124 Showered With Trouble
I stared at the dress in shock. How could it possibly be here? Had something else changed? Had I changed? I reached for my purse to pull out my compact and noticed something else, or rather two something else’s. My phone, which I had left inside the purse, was now sitting on the floor next to it, and so was my cosmetic case, which I always leave in my bedroom.
The room lurching, I quickly sat on the bed, trying not to faint. I took several slow breaths, trying to calm my pounding heart and then reached again for my purse and the compact inside it. There had to be a logical explanation for all of this. In the dim light, it was hard to be absolutely certain, but my reflection certainly looked like me , or rather the female me – Marsha. Could they have somehow changed my reality without changing my appearance? Or possibly I just couldn’t tell? Some of the changes that had affected others in the Strangers had been very subtle.
OK, time to think. Why would I be wearing my nightgown? Why would my dress be here when I hadn’t worn it yesterday? Was it possible that I had just lost a day, having come back here the next day, only better prepared to spend the night? I grabbed my phone to check the date. No dice, it was Thursday, just as I expected it to be. If there’d been a change in my reality though, was it possible that I had moved in with Jeremy? Or had arranged to spend nights on a regular basis? It seemed out of character for him, but it was something I could check. Surely he would have given me one of the drawers in his dresser.
I looked at him again. Covered with the blanket, he was now stretched out on the floor. That didn’t make sense – if I were sleeping here regularly, surely he would have been in the bed with me? Still, I crept as quietly as I could to the dresser and slowly eased open the top drawer.
It was full of his underwear and socks, so I tried the next, and the next. Each held only his clothing and none of mine. When I pulled open the second-to-bottom drawer, I heard him ask, sleepily, “Are you looking for something?”
I jumped in surprise and turned around, closing the drawer with the back of my legs. If things had changed out from under me, obviously he wouldn’t notice, and I wouldn’t want him to notice. I needed to change the subject, distract him, until I have this figured out. “I… I think I was a bit tired last night,” I said. “I don’t remember hanging my dress on your closet door.”
“You didn’t,” he said, shaking his head and standing up. “I did.” My eyes bulged. Had we been living together long enough for him to know my habit of putting out my clothes the night before? “You seemed really uncomfortable when you left here the last time, and Janine told me that it’s embarrassing for girls when they have to walk home the next day in the same clothes they wore the night before – she called it the ‘walk of shame’ – so I called your roommate and arranged to get you a change of clothes.”
“You… called my roommate?” I gaped at him. “How did you…?” My brain was frazzled.
“Terry Baldwin, right? I found her number in your phone. I remembered you had introduced one of your roommates as ‘Terry’ and she was the only one in there. I told her what I wanted and she had everything ready for me when I got there.”
“And my nightgown?”
“She said you’d be more comfortable that way than in a t-shirt, and also that you would want your makeup.” That was possible. Terry certainly could have said all that.
“And… you put it on me?” I asked. He’d be sure I was too inhibited to allow that, surely?
“No,” he said, looking a bit embarrassed. “When I came back, you sat up, so I gave it to you. Before I could turn around, you took off the shirt and… well, next I saw you were under the covers. Obviously, you put on the nightgown and lay down again; I’m not sure you actually even woke up.”
Huh. That would explain why it had been pushed up to my waist. I must have put it on sitting up and then gone back to sleep. I was being stupid. Of course that’s what happened! Always look for the simplest explanation! I almost laughed with relief. How could I have imagined they would change time on me again?
“Anyway, now you can use my bathrobe and go take a shower and change into fresh clothes, if you want?” he concluded. Then he gave me a concerned look. “Is everything OK? Did I do something wrong?”
“No! No,” I answered, trying to regain my composure. “You were great. Thank you! I really appreciate it. I think I will go take that shower now!”
He handed me his robe, a towel, and brand new containers of body wash and shampoo and said, “I’m going to take a shower too, so I’ll leave the door unlocked for you.”
“Wait!” I said. “Don’t you need this stuff?”
“The campus store was still open after you fell asleep, so I just picked them up for you last night.” He looked so… open and innocent, not having any idea what kinds of things I’d been imagining just minutes ago. I couldn’t help staring open-mouthed just a moment more before standing on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.
At his direction, I walked down the hallway to the left towards the women’s bathroom, thinking furiously as I went. This isn’t working. I’m jumping at shadows. It has to be as he said, a perfectly innocent, although incredibly sweet gesture. He went out of his way to please me, and I freaked because he just happened to bring back the dress from the start of this whole thing.
