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  “I can walk,” I told him. He nodded once, but then insisted I sit in the car while he ran around to open my door. Then he took my arm as I got out, treating me as if I were quite fragile. I let him walk me to the front door.

  I stepped inside, and Dad insisted I sit in the chair we keep near the front door, normally used while taking off shoes, while he fetched my things from the car. I complied meekly, looking around the foyer. In front of me was a set of stairs to the second floor where all the bedrooms were. To the left was the dining room. To the right was Dad’s home office, which also doubled as the guest room. If I were to go straight ahead, parallel to the stairway, I could head towards the back of the house where I’d find a great room and kitchen well suited for entertaining.

  Mom and Dad came in together, whispering quietly. They caught me as I looked askance at the staircase. “Honey, do you need us to make up the guest room? Are the stairs too much?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said stubbornly. Before either of them could say anything further, I stood up and headed for the stairs.

  * * *

  I made it up the stairs just fine, of course, but was tired. I took a long nap, not waking up until my mother came in with my pain medications. I looked at them in her hand then meekly downed them with the water she gave me. “They’re going to make me sleep some more though,” I complained.

  “You’ll feel better soon, honey,” she reassured me. I told her I had to use the bathroom. She helped me stand, which wasn’t necessary, but at least didn’t insist on coming in with me.

  My little brother and I shared one side of the upstairs with a bathroom available off the hallway between our two rooms. When we’d first been looking for the house, we’d looked at a few with Jack and Jill bathrooms, but neither Matt nor I were remotely interested in that option.

  As I write this, it seems quite natural to talk in Shane’s voice, but understand, this was all very strange to me at the time. I felt like my old self, my not-Shane self, but I had all of Shane's memories and only some of my own. It was strange. I couldn’t remember my dog’s name – one of the details that didn’t come with me. But I remembered Shane’s brother’s name.

  When I got to the bathroom, I did the normal things one does in a bathroom. After washing up I examined myself in the mirror.

  The accident hadn’t caused any bruising or marring of my face, for which I was thankful. So of course the first thing I noticed was my hair. It was long, very curly, and red. I ran my fingers through it, imagining how unruly it must be when unattended. I thought about cutting it to make it easier to handle, but decided I couldn’t do it. I vowed to wear my hair as long as I could and to silently suffer the time required to take care of it.

  I looked at my face. I was carrying a little extra weight. Not a lot extra, but still, enough. “Okay, Shane,” I said. “Let’s see the worst of it.” I was wearing a tee shirt, bra, and jeans. I removed them all, shortly finding myself standing in front of the mirror wearing only my panties. I gave myself a critical look.

  I was still sporting some yellow-tinged bruises across my legs that were mostly faded. The abrasions on my hands and arms were nearly entirely healed. I turned around so my back faced the mirror, and I looked at myself over my shoulder. My back was a splotchy yellow with the dying remnants of extensive bruising. My right hip was deeply bruised along with the outside of my right leg, although the bruises had also turned splotchy yellow and faded.

  I turned my eye to a critical examination of myself, the new body I wore. It was familiar and alien at the same time. There were curves most of the places where curves belonged. I decided that Shane hadn’t abused her body, but she wasn’t perhaps rigorous in taking care of it either. I moved in front of the mirror, flexing my arms to check for tone, then did the same with my legs. I decided a solid exercise regiment would make me feel good and look better.

  It was then I realized that standing in front of the mirror was exhausting me. I could start exercising tomorrow.

  * * *

  My body continued to heal as July headed towards August. I settled in to what seemed like a new home to me, but which became increasingly familiar. So too did my family.

  My mother’s name was Elizabeth. She went by Beth most of the time. The Elizabeth in her name and my middle name came from my great-grandmother. Great grandma was quite the woman, and I knew my first daughter would carry her name as well.

  My father was Gordon. Mom was a traditional stay-at-home mom. She kept the house well, meals interesting, doted on Matt and I, and was very active in church activities. Dad was a mortgage broker for a bank. He was one of the good ones, I guess. We’d probably have had a bigger house if he’d been more willing to engage in the types of activities that led to the housing crisis. Dad actually talked to his clients, making sure they were taking a pragmatic attitude towards purchasing a home. As I assimilated Shane's memories, I decided I was proud of him.

  The entire family attended church every Sunday, Dad and Matt in suits, Mom and I in conservative dresses. In an earlier time we would have worn hats and white gloves.

  I started to exercise, too. I had this wonderful body, and I wanted it to be all it could be. I started with a walk around the block, which thoroughly tired me out, but by the third day, I was riding my bicycle. The first of August found me fully healed and up to ninety-minute bike rides throughout the nearby roads and bike paths.

  August first also served as a turning point in other ways. It started in the morning. Matt had a set of weights he used down in the basement. Matt was very athletic. He played football every fall and soccer every spring. I looked at him critically one day and decided the girls in high school were going to love him. I wondered whether he’d be good to them.

