Jon let his mother pull his hair into the curlers without complaint, knowing it would do no good, and instead using the time to wonder where the stone was and when he'd get a free moment to look for it, ignoring her explanations of what she was doing. He didn't want to consider that it might be gone. Maybe someone else was going to become him, maybe his room hadn't been cleaned out yet. "All done, honey," his mother said. He mumbled thanks in an identical voice, and turned back to see her doing the same thing to her own hair. Since he hadn't listened to her, he decided to watch. It was a rather simple process; he thought he could do it himself. Just takes a little elbow grease, Jon thought, the fact that he'd used one of his mother's sayings slipping by him.
The curlers weren't a perfect solution but they'd do. It was easier to ignore the pull on his hair than to push it back every two seconds. His eyes strayed over to the mirror and he was stuck, paralyzed by the sight before him, perfectly portraying his new self. It made him sick again, especially seeing his mother's familiar face adopt an expression of mild disgust. A duplicate of her appeared behind him, making his eyes widen before he realized who it was. I could slap myself right now.
"Jon, honey? Are you sure you'll be okay?" she asked him in a soft, caring voice, the voice she'd always used when he was sick and home from school. He shook his head, looking away from the mirror.
"No. I'm sorry I yelled at you and treated you like hell, Mom, I know you just wanted to... help me. This is just so scary and I guess the only thing to do now is to keep on going. Thanks for... for being there for me," he said, sniffling. She pulled him into a hug as the sniffling became sobs, and the feeling of their identical breasts pushing against each other through the thin nightgowns made him want to recoil, but he didn't. He just stood there and cried, rocking back and forth hugging her.
He didn't know how long he stood there, but his legs were hurting when she said, "You've had a terrible shock. Let's sleep, okay? It'll be better in the morning." There wasn't any energy in him to do much more than nod and be led over to the bed, where he fell asleep in what had to be nanoseconds.