The problem, I realized, is that those guys are still out there, somewhere. Maybe they can’t do anything more to me. Maybe I can go on and live this new life without thinking about them. But what if I can’t? After all, they changed Dirk, didn’t they, and he almost certainly never met them.
But what can I do? Luke was our best chance at finding them and even he doesn’t have any way to reach them now. It’s hopeless, isn’t it? And isn’t that for the best? Why do I need to worry that maybe something could happen? I don’t worry about lightning strikes, right? You can’t worry about everything happening. You have to just go along, even if you’re stuck in the wrong body, in the wrong life.
In the bathroom, I walked right past a vaguely familiar girl at the sink, my eyes focused only on the nearest empty shower stall. Ignoring everybody around me, I stripped and stepped into the shower, hanging the towel and bathrobe on the hook. As I reached to turn on the water, a voice from the direction of the sinks said, “Oh! Aren’t you Jeremy’s girlfriend? I forget your name.”
Surprised at having my thoughts interrupted, I froze. “Um, hi,” I said, “Yes, I’m Marsha.”
“I guess you guys are getting along pretty well, huh?”
Did I hear a note of envy in her voice? I forced myself to laugh. “Oh, you mean my being here this morning? I was exhausted last night when I came to the study session and Jeremy insisted on putting me to bed!”
“And on joining you there?” she asked again. This time I was sure. She was definitely envious.
“He slept on the floor,” I answered, putting my head under the water and trying to make it sound all matter-of-fact.
“Oh.”
That gave me something else to think about. I knew how unbalanced the sex ratio was on campus. Surely, if I were still Marshall, Jeremy would have found another girl. Maybe even this girl. What if she were the one he was supposed to be with? What if I were in effect stealing some other girl’s man?
I can’t think that way, I told myself, I didn’t ask for this life, and I don’t even know if I can keep it. It’s not my fault. Complain to them if you don’t have a boyfriend, I thought at the nameless girl. I’m just making the best of what I was given.
For a moment, I heard nothing but the water, and took the opportunity to rub shampoo into my hair.
“So it’s not a serious relationship, then?” the girl persisted. Why couldn’t she just leave?
“Actually, it is,” I informed her. These are the cards I was dealt, after all. I didn’t ask for this, but I’m not giving him up so easily, Tramp.
“Oh.”
I heard the bathroom door open and close. If I was lucky, she was gone.
But I wasn’t really alone. It was still with me, the feeling, even as I soaped and rinsed my body. The feeling that I was a fake, that I didn’t belong, that I was still vulnerable, that somehow they might keep changing things and thereby make my life a living Hell. And the thing was, now I knew. I knew that I wanted to stay this way, to be Jeremy’s girlfriend, and who knew what the future would bring? Maybe I didn’t deserve him, maybe I was a fake; that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to enjoy myself, did it?
I heard the bathroom door open again as I wrung my hair dry and wrapped it in the towel. Then I pulled the bathrobe around myself and stepped out of the shower carefully, trying to avoid tripping over the long ends. Two girls had come in, chattering to each other, and headed for the empty shower stalls.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I spent the night in my boyfriend’s room and I don’t have my hair-dryer. Could one of your lend me one?”
The two of them looked at each other and then one pulled a black hairdryer from her pile of supplies. “You’re Jeremy’s girl, right? Marsh? Just leave it on the sink.
I nodded my thanks, and took the dryer to one of the sinks, placing my shampoo and body wash in the pockets of the robe as I did. As I dried my hair, I thought some more. I need to be a better girlfriend. There’s really no excuse for me not to have thanked him a lot more profusely. He really went out of his way for me. I considered what had actually happened. Professor Davis and his shenanigans are behind me, aren’t they? All the changes I remember – Dirk, Tyler, there’s no reason they couldn’t have happened all at the same time. Just because those guys were still poking around the physics building doesn’t mean they were still mucking with time, after all. I have to be able to believe that.
I started feeling better. If I can’t even find them, and I obviously can’t, there’s nothing I can do, right? It’s time to forget that this isn’t the original reality. What matters now is Jeremy and me, that’s what’s really important.
Feeling much better, I put the hairdryer on the sink, picked up my towel, and headed back to Jeremy’s room. To my surprise, he was already back and dressed. I didn’t think I had taken all that much time; how had he gotten done so quickly? “Jeremy,” I said a bit hesitantly, “I… I don’t think I thanked you adequately. You really went above and beyond for me last night. Thank you so much for taking such good care of me.” And I put my arms around his neck and gave him a long, lingering kiss.
