Be a girl

I stood before my wardrobe, staring inside. Most of its contents I couldn’t care less about. Boring shirts and jackets that I never liked. Outfits that reminded me of what I was. What I didn’t want to be.

Except for one item. An item that I hadn’t touched since I had carefully hung it up inside. One that I tried desperately to keep out of my mind. Tried and failed. An item that didn’t belong to me. Not really. But my friend said I could keep it. So I did.

Two sides of me fought over whether or not I should have kept it. One side, trying to protect me from possible pain, reminding me that it wasn’t an option for me. The other, wanting to embrace it. To become the person I’d always wanted to be, no matter the cost. A voice that I’d silenced for so long, but which had slowly gotten louder and louder.

I wanted it to win.

But my mind went back to the sleepover. The day I’d worn that dress for the first time. The only time. I’d run away, screaming, terrified, distraught. Pain. So much pain. A wonder how a simple garment could cause such turmoil within me.

Ollie’s words yesterday had struck a chord with me. Deep down inside me. I’d taken his advice, and researched what he’d suggested. What I found surprised me. There were many, many people who so desperately wished to be girls, just like me, and for whom a magical solution was not an option. So, they took a different approach.

An approach that seemed almost magical anyway. It seemed too good to be true.

The angry voice in my mind screamed that it wouldn’t work for me. It couldn’t work for me. No matter how much I tried, I was doomed to always be an ugly boy. I should just give up and accept my fate.

But my mind went back to the sleepover. My friends had treated me as one of their own. One of the girls. And it was magical. For just a brief time, I was what I had always wanted to be, and I relished it. The pure euphoria I’d experienced for those fleeting moments, I would never forget.

I pulled the dress out of my cupboard and laid it gently on my bed. It was so innocent. Just a piece of cloth. Black and speckled with white polka dots, and a belt which helped tie it all together. A garment that, for a brief moment, sent shivers of joy throughout my entire body.

I wanted to try it on. Again. Just once more. To see if it was right. I lifted it, holding it gently in my hand.

But my mind went back to the sleepover. To the mirror. In its reflection I saw underneath the dress. To the ugly boy that I was on the outside. The disgusting creature that I hated with a passion. Who’d brought me nothing but suffering.

I wanted to try it on. But I couldn’t. I knew where that road led. From experience.

Did it have to be that way though?

What if I could trick my brain into seeing the girl I’d always wished I could be? Fool the nasty voice that told me to stop trying. Prove that it was wrong, that it wasn’t protecting me in the slightest. That all it did was harm me and prevent me from being happy. That it was the source of the pain, not my shield.

Whether or not it was possible, I had to try. But I couldn’t do it alone. I needed help. And I knew exactly whom I should ask. The person who’d always stuck with me through everything. Who had always been so gentle with me. Been there even though she didn’t have to be.

I sent her a text, asking if I could show up at her house on short notice. The minutes I spent waiting for a reply were agonisingly slow. I lightly bounced the phone in my hand, glancing back and forth between it and the dress lying on my bed to pass the time. When I finally received confirmation, an intense wave of relief washed over me.

I snatched the dress up and rushed to the family room where dad was watching sport on the tv. I took a deep breath. “Hey dad, can you take me to a friend’s house?”

Dad shifted in his seat to get a better look at me. “Hmm?” he said.

I held up the dress so that he could see it clearly. “I just remembered that I have my friend’s dress, and I should really give it back,” I lied. Well, it wasn’t entirely a lie, more of a half-truth. The only kind of lie I could tell with any sort of believability.

I didn’t want dad finding out the truth of why I wanted to go to Izzy’s house. I wasn’t ready.

“Oh, of course,” dad said with a gentle smile. “Did you want to go now, or?” I nodded. With another smile, dad turned off the tv and prepared to make the short journey over to Izzy’s house.

***

I stepped up to Izzy’s front door more nervous than I had ever felt in my life. I looked to the east and smiled at the waxing crescent moon hanging above the horizon. Although it frowned at me now, by the end of the day that frown would turn upside down. No matter the outcome of today, whether or not I succeeded, the moon would smile down at me regardless.

I gripped the bag holding the dress tightly, and reached for the doorbell. My finger was shaking, my breathing uneven. I needed to do this.

