The nerdy glasses

 Amber’s favorite Louboutins clicked sharply against the marble floor as she strode through the crowded campus plaza. She ignored the whispers trailing behind her like cheap perfume. Her phone buzzed incessantly—another party invite, another desperate DM.

Her heel caught on something lumpy near the library steps. She stumbled, biting back a curse as she regained her balance. There, half-hidden under a crumpled flyer for the robotics club, lay a pair of glasses. Thick, ugly frames with lenses like the bottom of soda bottles, smudged with fingerprints.

Amber snorted, picking them up between thumb and forefinger like contaminated evidence. "Gross," she muttered, already imagining some sweaty comp-sci kid's panic. On impulse, she slid them onto her face, striking an exaggerated hunched posture for an imaginary audience. "W-well, a-actually," she stammered in a nasal whine, puffing out her cheeks, "th-the quadratic formula requires..." Her voice faltered. The world swam into sickeningly sharp focus—every blade of grass painfully distinct, the brickwork seams on the library wall suddenly deep as canyons.

A wave of dizziness hit her, thick as swamp air. Her scalp prickled violently; strands of her perfect honey-blonde extensions suddenly felt coarse and heavy, like cheap yarn glued to her head. She gasped, and the sound hitched wetly in her throat, emerging as an involuntary snort that made her cheeks burn. Her designer silk blouse tightened alarmingly across her midsection, seams groaning as if inflated from within. Panic fluttered in her chest, sharp and unfamiliar—a trapped bird where cool confidence usually lived. What was happening?

Her hands flew to her face, trembling. Fingertips met cold, thick glass frames pressing uncomfortably against a suddenly wide, fleshy nose. Braces snagged on her lower lip, metal tasting sour against her tongue. When she tried to speak, her "No!" came out slurred and thick—"Nuh-gwah!"—as if her mouth couldn't shape the word properly. Below, her tailored pencil skirt split audibly at the hip seam, replaced by baggy, pleated khakis swimming around thick thighs. Her Louboutins vanished, replaced by scuffed orthopedic loafers squeezing her swollen feet.

A wave of dizziness crashed harder, pulling a wet snort from her nostrils. She fumbled for her phone—her lifeline—but her fingers felt clumsy and unfamiliar. The sleek device slipped, bouncing off the orthopedic shoe. When she bent to retrieve it, a loud, involuntary belch erupted, sharp and acidic. Mortification flooded her cheeks crimson as nearby students snickered. "S-sorry," she stammered, the words thick and halting, her tongue fighting braces and saliva. The cool confidence that armored her was gone, replaced by frantic panic fluttering in her chest like trapped moths against glass.

Stumbling sideways, she collided with a stone bench. Pain shot through her hip as her unbalanced frame—uneven breasts straining against a stretched, faded Tweety Bird t-shirt—pitched forward. Her thick lenses fogged with tears, amplifying every pore on the mocking faces around her. Asthma tightened her airways; each wheezing gasp tasted like old library dust. One knee scraped raw against concrete, and her baggy khaki pants slid dangerously low, exposing worn polka-dot underwear elastic. She scrambled to cover herself, fingers trembling against the unfamiliar swell of her belly.

Inside her head, a frantic scream echoed—*Amber, say something cool!*—but the thought dissolved into panicked static. "I-I'm s-s-s—" The stammer locked her jaw. Spittle sprayed onto her chin. Nearby, Brad Thompson, the quarterback she’d hooked up with twice last semester, snorted. "Who let the circus escape?" His buddies cackled. Heat flooded her cheeks; she’d never felt shame prickle like needles under her skin. Her arms instinctively crossed over her chest, trying to hide the mismatched bulge beneath thin cotton, but the motion only made her flinch as braces tore at her inner lip.

A sharp, sulfurous smell bloomed in the air. Heads turned. Amber squeezed her thighs together, horrified. *Not me. Please not me.* But a second, wetter sound escaped—a muffled fart rustling the khakis. Snickers erupted louder. "Dude, lay off the cafeteria chili!" Brad yelled, waving a hand. Tears blurred her vision; she blinked hard, smudging fingerprints across thick lenses. Her lungs squeezed tight, each wheezing gasp tasting like chalk dust and humiliation. Where was her inhaler? Where was *Amber*?

She hunched deeper, shoulders rounding instinctively. The world felt crushing—every rustle of paper, every whisper amplified through the cheap plastic frames. Her thoughts scrambled. *Why can’t I speak? Why is everything… fuzzy and sharp at once?* A familiar buzz vibrated against her thigh. Her phone! Hope flickered. She jammed a trembling hand into the cavernous pocket, fingers clumsy. They closed around slick plastic—her rhinestone case! With shaky triumph, she pulled it out… only to stare, bewildered. The glittering case was gone. Instead, her fingers gripped a cracked, rubbery protector patterned with faded, pixelated aliens. A cheap burner phone blinked inside.

Blindly, she swiped at it, but her thumb slipped on the greasy screen. Instead of Instagram, a complex spreadsheet shimmered into view—equations and formulas she’d never understood suddenly glaringly clear. Her mind latched onto them with desperate hunger, the orderly logic a lifeline against the chaos. "T-the covariance matrix…" she mumbled thickly, saliva pooling behind her braces. The nerdy jargon felt strangely comforting, solid.

A shadow fell over her. Professor Aris Thorne, Astrophysics department, stood there holding a stack of star charts. His sharp gaze, magnified by his own thick spectacles, scanned her faded Tweety Bird shirt and the spreadsheet glowing on her cracked phone. "Impressive," he murmured, adjusting his glasses. "You've factored in gravitational lensing variables? Most undergraduates overlook that." His tone held genuine interest, not mockery. Amber—or whoever she was now—flinched, her uneven shoulders hunching further. A tiny, involuntary snort escaped her nostrils.

The alien-patterned phone trembled in her sweaty palm. The equations on screen pulsed with a clarity that felt alien, yet deeply *right*. Her mind grasped the covariance matrix with startling ease, the logic a cool balm against the burning shame of Brad’s laughter still echoing nearby. "I-I… th-the redshift d-distortion," she stammered, her tongue wrestling braces. The words were halting, but undeniably correct. Professor Thorne’s eyebrows lifted slightly. "Indeed. Your insight is… unexpectedly acute." He handed her a flyer: *Astrophysics Tutoring Needed: Apply Now*. "Room 307. Be there." His delivery was curt, but the offer hung in the air like an unexpected lifeline.

Life as Phoebe Abernathy unfolded with jarring inevitability. The faded Tweety shirt and baggy khakis became her uniform. Her dorm room, once a minimalist showcase of designer labels, now overflowed with astrophysics textbooks, meticulously annotated star charts pinned haphazardly to peeling walls, and the faint, ever-present scent of microwave popcorn layered over the lingering metallic tang of her asthma inhaler. Her Louboutins were a distant dream, replaced by worn orthopedic loafers squeaking faintly on linoleum floors. The constant flutter of anxiety in her chest was now her baseline, punctuated by wheezing breaths and involuntary snorts when flustered – which was often, especially near Professor Thorne or any vaguely authoritative male figure.