He chuckled when we stopped, his arms still around me. “Hey, that’s my job, isn’t it?” He looked into my eyes for a moment. “You look fantastic.”
Shyly, I pulled away. “I don’t even have my makeup on.” Adjusting his robe, I sat on his bed and took out my cosmetic case. “Um. You really don’t need to see this, do you?” I asked, facing away from him.
He laughed, but I really didn’t want him to see me put on my concealer; it would just draw attention to the imperfections that he wasn’t supposed to know about – I really only wanted him to see the final result. “OK,” he grinned. “You want me to step outside the room while you get ready?”
“Please.” Then I remembered something else. “Oh, by the way, remember you asked me about doctors having children? I kind of did a bit of research, and women do sometimes have babies while in medical school or during their residencies. You just have to find a program that lets you take time off.” I was really glad he couldn’t see my face. It was feeling awfully hot just then, but he had asked, and he deserved an answer, and I had needed to know as well.
I probably set a record in getting my makeup on; at least, I was a lot faster now than I had been the first time Tina had shown me how. I threw on the fresh underwear and the dress, marveling at the improbability of Terry having picked out this dress for me, just when it might give me a heart attack to see it.
After one last check in the mirror to make sure I was presentable, I opened his door and found him talking with one of the boys from the study group. “Hey, good morning, Marsh!” he greeted me. Turning to Jeremy, he added, “see you at breakfast!”
Jeremy looked at me after his friend left and smiled. “You’re so gorgeous,” he said. “You’re joining us for breakfast, I hope?”
There was no reason for me to refuse – sure, people would assume that we’d been intimate, but we hadn’t been. In any case, I had been more than willing to be; yet I felt an odd reluctance at being so public with evidence of our relationship. Still, there was no way I could refuse him at this point, so I nodded.
“Great,” he said, taking me hand. “This way.” We’d just reached the steps downstairs when my phone beeped with the signal that I’d received a text message. Glancing at my phone, I noticed it was from Dad, which surprised me. Usually he waited for me to call him. Let me just check my message, Babe?” I said.
A couple button presses later, Dad’s message was displayed on my screen:
Found contact info for Prof Davis. Call me.
I was thinking of getting up a collection for a hit man, but then we would never find out how this all happened!!
Very nice. I stayed up late in hopes to read this. You’ve really been trucking lately. I look forward to more. Night!
I don’t buy it for a second. Superhumanly considerate Jeremy’s actions strike me a wildly improbable; and even if true are quite creepy. Further, If I were Marsh, I’d be furious at his presumption in going through my personal effects and calling my roommate. “Hey, I’ve got your pal conked out over here on my bed, and she’s such a child I’m afraid she’ll freak out if I don’t provide the right warm fuzzies.”
I’d say I assumed (hoped?) Marsh is STILL dreaming, but then we’ll lose all the rather excellent introspection that follows.
scotts13: Cynic 😉
His heart’s in the right place, and Marsh realizes it, even if he did go through her things.
Wow, here I am mad at Russ and you all are mad at Jeremy 🙂
I guess I am so out of this culture that, except for the nighgown, which I thought out of character, all of this seemed perfectly normal and natural.
>>inside the purse
should be ‘my’ again
>>and so was my cosmetic case,
This isn’t an ‘and so was’
>>if I were sleeping here regularly
if we were sleeping together
>>“Are you looking for something?”… “I… I think I was a bit tired last night,” I said. “I don’t remember hanging my dress on your closet door.”
does not follow, and doesn’t seem logical to me. He’s nowhere near the dress, why does he answer about that?
The conv that follows is too story forced; askig about one thing that has changed after another.
>>I eyed him cautiously.
Why?
>>“Anyway, now you can use my bathrobe and go take a shower and change into fresh clothes, if you want?” he concluded.
This sentence doesn’t seem to be able to make up it’s mind if it is a question or a conclusion.
>>a perfectly innocent, although incredibly
although?
>>He went out of his way to please me, and I freaked because he just happened to bring back the dress from the start of this whole thing.
Well, no, but that helped.
>>Shyly, I pulled away. “I don’t even have my makeup on.” Adjusting his robe, I sat on his bed and took out my cosmetic case. “Um. You really don’t need to see this, do you?” I asked, facing away from him.
He laughed, but I really didn’t want him to see me put on my concealer; it would just draw attention to the imperfections that he wasn’t supposed to know about – I really only wanted him to see the final result. “OK,” he grinned. “You want to me step outside the room while you get ready?”