The wait was short, but still tense. I swallowed what little saliva remained in my mouth. The door swung open, and Isabel greeted me with a comforting smile. I did my best to respond, but all that came out was a pathetic whimper along with a forced smile.

Her outfit was much more casual than I was expecting: only a skirt and stockings, and a jumper. Even her makeup was low effort, with only a hint of lip gloss and some eye shadow. Still, she looked far better than I could ever hope for myself.

She led me to her bedroom. Sitting on her bed, she lightly tapped the space next to her. Cautiously, I sat down beside her.

“So, what brings you here?” she asked, setting one of her legs on top of the other. “It must be important if you wanted to see me on such short notice.”

I wanted to answer her. I really did. But this was such a huge step for me. To ask one of my friends to help me see a girl in the mirror. My tongue was tied into knots, and all I could manage was a squeak. I shook my head, sighing, and gripped the handle of the bag more tightly.

Isabel stared at me curiously. I could see the gears in her brain turning, as she tried to work out why I might be here. My heart rate must have doubled in that moment. I could just pull the dress out and show it to her. Whether she would get the right idea about what I wanted, I didn’t know. But at the same time, the voice in my head, telling me not to do it, was so strong.

“You seem tense,” Izzy noted. I nodded. Izzy put a finger to her chin and hummed to herself. She leapt off the bed and skipped over to her desk. With purpose and intent, she grabbed one of the rocks from the large display cabinet that dominated her desk.

She held out her hand and showed me the specimen. A rounded pebble unlike any other I’d ever seen. Striped in four colours: a rich, deep black, a washed out grey, a dazzling white, and a stunning purple. I smiled, having recognised this particular colour scheme, knowing exactly why she was showing it to me.

“This is amethyst,” she said, dropping the crystal into my hand. I stared at it, amazed that she’d managed to acquire such a specimen. “It’s a type of quartz crystal – that’s silicon dioxide – which has a purple hue. I thought you might like it.”

I smiled up at her, and she grinned back. “I love it,” I said, meaning it genuinely.

“You can have it. It suits you more than it does me.”

I giggled a little. She was probably right about that. I turned the rock over in my hand, examining it carefully. It was polished, but its shape was irregular. Each band of colour was distinct, and certainly matched fairly closely to the asexual flag, although they weren’t in quite the right order. That didn’t matter to me, however. It was the thought that counted, really. Whether she had bought it especially for me, or just so happened to already have it, I did not know. But it didn’t matter. It was a very thoughtful gift in either case.

I gave the rock a tight squeeze, feeling its hardness and rigidity, and slipped it into my pocket for safekeeping. “Have you got any other rocks you think I might like?” I asked. When I first saw Izzy’s mineral collection, I was rather curious about its contents. At that time however, there were two other girls with us, and as intrigued as I was, I hadn’t wanted to ruin their night of fun. Now seemed like a perfect opportunity to sate my thirst for knowledge.

Izzy grinned at me again, this time grabbing my arm and dragging me over to the cabinet. She contemplated for a moment, before reaching over to a rock labelled as ‘Calcite’.

“Here’s a fun one,” she said, handing me the rock.

The crystal was clear and flat, allowing one to easily see right through it like glass. Except, it wasn’t quite like glass. The image was distorted, doubled up, almost like watching a 3D movie without wearing the glasses. I rotated it, and watched as the images danced around with it.

I knew exactly what this phenomenon was. “It’s birefringent,” I said confidently. “Different polarisations of light have different refractive indices within the material. When unpolarised light passes through, it causes a split image, as the horizontal and vertical polarisation components refract differently.”

Izzy giggled at that. “I thought you might know what was going on with that crystal.”

“This must be what they use in 3D glasses,” I mused.

“Oh? Do tell.”

“3D movies at the cinema use circularly polarised light; right polarised for one image, and left polarised for the other. Now, circularly polarised light is light where the horizontal and vertical components of the polarisation wiggle out of phase, causing it to rotate in a circle.

“3D glasses have what’s known as a quarter wave plate inside, which slows one component of the polarisation by a quarter wavelength relative to the other. This puts the horizontal and vertical components back in phase, turning the circular polarisation back into linear polarisation.

