It took Jon's brain a few seconds to catch up with what had just happened, and when it did, his mood shifted. Everything he'd said to Karyn began re-playing in his mind, and suddenly he was upset, too. Upset at himself, that he hadn't read his friend correctly, that he'd pushed her farther than he'd meant.
Jon absent-mindedly picked up the box with the stone and opened it as he paced his bedroom. With each step, he felt an unfamiliar nervousness bounce through him. It built up like a rubber band twisting over and over by half-turns, each turn demanding an outlet more than the last.
"I can't believe I did that." Jon wasn't normally in the habit of talking to himself, but now it just felt like what he needed. "It's not like she didn't give me any hints, I knew she was upset." He started fidgeting with the box in his hand s a wave of guilt, now given its outlet, began to crest. "She didn't mean to say 'I wish I had long blond hair and big boobs.' It just came out of her mouth, like a mista--"
The stone glowed in Jon's hand, and he found himself blinking a few times, and then his hair kept getting in his eyes, so he had to brush it behind his ears with his fingers.
Jon found his breath catching in his throat. Since when was his hair that long? He turned around and he could feel it swishing against his back. He'd made a wish! Jon looked down at his hand, holding the box, touching the stone, and threw them both at his bed like they'd given him an electric shock. They bounced, dully, and rolled up against his pillow, but Jon realized they weren't the only things that had bounced, the force of his throw creating a sensation in his chest he'd never felt before.
Jon looked down at himself in horror. He'd done it! The same thing Karyn had done! He'd wished for long blond hair and big boobs, and the pair of mounds that heaved up and down with every hyperventilating breath he took made it extremely clear that he had received that very same wish in spades.
But it was just a mistake! Just the wrong words at the wrong time! How could they change his life so drastically?
Jon raced out his bedroom door at a speed that matched the racing of his heart. He didn't know where he was going, but he just needed to go somewhere. Needed to move. Needed to find... something.
"Jon?"
It was his mother, Linda, calling from the living room.
"Jon, are you alright?"
Jon stopped, right at the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, and turned to face his mom where she sat on the sofa. "Everything's wrong."
Linda's expression turned from confusion to concern. "Honey, what happened?"
Eyes red, Jon inhaled sharply through his nose. He realized his mom wouldn't notice anything: she hadn't heard the wish. She'd think this was normal.
Everyone would think this is normal. Even Karyn. Jon was completely alone.
He felt a tear trace its way down the side of his nose. Then a matching tear on the other side. He started sucking on his upper lip, but he said nothing.
"Jon, come here," Linda patted the cushion at her side. She didn't know what had happened, but she didn't need to know. She was a mom. Her kid was upset, and she was going to help, even if that just meant calming him down.
Jon forced his eyes shut, coercing two more tears out of them, then came to sit next to his mom. Who hugged him as tightly as she could, and whispered "you don't have to tell me anything, but when you want to talk, I'm here."
Jon let out another sob, but then became quiet. It was a healing warmth that he felt in the arms that wrapped around him. Like they would always be there, no matter what he looked like.
Jon let himself be cradled for an amount of time that felt simultaneously too long and too short, before Linda broke the embrace. "You don't have to tell me anything, but your hair is kind of a mess. Turn around and let me brush it out for you."
Jon complied, numbly. It was normal. It was entirely normal. She hadn't seemed to notice his chest pushing up against her. She saw his hair and just thought "oh, it could use some tidying up." How was Jon going to live in this world?
But as the bristles of the brush gently massaged his scalp, as they pulled slowly at the tangles in his hair, he realized there was something comforting in the motion, and he allowed himself to be lost in it.