“Please.”
arghh.
>>“Oh, by the way,
seems very forced
>>marveling at the improbability of Terry having picked out this dress for me, just when it might give me a heart attack to see it.
‘improbablility’ doesn’t seem to fit here, except to us readers. “Irony”?
>>Let me just check my message, Babe?”
1) needs it’s own para
2) needs an open quote
3) Doesn’t need the ‘?’
>>There was no reason for me to refuse – sure, people would assume that we’d been intimate, but we hadn’t been. In any case, I had been more than willing to be; yet I felt an odd reluctance at being so public with evidence of our relationship. Still, there was no way I could refuse him at this point, so I nodded.
makes my head spin. maybe that’s good, but, wow… ‘no reason’, ‘people would assume’, ‘but’, ‘in any case’, ‘yet I felt’, ‘still’… wow
>> scotts13: Cynic
>> His heart’s in the right place, and Marsh realizes it, even if he did go through her things.
My cynicism isn’t the point, although it certainly is accurate (GRIN)
Nor – really – is it the intrusion into Marsha’s personal space. What actually gets to me is letting the mechanics of the story show. The teaser at the end of chapter 123 is very powerful, though (presumably) it turned out to be just that, a tease. The amount of retconning to set it up, though, strains credulity. Seems to me there must have been more believable ways to trigger Marsh’s introspection.
Also: von, I think a lot of the corrections you’ve posted are actually OK. Without going into a detailed refutation, I’ll start with:
— is she so sure at this point it’s her purse?
— sleeping here doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as sleeping together.
— Marsh doesn’t have to be near the dress to have her attention focused on it.
etc, etc.
>>Nor – really – is it the intrusion into Marsha’s personal space. What actually gets to me is letting the mechanics of the story show. The teaser at the end of chapter 123 is very powerful, though (presumably) it turned out to be just that, a tease. The amount of retconning to set it up, though, strains credulity. Seems to me there must have been more believable ways to trigger Marsh’s introspection.
Russ and I had a long, long, conversation about this.
Feel free to refute in long form. You’re still wrong 😉
For example:
– is she so sure at this point it’s her purse?
well, he calls it his purse in the previous sentence:
>> I reached for my purse to pull out my compact and noticed something else, or rather two something else’s. My phone, which I had left inside the purse, was now sitting on the floor next to it, and so was my cosmetic case, which I always leave in my bedroom.
‘the’ both times would make a kind of creepy sense. But ‘my’ one time and then ‘the’ the second is just bad grammar.
– sleeping here doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as sleeping together.
True but irrelevant. Surely Marsh is not so foolish as to think that in this new reality he routinely sleeps in Jeremies bed but without sex? (OK, I’ll give you a point there, we are talking about Marsh!)
– Marsh doesn’t have to be near the dress to have her attention focused on it.
I said it was forced for the situation. I wake up, some girl I slept near but not with is going through my underwear drawer. I say, “Are you looking for something?” (Translation: What on Earth are you doing going through my underwear drawer?!” )Answer: “I don’t remember hanging my dress up, over there, across the room…”
more explanations available on request.
>> I wake up, some girl I slept near but not with is going through my underwear drawer. I say, “Are you looking for something?” (Translation: What on Earth are you doing going through my underwear drawer?!”
Hahahahah! Ok, I can see that, but at this point the LAST person on earth to be complaining about people going through his stuff is Jeremy!
I wasn’t focusing on his complaining, but on the awkwardness for Marsh, and Jeremy’s meek acceptance of this brain dead answer (of course, he is dating Marsh). I would have answerd something like, “I brought that for you. But did you need something from the dresser?” (Translation: “What WERE you doing in my underwear drawer??!)
I’ve said it before, and I still agree with it: Jeremy is overly nice. Maybe that’s falling into the tired cliché of “girls don’t like nice guys”, but I agree with Scott: I would find Jeremy’s actions to be maybe a bit creepy, and certainly a bit obsessive. Maybe I’m just not old-fashioned enough to appreciate Jeremy’s gentlemanliness.
I also mentioned it to Russ, but I find Marsha to be coming off as a bit bitchy in this chapter. Why would she eye Jeremy cautiously? What is her motivation for not believing him? And damn is she harsh on that woman who was chatting with her while she was in the shower. Being able to detect jealousy and envy in some other woman’s voice, over the sound of rushing water? Maybe Marsh has come along further than I’d thought. Normally she’s so unflappable: heck, I don’t even think she’s called anyone a bitch, besides herself, in her head or out loud.
