woman questioned.

"No, I can't say that I have, not really." Peter replied and paused. "It's not that I haven't tried but," his tone turned sheepish, "I'm not very good at it."

"Nonsense." Aunt April said dismissively as she gestured for Peter to walk over to the stove, which Peter complied to. "You just need a little practice."

Peter furrowed his brow before deciding that this was an opportunity to spend with his other aunt and get to know her. "Alright then, but can we make something simple? I don't have that much faith in my cooking skills."

"Of course, dear."

"Oh, this is simply wonderful April." Aunt May said as she and the rest of the family were eating the pancake breakfast.

"Thank you, May, but I had some help." Aunt April said sending Peter a glance and he blushed lightly.

"It was nothing." He mumbled as he finished off his breakfast. "May I be excused? I need to go change."

"Go ahead, sport." Uncle Ben said and Aunt April had an odd look on her face. "Uh, kiddo."

Peter quickly deposited his dish into the sink and headed down the hall. Once in his room for the summer, he dug through the bag that his new clothes were in and walked into the bathroom further down the hall. He washed up awkwardly and was glad when it was done before pulling on the change of clothing.

Peter walked back down the hall and he poked his head into the dining room. "Uh, Aunt May, Uncle Ben, would it be okay if I took a look around town?"

"Just be sure to have your phone with you in case you need us." Uncle Ben replied and Peter nodded before going back to his room and saw a lump in his satchel pocket before opening it to find his cell and put it into the pocket on his pants and walked to the front door, slipping on his shoes and went out the door.

Peter winced at the glare of the sunlight on his face and eyes and blinked the flashing blurs away. He wondered if the change had done something to his sight other than fixing it, or was it because his eyes were now fixed that they were a bit more sensitive as he wasn't used to not wearing glasses?

Hmmm, he could give that later thought, but for now he started walking down the sidewalk, noting that the houses looked similar, the only difference being the numbered plaques they had. He paused and looked back at the number on his Aunt April's home to make sure he didn't forget where it was.

Peter continued on walking down the sidewalk and reached into his pocket to turn on his phone, only stopping suddenly when he saw that he had voice mail. He found a bus stop bench to sit down on before checking the inbox and saw that all the calls came from his friends.

Peter bit his lips as he contemplated listening to the messages and his thumb hit the okay button before putting the cell by his ear and listened to the first message that had been left by Harry.

"Hey Pete, hope you're okay."

Then it had been Gwen. "Peter, you haven't been back to school, are you alright?"

And then it had been Eddie. "Hey bro, heard you were sick, you okay man?"

Peter smiled sardonically at that one before it faded as he listened to the rest, and his heart grew heavy when he heard their increasingly worried tones. He wanted so much to call them and tell them he was alright, but he knew he couldn't...he didn't want them to see him like this.

It wasn't so much as shame as embarrassment. He'd been telling both Harry and Gwen that there was nothing wrong and it turned out there was something spectacularly wrong.

Peter's thumb was on the call button, but he moved it away as he put the phone back in his pocket and kept on walking down the street. He suddenly realized that he just couldn't very well go back to New York and pretend that there was nothing wrong.

For one thing, he was sure his friends would notice that he had suddenly become a girl when before he was very clearly a boy.

The most obvious solution stared him in the face, but that would mean giving up his identity to become someone else, and he didn't know if he could do that.

His pace quickened a tad as if he was trying to outrun his thoughts on the whole matter, but he knew that this discussion was going to come up, if not by him, then by his aunt and uncle; what were they going to do now?

Still, he'd left the house to get away from these thoughts, and forget he shall, even if it was only for a little while.

Peter kept walking down the sidewalk until he reached the bustling town and felt a bit overwhelmed by all the sights, but then again he'd lived in Queens and went to school in the city, so this really shouldn't be all that different, but it was for one simple reason.

Those previous times he wasn't a girl, and he was feeling self-conscious at the moment; especially with how people were staring at him.

He wandered into a crowd and saw an archway that read 'Bushnell Park' so he decided to take a look around. Maybe the familiar surroundings of a park would help him. He leisurely walked down the path and tried to immerse himself into the beauty of the outdoors, all the while trying to forget his baser instinct to get out of the sun and that the grass looked like it could use a good rain fall soon.

Wow, even when he was trying to be optimistic he still felt the more cynical side of him come out, and this whole 'girl thing' was only making it more obvious.

And he wasn't even going to touch upon the fact he had no idea how to be a girl.

It usually looked like the opposite sex had it all down, but he knew better than to assume if this was a girl in the same situation that she could adapt so easily and would probably have just as much trouble as he was having because the change wasn't just physical, it was most jarring part of the whole thing of course; knowing your changed right down to the last detail, but it was also everything else.

It meant that you didn't just change inside and out, everything about you had to change, your entire life was flipped on its head…

And Peter was also starting to feel his 'this happened for a reason' mantra turn stale, and it was only10 am! Barely after he thought it up just last night. It seemed like he'd need something stronger than 'this happened for a reason' to stop him from freaking out like he did at the hospital.

Peter began looking around the park again; trying once more to get away from the thoughts he was trying to hold back. Hell, trying to hold everything that was threatening to spill out back.

He kept on walking; only stopping when he came across a pond that had a fence surrounding it to keep others from falling in and looked down at his reflection in the water, a reflection that looked so foreign compared to his old one. The previous times he'd seen his new self he'd only taken a glance and that had been enough for his already frayed nerves.

Even this morning he tried to avoid seeing himself in the mirror, but now he was looking straight at his face in the water and he took a real look at himself, seeing the differences he didn't see the first time in the hospital. It was still him but…not.

His lashes looked thicker, his cheekbones were higher, his lips were fuller and his features had softened. If he was being honest with himself he supposed he could admit the person staring back at him was pretty.

…If the person staring back at him wasn't him.

Peter glanced at the rock by his foot and kicked it down into the water, the rock hitting his reflection and the ripples making it unrecognizable until the water calmed.

And by the time it did, Peter had already left the pond area.