“You are such a dweeb.” Conor glared maliciously at the girl sitting across the aisle. What had she just called him? A dweeb? This had to be the most childish thing he had ever heard from her sneering lips.
He scratched the back of his head and tried to focus his attention on his English assignment. He had now had five years of this torture from Hannah Fox, and there was really nothing he could do about it. For one thing, she was a girl. He couldn’t just go around punching on a girl.
Secondly, he had his friends to deal with. They were not what you would call the “sociable” type…At least not as far as cheerleaders went. Yes, Hannah was a cheerleader. She was blonde and pretty and preppy--everything you would think a cheerleader would be. She was also one of the most vapid and shallow people you would ever meet. She loved being sarcastic and stepping on people who she believed were below her. Conor happened to be one of her unfortunate victims. He was, apparently, the polar opposite of a “prep.” His jeans were not so much baggy as annoyingly tight; he always wore some sort of black band shirt, that of which today’s band was Poison The Well; his shoes were worn and tore from many years of skateboarding and moshing. Not to mention his hair, which always seemed rather messy, but somehow very neat at the same time. The small spikes that protruded out the back of his head seemed to be placed at random locations, but the long, parted part of his hair, which almost completely covered the right half of his face, always seemed to be perfect: Every hair in its correct place.
“Oi, Conor! Do you even wash your hair?” Conor’s cheeks turned a bright hue of pink as he glanced over at the boy who had called his name. That was Bobby Carol, star quarterback of the H. Mifflin High School football team. His cruel eyes were boring into Conor as he laughed with his other jock friends.
“Aww, look at him! I think he likes you, Bobby!” At this, the entire class erupted into a fit of mocking laughter. Everyone in the room was looking at him, pointing and laughing at the “pretty little Emo fag.” Conor thought he was going to die as he felt himself growing smaller and smaller in his seat. God, this was so embarrassing! Why couldn’t they just leave him alone for five minutes? His ears were ringing with some loud noises of what he now was sure were going to kill him.
Then, there it was. It came in slowly over top of the laughter and finally was at its normal pitch. Conor jumped up quickly, grabbing his messenger bag out of the floor and throwing it over his thin frame as he walked. He ignored the smart remarks of a “man purse” and started almost sprinting out into the hallway and toward his locker.
Conor stopped in front of the locker he had painted black during his freshman year, panting for breath at the tingling sensation in his lower stomach. Throwing his messenger bag in front of it, he banged his head against the locker, cursing his mind and body for betraying him so. Reaching quickly into the bag, he grabbed the small inhaler, trying desperately to shake it and inhale before he collapsed from the attack. As soon as the smoky substance traveled down into his lungs, he was coughing loudly.
“Well, that was close.” He turned to see the pale figure striding toward him, his beautiful dark locks falling into his eyes as his thin arms bounced off his sides. “What up, dork?” “I am going to kill myself.” Conor replied halfheartedly. His friend smiled at him, his full lips stretching to reveal white teeth. He knew he didn’t mean it. This was a phrase used often by each of them to let the other know just how bad their day was going.
“C’mon man. Stop being so ‘Emo’.” Laughter reached his ears once more, but this time Conor didn’t flinch, for it was a friendly, joking type of sound.
“Josh, man, I’m really starting to get fed up with these jerks.” Josh’s smile faded and Conor knew he understood. Both of them had been mocked and tortured by their peers and teachers every day since they began Jr. High. He glanced up and down at Josh’s wardrobe, which consisted of black and white checkered pants, a black and white striped shirt, and a black denim jacket. He scratched his chin with painted nails and shuffled where he stood.
“So…um…gonna go to that show on Saturday?” Josh interrupted the silence quickly. “Um…” Conor sighed heavily. He had forgotten about that. He had promised Josh weeks ago that he would go with him to see his brother’s band. Skateboarding and hardcore shows. That’s all he had. Other than that, and poetry, his life was pretty meaningless…Not that he was suicidal. He loved life and wouldn’t trade anything for it.
Conor slowly nodded his head, finally deciding he had nothing better to do. He watched as Josh smiled, almost sadly, andgave him a small pat on his shoulder. At this, Conor went stiff. Touching him was not a good thing to do at the moment.
“All right. See you there, man. I would tell you to bring a date, but…well, you know.” Josh quickly winked at Conor, sending shivers all up and down his spine. He couldn’t stand it when Josh acted like that, especially when he did it on purpose. He knew how Conor was and of the…problems associated with it. They had spoken of it before, and both had agreed that it must have been some sort of identity crisis that he would soon get over.
Conor watched Josh’s back as he turned and walked away, his backpack bouncing up and down as he walked. He sighed again, leaning against the locker for support. He was cursed in so many ways and he had that to think about every time he watched a couple walk by, holding hands, or when some piece of food hit him in the back of the head at lunchtime. He always decided, though, that, so matter how he changed, they would always make fun.