Also, while Marsh and Jeremy haven’t exactly been secretive about their relationship, I find it unusual that three female strangers (to Marsha) would all know who she was. I mean, I suppose that, given the gossiping, it’s possible they would know Jeremy was dating a Marsha. But them all knowing what she looked like, without Marsha recognizing them? I dunno. Of course, it likely wouldn’t have changed the outcome — I wouldn’t have cared if another woman used my hair dryer, as long as she put it back when she was done.
Wow, so April, too, is mad at Jeremy not Russ. Wow am I out of it.
I think you all are missing who Marsha was, and Marsh is becoming. Girls do not walk around in skirts and dresses on a routine basis unless, IME, they are somehow at odds with the mainstream culture. I find Jeremy kind of weird, but not in the same direction as y’all. Wow.
The feeling that I was a fake, that I didn’t belong, that I was still vulnerable, that somehow things might be arranged to make my life a living Hell.
This is a bizarre combination of feelings:
1) I am a fake: ie I am lying to those around me.
2) I don’t belong: I dont’ fit in, they won’t really like me
3) I was still vulnerable: contradicting these earlier feelings, the worry that something might change
4) Things… hell: ??? Since when has Marsh worried about this? What does this even mean? That he would wake up with Polio or in an abusive household? I play with this in my fanfic, but I wasn’t aware that this had shown up anywere before in Russ’ take on Marsh.
And the thing was, now I knew. I knew that I wanted to stay this way, to be Jeremy’s girlfriend, and who knew what the future would bring?
What a wimp. Say the words. “Girl” “Wife” “Mother” What a wimp.
I’m not really mad at Jeremy; he hasn’t really done anything to be mad at. I just don’t think he’s the kind of personality that I would look for in a dating partner, is all.
I don’t worry about lightning strikes, right?
I don’t worry about lightning strikes either, but if I’d been hit by a bolt of lightning and woke up a man the next day, I’d probably be worried about it too, even if there was nothing I could do about it.
Yeah, the bolt of lighting analogy is really bad, probably deliberately so. It is much closer to being shot. Sure, no one expects it. But when has been shot at once already, the gunman is still lose, he has shot at your former girlfriend and other people you know… perhaps a bit of paranoia is in order?
I will say that I agree with von about the “distract Jeremy with the dress” part; it’s an odd veer in things to talk about, and as such, it doesn’t or shouldn’t be a distraction to Jeremy’s question about going through his drawers. It sounds like a clumsy attempt to change the subject, and yet it works?
Bad puppeteer! YOU should be dancing for our amusement!
Oh, and April, I assumed that the girls were friends/girlfriends of other folks in Jeremy’s study group, who are all likely amazed that he wasn’t gay after all. A senior with a fake girlfriend that turns out to have a real girlfriend…hey, they probably spent a whole weekend discussing it, maybe even dragging Jeremy in for confirmation! 😉
Jesus, if my mother thought my father had gone through her stuff she’d have his head off.
>>“The campus store was still open after you fell asleep, so I just picked them up for you last night.” He looked so… open and innocent<<
You know, Jeremy, there is such a thing as an act that's too perfect.
Maybe it's just that you don't get a lot of sense of Jeremy having a personality. You know; separate wants and interests, a soul of his very own. But he seems more to be playing a part – I'm your girl, you're my man… Wait, wrong way around.
The idea that someone's consciously following a set of rules, rather than reacting to them, should immediately red-flag them for you. It's like an AI that becomes aware of its own ethical procedures. Becoming aware of the rules while you're using them – as more than some meaningless academic abstract – requires some sort of dissonance between self and society and if that dissonance isn't apparent in their behaviour they're covering something up.
Real people have that level of awareness, where they do, because of necessity.
I suppose that's what reflects on him dipping into Marsha's stuff too, at least from my point of view; people need to retain a certain separation – self control. An invasion of privacy is fundamentally a control issue. Or maybe not *shrug*
Wow, you all reacted to this thing with Jeremy very differently than I did. I had some negative thoughts… mostly toward Russ for his ‘teasing’, and then some other, bizarre thoughts which I won’t share, but the whole ‘invasion of privacy’ thing is totally foreign to me. Of course, so is, “I am willing to have sex with you but please turn around while I’m changing.”
Hopefully some things should begin coming to a conclusion soon.
>> Of course, so is, “I am willing to have sex with you but please turn around while I’m changing.”
