The Alien Invasion

My name is Mary Weller, and I had just turned 14.

For as long as I could remember, my body hadn’t been anything special, but a couple of years ago, I started to notice that it was changing.

My hips were slightly wider, and my breasts, which had previously been like those of any boy, were now noticeable little mounds under my T-shirt.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call me sexy, but it was clear that, for everyone who looked at my body, there was no denying that I was a woman.

That day, I went to the bathroom as usual, like everyone else does at least once a day, to take care of business.

I took my cell phone with me and locked myself in the bathroom.

My mom, Sadie Weller, bought me this cell phone after I practically forced her to.

I had to ask her every day, over and over again, that I wanted a cell phone.

All my classmates had one, but at 14 years old, I didn’t.

Finally, my mom agreed, and she bought me one.

Of course, on one condition—there are always conditions with her.

“I’ll give you your phone, but you can’t add anyone to your contacts except me. I don’t want you to have a boyfriend or anything like that. Every day, I’ll check that you don’t have anyone’s number.”

How can you make a condition like that?

What century does that woman live in?

She’s terrified of me getting a boyfriend because she’s afraid I’ll make the same mistake as her and end up a single mother with two daughters.

I mean, how can someone be so stupid?

I won’t make mistakes like that.

But she doesn’t trust in me at all.

That’s just the way she is.

There’s nothing I can do to change it, but it’s still exhausting.

And you can’t imagine how embarrassing it is to have to turn down all my friends when they ask me to exchange numbers.

At first, I thought it was okay, so I exchanged numbers with a friend.

But when my mom checked my phone, she thought it was a cover-up or something.

“I told you not to have anyone on contacts besides me.”

“But Mom, she’s my friend,” I explained.

“No way. I have no way of checking. It says your friend’s name, but it could easily be your boyfriend’s number, and you put your friend’s name on it to confuse me.”

“That’s not it at all. Just call her. My friend will answer, and you’ll see that I’m not lying.”

“Oh, girl. You think I was born yesterday? I know what you young people do. I’m going to call, and your friend is going to answer because you’ve already talked about all this before. I bet your boyfriend gave his phone to your friend just so you could pull this trick. This won’t work with me, young lady.”

“Mom, I don’t have a boyfriend. I’ve never had a boyfriend. Please stop.”

“Don’t talk to me like that. Go to your room right now. And I won’t give you this phone until tomorrow. You’re not playing your games on it today.”

That’s how conversations with my mom usually went.

What a sad life I had to live.

I knew that my friends had amazing relationships with their moms and that they talked to them like they were just another friend.

Some of them went shopping with their mothers.

My mom wouldn’t even let me go shopping with my friends; she thought I would be secretly going on a date with my boyfriend.

I had already finished using the bathroom.

I’m not going to say anything about what came out of my body, but it wasn’t pretty.

I washed myself, I washed myself thoroughly, and I washed myself again.

So, while I was washing my hands, I looked at myself in the mirror.

Yes, I was definitely starting to have a woman’s body.

There was no doubt about it. With a body like this, it wouldn’t be surprising if I had thousands of boyfriends.

My mom would go crazy.

Then, in front of the mirror, it occurred to me to show off my body a little more.

So I took off my clothes and left every part of my body completely exposed.

My butt, my breasts—both completely exposed.

I felt the breeze caress them, a strange sensation I only experienced when I was in the shower.

What a strange feeling.

I had never been naked when I shouldn’t have been naked.

I didn’t know what I was thinking at that moment.

I just saw my phone lying there, and a stupid idea popped into my head.

The idea was to take a picture of myself just as I was.

Naked.

And that’s what I did.

I grabbed my phone and took a picture.

I pointed the camera lens at my bathroom mirror.

I looked at the photo. If I had to rate it, I’d say it looked pretty good.

My phone was right in front of my face, so you couldn’t see my head or any of my facial features.

The only thing you could see in the photo was my body.

It wasn’t at an adult level, but it didn’t look bad.

I was just hoping that, when I grew up a little more, I could really have a body like those models you see online.

“Mary Weller, what are you doing in the bathroom for so long? You’re not talking to your boyfriend, are you?”

Oh, no. It was Mom.

If she finds out about the photo I took, she’s going to kill me.

I quickly put my clothes back on and opened the door.

I acted so fast that I didn’t have time to delete the photo from my phone.

I put the phone in my pants pocket, hoping my mom wouldn’t know I had taken it to the bathroom.

“Give me your phone right now,” she said.

She held out her hand, expecting me to give my phone to her.

She was sure I had it with me.

“I don’t have my phone,” I lied.

She didn’t move from where she was standing. She didn't move her hand. She didn't move anything.

She just stared at me and repeated herself.

“Give. Me. Your. Phone.”

“Mom…”

I didn’t want her to see that naked photo of me. Anything but that.

I ran out, dodging around her body, and left the bathroom.

My sister, Reyna Weller, was in the kitchen pouring orange juice into a glass. Probably to drink while watching a cartoon on TV.

She saw me running around the house; my mom behind me trying to catch me.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Reyna, stop your sister,” Mom ordered her.

“Ummm… I don’t know…”

“Reyna!”

Mom got distracted scolding Reyna.

I took advantage of Mom’s brief distraction to leave the house through the back door.

I got to the backyard, and there I saw both of them go out the door I had just come out of.

I was in the backyard, which had long fences on all sides facing the neighbors’ houses, and I couldn’t jump over the fences.

I was trapped; I should have gone out the front door onto the street.

My only option was to go back inside, but Mom and Reyna were waiting for me at the door.

“Honey, come here and give me that phone.”

“Nooooo!”

I screamed at the top of my lungs.

I took my phone out of my pocket and threw it as hard as I could to prevent my mom from seeing the photo.

The phone left my hand and flew away.

It flew over the house and kept on flying.

I had no idea I was so strong.

It was definitely enough strength to win a throwing championship.

Maybe I could be the next Olympic champion for the United States.

Anyway, the phone kept flying through the air, higher and higher into the sky.

I never saw it fall.

Eventually, I lost sight of it.

That’s how I lost my cell phone, the one I had worked so hard to make my mom buy for me.

“You’re grounded in your room for months!”

That day, my mom grounded me by locking me in my room.

Now that I didn’t have a cell phone, I could only watch the TV in my room.

Fortunately, my mom hadn’t taken away my TV.

They were showing a movie about aliens—it was a space opera where lots of different alien species fought for control of the galaxy.

How I wish I could go to space.

To see strange worlds, to encounter strange species, giant plants, and spaceships.

How I would love to leave Earth and see all those things.

Unfortunately, that was impossible.

I was here in my room, grounded because of my mom.