  Matt’s habit was to exercise every morning immediately after getting up before showering and having breakfast. On August first, I woke early and got dressed, then stayed in my room waiting until I heard his footsteps down the stairs. I followed him into the basement.

  “Hey, Shane,” he said, when I appeared in the basement. He was in the process of changing the weights on his barbell poised over his workout bench. He looked unsure what I was doing, intruding on his domain.

  “Hey, Matt,” I said, nonchalantly. I walked over and stood on the opposite side of the bench from him, then mirrored to the weights on my side what he was doing on his side. He didn’t say anything, but he checked my work when he was done with his side and grunted once, I guess in approval, before laying down and lifting the barbell off its posts. He did a set of reps while I stood out of the way, watching. He finished the set, replaced the barbell on its posts, then sat up and spun to sit sideways on the bench, looking at me.

  “Did you want something?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I was wondering if you’d like a spotter.”

  “Really?” His voice didn’t contain any derision but there was a lot of doubt. “Okay, come spot me.”

  He laid himself back down then waited until I was in position behind his head. He lifted the bar, settled it over his chest then grunted, “Lift it back into place.”

  I tried. The bar didn’t budge so much as an inch but stayed firmly pressed against his chest.

  “You’re holding onto it,” I complained.

  “I’m not,” he said. As if to demonstrate, he opened his hands on the bar so the bar was resting in the crook between his thumb and palm. It could go up, but not fall any further down. I could see that it was a strain for him to hold it there. “Lift it.”

  I tried again, but was still unable to raise the bar. Finally Matt grunted, wrapped his fingers back around in a proper hold, and the two of us together replaced the bar on its pegs.

  He turned and looked at me but didn’t say anything. “How much weight is on it?” I asked him finally.

  “125 pounds,” he said. “It’s a warm up weight for me, the lightest I go.”

  “I can’t spot for you.”

  He shook his head. “Shane, what did you really
want?”

  “I’m flabby.”

  “You’re a girl,” he replied with a smirk. Matt and I usually got along, but in school he was in my shadow. I think he liked knowing he was always better at athletics than I would be.

  “Matt, I’m serious. Can I work out with you?”

  He looked away, and I thought he was going to say no. I was asking to intrude on his space. I never came down to the basement, and you could practically smell the testosterone. Or maybe that was just dirty sweat socks. But then he stood up and moved to his side of the barbell. “Okay,” he said brightly. “We’ll start with bench press. Help me take off the weights.”

  So together we took all the weights off the bar, me matching him, until the entire bar looked naked. “Lie down,” he told me.

  “There’s no weight on it,” I complained.

  “The bar alone is 55 pounds,” he informed me. He reached over and pinched my arms. “It’s a good start for you.”

  I was sure he was making a joke, but he gestured at the bench again, so I laid down on it like he had and reached for the bar. Matt moved to the space behind my head. I grabbed the bar directly above my face, but Matt moved my hands apart so they were slightly wider than shoulder width. Then I watched as he loosely grabbed the bar as well.

  “Okay, slowly,” he said. “The idea is control. Lift the bar straight up over your chest, then lower it until it just touches.

  I lifted the bar. This wasn’t so bad! I dropped my arms to lower the bar, but Matt caught it before it got halfway. “Slowly!” he commanded. “It should take just as long going down as it’s going to take going up. Control, not speed.”

  He held the bar until I took the weight from him, then I slowly lowered it until it touched my chest. Then I started to raise it.

  Fifty-five pounds was a lot!

  I managed to raise it all the way, but I was wobbly. Matt steadied the bar when I wavered too much. When I finally had the bar at the top of my reach, he just said simply. “One. Again. Slowly.”

  I lowered the bar, let it touch my chest, and raised it again. “Two,” he said. “Another.”

  By the end of “five,” I could tell he was having to help me. At “eight” I was ready to give up, but Matt said firmly, “No, keep going. You have at least one more in you.”

  By the time we got to “twelve. You’re done,” I think he was doing all the work. I was panting and my arms were like spaghetti.

  Matt let me lie there and breath for a moment while he replaced weights on the bar for himself, then he helped me to sit up. He waved me to a chair while he took his turn on the bench. He did his twelve reps (I counted) and was rock steady the entire time. He sat up and looked at me.

  “You should do three sets,” he told me. I was massaging my arms at this point, but they still felt like spaghetti.

  “I don’t think I can.”

  He nodded. “Sit out once more then while I do another set.” He added one more medium weight to each side of the bar and began another set. He was still rock steady, but I could tell he was finally getting a real workout. He finished his set and was breathing hard, but he immediately got up and took off all the weights.

  “Your turn,” he told me.

  I nodded meekly and took my spot. This was my idea, after all.

  I was able to lift the bar and do a few fairly steady reps without any help from Matt, but by the fourth he was helping me. By the eighth I think he was lifting not just the bar but also my arms as I hung onto the bar.

  “That’s enough,” he said.

  He helped me to sit up then just waited while I caught my breath. Then he walked across the room and selected two dumbbells and brought them back. He kept what was clearly the heavy one and set the light one on the floor in front of my feet.

