Boy in a Dress

“Theo, let’s go,” Mara said as she slung a small purse over her shoulder. “I told you 6:45!”

I stepped out from my bedroom in a hoodie and track pants, sweating profusely.

Mara looked me up and down. “Nope. Nuh, uh. Go change.”

“Oh, come on! Why?”

“It’s like forty degrees out. You’ll get heat stroke.”

“I’ll survive.”

“Theo. I will not be responsible for your death. Go change.”

I gripped the door frame as I tried to think of an excuse. I pursed my lips, but eventually turned around and searched for something else. 

I replaced the sweater with a tee shirt. I stared at myself in the mirror, and stood there frozen. 

No. 

No, this wasn’t going to work. 

I pulled a second chest binder over my head. Embracing the pain, I tried a tank top. Then a polo. Then a muscle tee. My stomach conjured up a scream, but I kept it in.

I stepped back out. “Better?”

Mara sighed. “Put on some fucking shorts.”

I groaned and retreated once more. I swapped the track pants for the basketball shorts at the bottom of my drawer, but I couldn’t push away the parasitic feeling. The longer I went without resolving it, the more control it had over me.

“Theooooooooo.”

I wanted to rip the mirror off the wall and throw it on the floor, then use the glass shards to tear open my skin and pull out my organs so I wouldn’t have anything left to feel.

I pulled at my top in various directions, trying to make it fall on me the way it would a cis guy. It didn’t work. I put the hoodie back on.

Mara was waiting by the front door with one hand on the knob, and the other grasping her phone.

“I’m not going,” I told her.

She stomped her foot. “What? No, Theo—”

I shut my door. 

“Theo, get back here.”

“I’m not going!”

“But we’ve been looking forward to this concert for weeks!”

“Go without me.”

“But then it’s not as fun! What’s the problem? Why are you being so weird?”

“I can’t go out like this, okay? It doesn’t feel right.”

Her footsteps echoed through the walls of the apartment. She paused just outside my room, and I was suddenly self-conscious about the purple paper hearts taped to my door.

“Can I come in?” she asked. 

I didn’t answer, but she took that as a yes. As she stepped inside, I wished everything in this room could disappear. My expressive wardrobe. My growing hair. My colourful bed sheets. The embroidered flowers on my curtains. The tampons underneath my mattress. The sports bra behind my dresser. The “F” on my driver’s licence. The person on my driver’s licence. 

My face scrunched up like the air was toxic.

“Wow,” Mara said, wading through the sea of clothes sprawled across my floor. “You really can’t find anything you like?”

“It’s not about what I like. It’s about what I can hide.”

Mara blinked. “Come again?”

I flopped into my pillow. “Everything here makes me look like a girl.”

“Theo, Theo, Theo,” she said with a click of her tongue. I could tell by her tone that she was rolling her eyes. “There’s no such thing as ‘looking like a girl.’ You are what you are and your appearance doesn’t dictate that. Now get your shit together and let’s get moving! We’re going to be late.”

I whined and curled up on my side.

“It’s really that bad, huh?” Mara asked. 

I didn’t want to admit it, but yeah. Yeah, it was bad.

Mara sat next to my feet. “Would a hug help?”

She reached out to put a hand on my shoulder, but I swatted her away.

“No touching; got it,” Mara said. “What about some affirmations?”

I shook my head. Affirmations were only helpful when I wasn’t expecting them. 

“I’m not going to this concert without you, so…” Mara said. “We’re going to stay here until we figure out a way to make you feel better.”

She crossed her arms with a huff. She looked around my room, as if she could find a solution on my walls. 

“Do you need help with your outfit or do you need a distraction?” she asked. “Or maybe you just need to talk about it?”

“I don’t know, Mar.”   

My roommate chewed on a freshly-painted fingernail as she continued to think. She got up and surveyed my pile of clothes again before leaving towards her own room.

I slid onto the floor and crossed my legs. I picked at my pants as I stared at the polaroid-covered wall in front of me. There were mostly pictures of Mara and I, dating all the way back to middle school, which only served as a reminder that I was letting her down right now. This was the one time I had agreed to go to a concert with her, and here I was ruining it.

Mara returned with a bright pink dress in her hands. 

“This may sound counterproductive,” she said. “But I want you to try this on.”

Mara tossed the dress onto my lap, and I stared at it in shock. 

“You can’t be serious.”

“I sure as hell am.” 

Her confidence was eerie.

“I don’t see how–”

“Please?”

I looked at her, then back at the garment. It was a nice dress; Mara had worn it to a mutual friend’s outdoor wedding last year. Although it was pretty, the thought of trying it on made my heart scratch at the walls that caged it.

“N-no,” I said, pulling my hands away as if the cotton fabric was on fire. “No way.”

“Just trust me, okay?”

I didn’t understand. This was what I was trying to avoid—being seen as… that.

I glanced back at the polaroid wall. Mara’s and my friendship went back further than these photos could show; she had known me longer than I had known who I was.

With a swallow, I peered up at her. “If this doesn’t work, can I stay home?”

She folded her arms and nodded once.

Despite the caterpillars swimming around in my stomach, I swapped my sweater for the dress. I pulled it over my tee shirt, and stood up to get the waistline in the right place. 

“Good. Now look in the mirror,” Mara instructed as she sat down on my bed.

I didn’t want to, but I obeyed.

This was an odd sight. I was completely expecting to hate this. To want to tear up the fabric. To vomit all over the floor. But instead, I saw something I wasn’t expecting to see. 

I saw a boy.

“Huh,” I breathed. 

Mara smiled.

I stood there awkwardly, shifting back and forth, touching my hair, my face, and bound chest. I looked like someone had forced me into this against my will. I looked like a boy in a dress. I looked like a boy in a dress. 

“I don’t… I don’t understand,” I said. “How did you know that would help?”

She shrugged. “Yesterday I put mascara on my mustache and somehow that made me feel more feminine—sometimes gender is fucking weird.”

I matched her grin. “Yeah, I guess.”

“So… you’re ready to go, then?”

“Nope. Still not going.”

“THEO.”

“I’m kidding! Give me five minutes—let me find a vest to put over this.”