Hidden Within

It was now just past 9:50 so we rushed to the lecture room. Martin had saved up 3 places for us for when we arrive and we took them. I sat beside him then the two girls to my left. Martin asked us about why we were late and I whispered why in his ear.

The first lecture started and went very smoothly but was very long. The professor gave us an hour and 50 minutes. After a few minutes the professor of the next lecture came in and started his. He only gave us an hour and 15 minutes and set us free.

"Okay shall we go then?" Martin asked as he put his stuff in his bag and stood up.

"Yep let's go." I answered while the girls nodded with a hum.

We left the campus and entered Martin's car then drove off the highway.

"Can we drop by our house? I need to change!" I asked.

"Yeah it's fine, as long as you're quick." Martin said.

"Girls you can put my stuff back in my backpack as well. Thank you very much!" I said as I spun to talk to the girls.

As we drove away from the university, I removed the hat and the mask and untied my hair and said "much better."

Martin and I had a lot of similar interests so we started chatting about the usual stuff, cars, Formula 1, songs, drawing, games, jokes, technical stuff and many more. We had a couple of good laughs as well. It was the first time that I felt as normal as I did right now, and I was glad I got to feel like that. For a moment I forgot I had changed and was being 'Zack' for the first time in a while.

We arrived at the apartment. I took my bag from the girls at the back and headed up the building. I already had an idea of what I was going to wear. Either my jeans from this morning if they were not wrinkled and wet because of my sweat or the long skirt along with a red shirt.

Back in the car:

"Thanks for inviting us Martin." Mackie said.

"It's fine, this really was for Zack. I felt like he could use some fun time like this." He replied.

"We've been trying to help him out as much as we could over the past couple of days, but I guess he needed someone or something to make him feel like himself again." Mackie continued.

"True... I don't think I've seen him as talkative and happy as he was chatting with you earlier. He really must have felt like he was 'Zack' again." Rama added.

"I'm glad to hear that... Overall how do you think he's faring with the change and the new lifestyle?" Mahmoud asked.

"He's been doing great, obviously it's been two days only so we can't really give a concrete overlook, but he's had some nervous moments, overall though, he's doing good. He still needs a long way to fully accept these changes that he's gone through." Mackie answered.

"Yeah, more like he's nervous most of the times." Rama laughed.

"What do you expect? The poor guy suddenly became a girl and is now living with two other girls under the same roof. If that's not nerve-wracking I don't know what is." Martin defended.

"We're not really blaming him or anything. It's just... We want him to try and relax more, to think of us as sisters if that can put his mind at ease." Mackie replied.

"It's not gonna be easy. Believe me what he's trying to do is to make you as comfortable as possible while being around you, he wants you two to feel like nothing much has changed in your lives or even add something to it to make you fully accept his presence." Martin said.

"I could tell.." Rama and Mackie said at the same time.

"Let's just pray for him.. he's gonna have a hard year." Martin said as he noticed Zoe coming out of the building wearing a skirt and a red shirt with a jacket in hand.