  “Weight training is all about control,” he said. “I’m going to show you several things you can do with the dumbbells then you’ll do them.” And then he did, explaining each exercise has he did them. When he was done, he set his weights aside and told me to pick up mine. He then directed me through a set of exercises with the small weight.

  This was easier, but by the time I’d finished everything he told me to do on both sides, my arms were completely dead.

  “All done?” he finally asked me.

  I nodded.

  “Coming back tomorrow?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay. Tomorrow we’ll do legs. Friday is a core day.” I had no idea what he was talking about. “Here’s the rule. You can use the weights whenever you want. But leave the barbell alone unless I’m here to spot you.”

  “You do it alone,” I replied.

  “Yeah, but when I have someone who can spot me, I put on another forty pounds. I have to quit a little short of momentary muscle failure to make sure I won’t drop it on my chest.”

  * * *

  August the first held another major turning point for me. At lunch I asked Mom if we could go do some clothes shopping. “There are some sales, and I’d like to get a few more outfits that are a little more adult,” I told her. Then I looked at her cautiously. “And maybe some cosmetics.”

  Mom continued to putter around the kitchen but said quietly, “You know how your father feels about you wearing make up.”

  “I’m almost nineteen and going away to college,” I replied. “I need to start looking more professional. And professional women wear cosmetics to work.”

  “College is still school, not work,” she said.

  We went back and forth a few times, not fighting, but not agreeing either. Finally she said “We’ll see” which in Mom parlance almost always meant “no, and don’t ask again.” I started wondering about a part time job once I got to school, where I could buy my own make-up without parental interference.

  But she took me to the mall. We went through several stores, but neither of us saw anything we liked. We both knew we were still warming up. We finally arrived at our real destination and began to paw through the dresses. I found a skimpy red dress with spaghetti straps and held it up. Mom didn’t even look at it. “Put it back,” she told me firmly.

  Twice more she told me to put dresses back without even glancing at them, but then she turned to me with four dresses in her arms. She held the first up in front of me and nodded.

  It was horrible! Okay, it wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t at all what I wanted.

  “Mom, I have dresses like these. They’re fine for high school. Or church. But I was hoping-“

  “I know what you’re hoping for,” she told me. “Go try these on.”

  I gave her The Look. At eighteen I had a pretty good Look, but I was still an amateur compared to Mom. She returned The Look in spades then simply pointed to the dressing rooms. I took the dresses and meekly turned where pointed. “Try them on and come out so I can see.”

  The dresses were very conservative. I wasn’t looking for conservative. I wanted something fun. Sexy. Something that people would notice. These were fine dresses if one wanted to play the wallflower. I’d been the wallflower in school, and I had no intention of remaining one.

  I put on the first dress. It was a blue floral. I left the dressing room so mom could see. She was busy pawing through more dresses, but she looked up as I came out. “Turn around. Slower. Good. Next one, please.”

  We repeated the cycle three more times. She sent me back to the dressing room, but knocked on the door while I was still taking the dress off. “Give me those,” she said. “We’ll take the blue and the beige.” I sighed. The two most conservative. Then she slipped into the dressing room with me and handed me several more dresses.

  These weren’t remotely conservative!

  “We’ll take the blue and the beige to show your father. And we’ll see which of these we like, and you must never ever EVER let him see them.”

  “Mom!” I squealed. She had been paying attention. I recognized several of the dresses I had tried to show her plus several more I hadn’t noticed earlier.

  “Tr
y these on,” she said, hanging several dresses on one of the hooks on the dressing room wall. “If you like them, pick two. If you need a different size, tell me.” Then she put four black dresses on another hook. “Call me back before you get to these.”

  In the end I decided the skimpy red dress was just a little too skimpy. But Mom had found another red dress with just a little more fabric, and it was fabulous. I narrowed my choices down to three dresses and called Mom back. I handed her the ones I had rejected. She noticed the red one I’d decided was too skimpy and smiled one of her “I knew you’d do the right thing,” smiles. “I can’t decide between these three,” I told her. Mom checked the price tags on them and frowned. Finally she said, “The red one for sure.” Then she looked at the other two more thoroughly. She held up the blue one to my body, then the deep purple. I loved the purple one, but it was the most expensive of all the dresses she’d shown me. “The blue one is nice, but you’re going to be going to school dances, and the way the purple one is going to flow when you move will be very striking. So the red and the purple. Okay?”

  I started to cry a little, but she just reached out and hugged me. “I’m very proud of you, Shane,” she whispered in my ear. “You’re going to have an amazing future in front of you.” She held me for a moment before stepping away and handing me a tissue. That’s Mom, always prepared.

  “Okay, now, let me explain about the Little Black Dress.”

  Chapter 3: New Friends

  Knightly began classes in mid-September, with incoming freshmen arriving on campus on Wednesday of the previous week for class registration and various orientation events. Dad took off work that day, and the entire family, including Matt, made the forty-five minute drive, arriving just before ten AM. We picked up my orientation packet and dorm room key then went in search of my new home for the next nine months.