Gyaru bimbofication

You notice it in the mirror while brushing your teeth: your part is on the wrong side. Not combed wrong — grown wrong, a neat pale part two inches from where it has lived your entire life. You stare. You do not remember your hair growing overnight. You do not remember much of last night at all.

In class you catch yourself doodling — big looping letters, the letters of a name that isn't Mara. Your handwriting was cramped and slanted left for twenty years. This is round and confident and unfamiliar, and your hand made it without asking you. When Professor Reyes calls on you, the answer that comes out of your mouth is flippant and bright, a stranger's voice wearing your throat, and the whole room laughs like it belongs there.

Back in your dorm, Devon looks up from her laptop.

"You okay? You've been weird since Tuesday." You want to say no. You want to say I am losing myself an inch at a time and no one can see it but me. Instead you hear yourself say, breezy and easy, "Never better," and feel the thing wearing your smile hold it a beat too long.