“Today was rather uneventful, as usual…despite the joking and harassment that occurs daily. Josh invited me to the show this weekend, and…”

Conor sat in front of the computer desk, typing away at the keys as his speakers blasted loudly with sounds of loud encouragement and pain. He sighed, picking up the mouse when he was finished and clicking the small “Update” button. This was how his evenings were spent: Either updating his journal and poetry entries or listening to music somewhere.
The track was paused when Conor heard the small beep that informed him of an incoming instant message. He clicked the little block, recognizing the screen name immediately. The message “hey beautiful :P” was displaying on the screen.
“What a jerk!” Conor snorted, typing a message back that said, “buzz off,” but in different words. This was Bobby Carol again. Conor didn’t know how he had found his user name, but he was sure he wasn’t going to take this. And then the conversation got interesting. With a ‘gladly’ from Bobby and a few other words, which will not be mentioned here, Conor felt his heart start beating wildly against his chest. Every key pressed and every message received was like he was slipping further and further away from what he knew was true. Bobby’s words were not hateful or scorning as usual, and even though Conor knew he was just playing and trying to annoy him, he was completely excited by this fact.
As his heart rate increased, so did the level of Conor’s breathing. At first, he tried to ignore the fact that the disease he had been born with would soon catch up with him, wanting to keep up this meaningless game with Bobby. Soon enough, though, his fingers were going limp and his chest clenching, letting not a single breath escape. The convulsions seemed much more powerful than usual, almost like a punishment for what had been going on only moments before. He felt himself sliding out of his seat as the computer screen before him was turning to a blur, and as soon as he hit the floor, he was coughing. He crawled across the bedroom, noticing his inhaler lying on the bed, but before he could reach it, he had collapsed again, unable to even move now. His vision was darkening as his eyelids grew heavier and heavier and his body jerked every few seconds, until he had fallen into a deep slumber-like coma.

The loud buzz of the alarm clock resounded in his head, which was already throbbing with a massive headache. He rolled over, trying to block out the sounds of the morning, but they seemed to be magnified by thousands. His long arm flew over to the table beside the bed, searching for the source of the deafening wakeup call. When he had finally defeated the snooze button, he sat up the light coming in through the window blinding him. This was a hangover…but he didn’t drink. His stomach churned with a new pain and he rushed quickly into the bathroom.
On his way to the toilet, he stopped at the mirror, throwing water on his face from the sink. When he looked up at his reflection, he nearly screamed in surprise. His pale, thin face was now replaced with a tan, muscular jaw line and his hair was no longer jet black, but a light brown color. He looked down at his arms and chest, which had grown in size and now had much more color and shape to them. And then his eyes. Those eyes that had pierced his very soul and that he had recognized as soon as he saw them. How could this be? This was something seen in movies that could never happen in reality.
“This has to be a dream!” Conor pinched the skin on his forearm with dull fingernails. When he felt the stinging sensation begin is when he felt his hope flee from his being. He was in Bobby Carol’s body…It felt so strange and perverse to say that to himself, even if it was true. He looked in the mirror once more and noticed no blush, that of which would have shown itself when he had found himself in this predicament. He would no longer be made fun of. This was, in a way, a good thing, but he could still feel his blood rushing quickly under his flesh. He had to do something about this.

Conor rushed through the halls, searching desperately for a sign of Bobby. He wondered if he would be in the same state of shock and anger, and if he knew what had happened. He himself was completely confused by what had happened and wondered if their conversation or his asthma attack had anything to do with this.
Then he saw: Bobby was rushing toward him with a look of anger in his eyes. It was strange for Conor to see this: The person in his body rushing forward, clenched fists at his sides, a navy blue track jacket adorning his upper body and the usual tight jeans clinging to his thin legs. Conor was caught up in this sight and could do nothing but watch for several minutes.
“Have you see Con--I mean Hannah?” Conor stared for a moment, trying to take in the question that had just been asked of him. Had he heard right? Bobby had just asked him if he had seen Hannah…and why had he almost called her “Conor”?
“Erm…I…” He stumbled over his words as he watched the person before him place his hands upon his hips and look at him with a look that said ‘I’m waiting!’ “Look, I know you, like, hate me and all, but I really need to find her, like, really fast.” Conor paused again, something clicking in his brain as the words came out of this person’s mouth.
“Um…Hannah? I--is that…you?” Conor gulped, praying he was wrong. If this was truly Hannah, then…well…He hated to think about it. It would have been bad enough for Bobby Carol to be trapped in his body, but Hannah was a girl. His fears were confirmed, though, when he watched her jaw drop and her hands fall.
“Bobby. How did you know?” She looked as if she were about to cry, something that Conor knew would be even more damaging to his reputation. She stepped closer to him; so close their faces were nearly touching. Conor now felt even more awkward. He was staring into his own emerald eyes and at his own thin lips. It was his cologne he smelled and his breath blowing into his face. This was almost too much for him to handle and he felt himself start to stumble, but his consciousness got the better of him and he simply backed away a couple steps.
“I--I’m…not Bobby.” Conor looked at the ground, the sight of Bobby’s tennis shoes suddenly becoming very interesting. He couldn’t even look at Hannah as he spoke, but he was sure her eyes were bugging out of their sockets and her mouth, flung open wide. “It’s me, Conor.”