“Importantly, the left and right circularly polarised light return to linear polarisation orthogonal to one another, allowing one image to be blocked by a polariser, and the other to pass through unimpeded. Thus, each eye sees a different image, creating the illusion of a 3D image.”

“Wow, that’s amazing,” Izzy said with a smile. I smiled back and returned the crystal to her. She held it up to her eye and peered at me through it. “And here I thought the double image was just a neat effect.” She giggled and I couldn’t help but do the same.

“Any other rocks I might find interesting?”

Izzy’s eyes darted around the display cabinet while she hummed to herself. She quickly found a suitable mineral and handed it to me.

“This is a lodestone,” Izzy explained. I twisted the dark rock around in my fingers, wondering what could be so special about it. “It’s made of an iron oxide very originally named ‘magnetite’.”

“It’s magnetic then, I assume.”

“Mhmm.”

Curious, I wanted to test the strength of its magnetic field. I examined all the neatly labelled minerals in the cabinet, looking for something that could possibly be ferromagnetic, and therefore attracted to the lodestone. Unfortunately, Izzy’s collection was extensive, and I didn’t recognise many of the names on display.

But I did manage to find something I actually recognised: iron pyrite – fool’s gold. I grinned and opened the little glass door, shoving the lodestone right up close to it.

And nothing happened. I gave it a few taps just to be sure, but it wasn’t attracted to the lodestone in the slightest. Sad, I turned to Izzy. She giggled at me.

“Iron pyrite isn’t magnetic, silly.”

“But it’s got iron in it!” I whined. Iron was like, the ferromagnetic element. It was in the name even!

She giggled again. “You forgot that chemical bonds affect the physical properties of a material. That includes magnetism.” I blushed, feeling rather silly. Such a foolish mistake to believe that the presence of iron was enough to produce a ferromagnetic material.

We continued on like this for a while, with Isabel showing me rocks she thought I might find interesting, and telling me some neat facts about each. We’d had conversations like this in the past, but it was a very different experience being able to hold the subject of conversation in my hand while she spoke.

I did have to ask her how she managed to afford sapphires to put in her display cabinet. I didn’t know much about them, but I knew that they were ridiculously expensive. She gave me a cheeky smirk and explained that they were artificial sapphires, grown in a lab. Not only were they significantly cheaper than natural sapphires, but they also didn’t involve child labour, so they were much more ethical.

Eventually, Isabel wound down and finished gushing about her collection. There was an obvious shift in tone from her as she smiled at me, and I immediately became nervous.

“Well, it was fun chatting about my collection, but I don’t think that’s why you came here, was it?” Izzy asked calmly.

I sighed. Part of me wanted to avoid the real reason I was here. I could pretend like nothing was wrong, and go on living a lie. It felt like the easy option. The path of least resistance. But I knew I couldn’t continue living like that. I just needed to know for sure.

Izzy noticed my apprehension and reached out to gently rub my upper arm with her thumb. “Why don’t you tell me what you came here for.”

I began rubbing my thighs gently with my hands to help calm my nerves. I needed to tell her. I needed her help. “I…” I started, but my voice failed me as it always did. Frustrated, the rubbing of my thighs quickened. I stared up at the ceiling, yelling internally at myself just to say a few simple words. But no sounds left my mouth.

I was getting nowhere with my words. I needed to tell her some other way. I went over to the bag containing the dress Izzy gave me. I pulled it out and draped it against my body, putting it on full display for her.

Izzy frowned. “You don’t want it?” she asked gingerly.

It was my turn to frown. She completely misunderstood me! And I couldn’t answer with a nod or shake of my head; that would be too ambiguous. Stressed, I placed the dress down on Izzy’s bed, then pulled out my phone. I couldn’t speak, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t communicate. If wordless communication wouldn’t work, I’d just have to text her.

I kept it short. Both my hands shook as I slowly typed out the message. Each tap of the stylus on the screen was as pained and drawn-out as my breaths. Finally, I hit send and smiled up at her awkwardly.

Her phone buzzed and she looked at what I’d sent her.

Make me a pretty girl.

She walked over to me slowly and deliberately. I, a nervous wreck, remained completely still as she gently held each of my arms and smiled at me.

“Of course,” she whispered.