It’s actually quite common, as paradoxical as it seems. In fact I recall one woman who was quite the exhibitionist sexually, but would pick up her strewn clothes, pull them under the covers, and emerge from bed fully dressed. But I digress…
The interesting thing about Jeremy’s bizarre behaviour is how we’ve allowed it to distract us from what’s actually happening, plot-wise, in the chapter. I pointed this out earlier. When you come right down to it, the ONLY thing that really happens is Marsha’s admission to herself that she doesn’t want to change back. Which of course changes the entire plot of the novel but could almost be missed in the internal dialogue…
BTW:
>> How could I have imagined they would change time on my again?
Perhaps “me”, not my?
Ooooh. I’m not sure that this was the ONLY thing important in this chapter. There is also the bit about ‘I can’t live like this’ and, of course, ‘Found contact info for Prof Davis. Call me.’.
>>It’s actually quite common,
Oh, I know. Russ and I have talked about it. I was just saying it is foreign to me.
>> There is also the bit about ‘I can’t live like this’ and, of course, ‘Found contact info for Prof Davis. Call me.’.
(Snicker) Actually, Marsh doesn’t say that; it’s more like “maybe ‘they’ won’t LET me live like this” – quite a difference. And the text message isn’t part of this chapter, it’s a teaser for the next. (GRIN) Which should be up right about… now?
I’m surprised it’s that foreign. Most doctors have you get undressed away from them, even though they’re still going to see you naked. Being naked, getting naked/dressed, and stripping your clothes off (like for sex), are totally different for a lot of people.
The doctor thing is very familiar to me, altho, having spent a lot of time overseas, I find that bizarre too.
And, again, by ‘foreign’ I don’t mean that I don’t know people like that, just that their thinking doesn’t fit in my brain.
Of couse, since I never had any relationships like this, perhaps that helps, eh?
@Scott,
It seemed a little more serious to me:
This isn’t working….
The problem, I realized, is that those guys are still out there, somewhere. Maybe they can’t do anything more to me. Maybe I can go on and live this new life without thinking about them. But what if I can’t?
This seems to me to raise the tension. Yes, he would like to stay with his current life but, at the same time, ‘it isn’t working’.
>> Yes, he would like to stay with his current life but, at the same time, ‘it isn’t working’.
von, perhaps we’re saying the same thing? What’s not working is the stress of, as I said above, possibly not being able to continue female life – not that the life isn’t working. Given the circumstances, that’s a natural corollary of her decision, not a separate issue.
At this point, the only solutions are to relax, and try not to worry – or track down Davis and force him… not to do anything? Every single person on earth lives with the possibility their life will change in an instant. They live with it. Marsh just has it to a more severe and in-your-face degree.
“You want to me step outside the room while you get ready?”
need to be switched to
“You want step outside the room while you get ready?”
@Scott,
Close, but no bannana 😉
What ‘isn’t working’ IMHO is the tension between:
1) I want to continue with this life but
2) I can’t:
a) At any moment these guys could change my life again
b) They could affect someone else,too, like they did Dirk and the cousin
c) He feels like ‘a fake’… and is distressed at the thougth of any kind of serious relationship (marriage, children) with soemone who does not know his big secret; and who very well might not accept a marriage relationship if he did.
Every single person on earth lives with the possibility their life will change in an instant. They live with it. Marsh just has it to a more severe and in-your-face degree.
Oh, come on. As comparisons go, that is really bad. This is, seriously, much closer to someone who is living with the threat of assasination: a real, live, specific threat that affects him and those around him. Not a mere ‘life change’.
I suppose we just see things differently.
2) Why not?
a) So? You’re either going to track them down, or get used to it. If the latter, why not now?
b) Not Marsh’s problem. Besides, they’d never know – and likely, neither would Marsh.
c) Having embraced the change, what’s she gonna do – stew on it forever? She’s already living the role, not acting it – a couple more years and Marshall will have been a bad dream.
I know you’d like our heroine to go charging off to battle Prof. Davis in the name of goodness and rightness, but that was NEVER any part of Marsh’s motivation. And in this chapter, she’s given up her single reason to do so. (At least until chapter 125).
Oh, and comparisons? I missed getting T-boned by a minivan by perhaps a yard today. I’ll take a simple gender change over killed or crippled any day of the week. You mean people aren’t aware of this possibility, every moment? I am.
>>I suppose we just see things differently.
I guess we do.
Now that I am all caught up, I wanted to say, wonderful job you done here, I am a fun and hooked.