“Oi, Hannah!” They both turned to see Hannah…no, Bobby coming down the hall, shoving students out of his way as he went. Conor looked back to Hannah, who was blushing immensely. It was his “curse”, but this time, he wasn’t there to live the hideous humiliation tied with it. When Bobby reached them, he was standing in front of Conor, glaring maliciously. “What did you do?!”

“Bobby! Shut up!” Hannah exclaimed through clenched teeth. Bobby turned to her, appearing as if he were about to knock her flat. He didn’t know it was Hannah who had told him to “shut up.”

“Come on, you--” Conor interrupted him in mid-sentence by grabbing him by the forearm. He gazed down at the heightened anger in the feminine face and realized that this boy, who had always been taller and much more muscular than him, could no longer push him around. “Hannah? What the--”

“I’m not Hannah.” Conor watched bemusedly as his brow furrowed and he quickly jerked his arm away. He looked so much less serious this way. The expressions that were played across the face of Hannah Fox were no longer as menacing as they had been when they came from Bobby. “I’m Conor.” Bobby’s expression turned from anger to that of surprise, but then to confusion. “Oh my God! Little gay boy is--” A bony hand clamped over his mouth from behind and Conor felt that he needed to do something before that hand was wrapped around Bobby’s neck.
“Bobby, you have to stay calm.” Hearing that come out of Hannah’s mouth was like being in a dream where Conor had finally captured Bobby Carol and he was now in bliss. “We have to do something about this,” she whispered, turning to Conor. He had already thought long and hard about it. This was almost exactly like a movie he had once seen. All they had to do was live out each other’s lives and they would discover some ‘big secret,’ then everything would go back to normal.
“Okay, look,” he started, glancing back and forth between Hannah and Bobby. “All we have to do is pretend to be each other. No one will ever know if we just act natural.” Yes that was all they had to do: Act natural…but…Conor felt as if he were forgetting something. “Hannah, there’s…um…There’s a concert at the civic center on Saturday and I kind of promised a friend I would go, so…” Conor was hoping and praying she would cooperate.
“You want me…” He was begging her with his eyes that she would go. She sighed after a few moments of stuttering and continued. “Alright…but if I have to go to this ‘concert,’ then…Bobby has to go to my cheerleading practice!” “What?! I can’t do--” He cut himself off as Hannah folded thin arms over a flat chest. Conor figured this had happened many times before in an argument and that Bobby would pay the price if he didn’t do as she wished. “O--okay. I’ll go to your stupid loser practice…”

“Hey! Those ‘losers’ are the reason you guys win!” Hannah looked as if she were about to jump on him and start pounding his head into the wall, but, Conor guessed, she realized that it was her body and not his. “Okay!…Oh, I have a date on Saturday, and man, she is hot!” He patted the taller Conor on the shoulder and he felt dread flee quickly to the pit of his stomach. He had never been on a date before, and he definitely did not want to go on his first while he was in Bobby’s body.
“Well…how about we meet back here on Saturday?” He nodded at each of them as they acknowledged they would agree.

“Right! See you here then!” he exclaimed as he heard someone calling Bobby’s name from the other side of the hall.

