Waking up from the virtual zone was a slow, fuzzy process. Maybe it wasn't normally like that, but that's how Maggie felt right now: disoriented.
I'm not sure what I expected it to be like, she thought, but I definitely didn't expect it to be like that.
She took a few moments to remember how to sit up and move in the real world, and then, noticing that her stomach was growly, she headed downstairs to get her supper from the kitchen.
Maggie's family hadn't always been so relaxed about eating times, but nowadays, mostly out of convenience, as well as a bit of laziness, they all tended to eat the same meal at different times. Her friends had often commented how odd it was that Maggie's mother would take the time to prepare a family-size meal and not expect everyone to sit down together. Maggie would often explain that it was just because her mother enjoyed the taste of traditional cooking and would rather not have fast food or instant meals, and since over half the family was made up of introverts, it worked well that way. Maggie herself honestly preferred it that way.
She opened the refrigerator and found a plate with a burrito and some rice on it, which she decided to take back up to her room with her rather than eat it in the kitchen. As she ate, she found herself thinking about Starboy. It was odd that for the past four hours she'd had a penis, but somehow it didn't feel that way. Instead, it just felt weird to be back in her female body. She looked down and groped one of her breasts. It didn't feel right. Maggie frowned.
Sitting cross-legged on her bed, burrito balanced on one knee and a laptop on the other, she Google searched "girls that feel like boys." The top result was from a psychology website and featured an article about a little boy telling his mother he was a girl and her dismissing this notion as "just a phase." She wondered how her parents would react if she told them about Starboy. Would they think she was just going through a phase? Even she wasn't sure whether or not this was a real thing. After all, she'd never really thought about being a guy before; the decision to play as a male in TruSelf had been made on an instantaneous whim. Then, why does he feel like such an important part of me already?
As she browsed through the Google pages, she kept noticing the word transgender used over and over, which was confusing. Transgender is when people get surgery to turn into the opposite gender, right? Maggie didn't think she would even consider having a surgery like that. It would be so major, so life-changing, that she didn't understand how anyone could deal with it. It seemed like so much would have to be changed that she might not even be the same person anymore after it.
This reading was stressing her out, she decided, rubbing her temples. She wasn't even sure whether or not she really was Starboy or if he was her at all. She had no reason to be fretting over whether or not she was a transsexual or whatever. She closed her laptop and finished her dinner. After checking her alarm clock to make sure she'd be up in time for school, Maggie turned out her light and crawled under her bedspread at 9:50 pm.
Heaving a great, frustrated sigh, she contemplated the hours between now and when she'd next get to log into TruSelf and be Starboy again. She kind of missed having a penis.