Conor sighed heavily as he opened the door to the front of the school. The date had been a disaster. The girl had turned out to be a blonde bimbo who could talk of nothing more than how much she looked like Britney Spears. She could have at least been a little more modest or prettier or something.
He quickly strolled down the empty hallway, searching for the image of himself waiting for the arrival of someone important to his future. He still couldn’t believe how strange this had all been. He had now lived inside of Bobby’s body for six days and it had been the worst experience of his life. Before this, the supernatural and science fiction movies he had watched had been no more than false stories written by some freak out of the middle of nowhere.
“Hey.” The small voice came out of a darkened corner next to the gymnasium entrance. Conor picked up the pace of his steps when he realized it was his own voice which was speaking. Hannah was standing there in the corner with her arms crossed over her chest and smiling at him as he came closer. She looked different today and Conor wasn’t exactly sure why it was.
“What’s up?” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his letterman jacket, recognizing the stance that she was standing in. She had almost perfected his expressions and posture that even his family couldn’t tell. He, however, had found it extremely difficult to act as Bobby did. He couldn’t make fun of the people he had been friends with for years and he found out that he definitely could not catch a football. He had faked an elbow injury on the third day just to get out of practice. “Just waiting for ‘Hannah’ to get out of cheerleading practice.” She giggled as she said this, and Conor had to take a second glance. Was she trying to flirt with him? Surely she knew that it would get her nowhere.
“Yeah, well, I think we’ll be out here a while. Either he really sucks at this, or he’s just pretending so that he can…well, you know.” Conor glanced at her again as she laughed at his statement. There was sweat running down the pale forehead and he could almost feel the air around her vibrating with nervousness. That was, again, his body’s fault. He had never been able to control his feelings.
“Conor, can I ask you something?” She walked out into the light and he noticed that she had not fixed his hair in the back as he always did. It was lying flat to the skull, not a hair out of place, as was the front, which she had pinned behind the ears. He thought that this actually looked a bit better on him than it had before. It brought out his eyes.
“Um…sure…I guess…” She stepped closer to him, bringing her face close to his and nearly bumping their noses together. This was another awkward moment that he had rather not experience. It would have been much different if it were someone else. Just being this close to someone who not only looked like him, but was actually in his body was almost too much to handle. She was once again wearing his cologne and when he took it in, it clouded his brain as some alcoholic drink would. Before he knew what was happening, she had thrown her arms around him and was clinging, almost desperately, to his muscular torso. “Hannah! What--” She pulled away, still holding him tight inside the thin arms that belonged to his rightful body. The emerald eyes held his for what seemed like hours before she actually spoke.
“What if I…” She stopped there, her eyes closing slightly. Conor was hoping that she would continue and not do what he was thinking she would. Much to his dismay, she was slowly closing the space between their faces and he could feel the hot breath escaping from the rosy lips. After struggling for a moment, he gave up and closed his eyes tightly, not wanting to experience this, let alone see it. Couldn’t she at least wait until they had switched bodies again and they were in their correct places? It was then that the wet lips brushed softly over his and he stiffened. This was his first kiss…and he was receiving it from a girl who had switched bodies with another boy and himself. She ran the lips over his again, this time staying there a bit longer. His mind was racing with thoughts of a new perversion he had yet to think of. Every repetition of this process brought him closer and closer to just screaming that he enjoyed it. It was so strange, feeling how his lips would feel on another’s and how his arms would feel when wrapped around someone else’s shoulders. As he slowly gave in to Hannah’s advances, his feelings suddenly changed again. It no longer felt like it was his lips that were giving caresses and he felt much smaller in the world. Like he was a hanging star, glowing in the dark for other starving eyes to see. He slowly opened his eyes, pulling away to look…up at the person he had just kissed. He gulped when he realized it wasn’t Hannah.
“Conor…what-were-you-doing?” Bobby seemed extremely upset as Conor slowly backed away and he felt the familiar heat return to his face. Oh, God. He had just been kissing…He would never hear the end of this. Bobby opened his mouth as if he were about to say something when they heard giggles from inside the gym.
“Bobby,” Conor whispered to his partner. “You do realize that this will be all over the school by Monday?” He looked up at Bobby, who, for the first time Conor had ever seen, had immensely flushed cheeks. Bobby’s gaze slowly moved down to his as he tried his best to suppress the laughter held in his chest. When he finally felt as if he could not hold it in anymore, the sound of Bobby’s rich laughter reached his ears. They were lost in a fit of sidesplitting hilarity as the doors opened and Hannah joined them in their joy.

Conor sat again in front of his computer desk, typing quickly on his journal entry. This entry was not to be filled with words of doubt and depression. He now had new friends to speak of and a new relationship--His first “true” relationship. He was still made fun of, however…but only when the comments were made outside of earshot of Bobby. He had also grown a bit closer with Hannah. She pretended like that kiss had never happened, but he knew about it…as did Bobby. He laughed to himself when he thought of this.
When they had returned to school by Monday, it had all sort of seemed like a bad dream. Josh was not happy at all with his new “friends,” but Conor had convinced him that they were just human being that deserved a chance. He had reminded him of how bad rejection had felt and had finally got him to surrender to Conor’s wishes. “What are friends for?” was what he had said when Conor thanked him repeatedly over a cup of coffee one evening after school. He thought about all these as he typed the last few lines of his entry.

“Then the bridge disappears, and I’m standing on air with nothing holding me. Do these dreams have any meaning? No. I think it’s more like a ghost that’s been following us…Yes…Something vague that we’re not seeing.”

A/N: I'm currently writing a "sequal" to this and a lot of people have been asking me to make it into a yaoi...but I've never written a yaoi before! It will be slash in nature and might just almost be a yaoi...ne wayz...if you wanna see me do a yaoi, just review this and tell me, kay?