Chapter 25:

The Mirror

It’s All Just So Weird and Confusing


“When’s the last time you went clothes shopping?” she asked.

I blew a raspberry. “Dunno,” I said distantly.

“Maybe we should do that.”.

“I have plenty of clothes,” I moaned.

“Any nice ones?” she retorted.

“I… yeah? I mean….”

“Look, all I’m saying is that you’d look nice in clothes that fit you.”

I wanted to tell her that I didn’t care about looking nice—which was vaguely true, but only because I wasn’t conscious of how I looked. It was one of the benefits of never looking in the mirror. I opted for a bigger lie. “I have clothes that fit.”

She paused. “You want to know what it really is?”

I rolled my eyes and shrugged.

“The first thing I noticed when I saw you, Honey, is that you aren’t wearing a bra.”

I felt like crashing the car and ending the conversation. But I somehow managed to persevere.

“You’re not that big, but still big enough to think about it.”

“Can—can we not talk about this?” I said, my palms sweaty.

“Sure,” she said again, stabbing me with condescension.

There was a brief moment of silence. But she couldn’t allow that. “You know, it’s funny. I thought I’d have to get on to you about shaving, not this,” she joked. “Well, I still might.”

“Mom, please, please, I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Okay, okay,” she relented, “But we are getting you some better clothes… Oh! We can see if any of my old stuff fits.”

“I’m not wearing a fucking dress,” I spat.

“Sure, there are plenty of pants and tops. Most don’t fit or look gross on me now, so it would be good to go through them instead of throwing them out.”

I dreaded the drive back to her apartment. I was growing tired of debasing myself.

At the very least, she was a… person of her word. We went through her closet, and indeed I wasn’t offered any… explicitly feminine garbs.

Some of the pants actually fit me well, much to my dismay. It frustrated me that they were more comfortable than the gritty, billowy things that I usually wore. What frustrated me even more is that they looked better.

The tops were mediocre. They “fit” better, if one’s definition of fitting was “tight and revealing.”

My slightly oversized men’s shirts sufficed, but she made me take some of her’s, anyway. “In case you change your mind,” she said. I just grumbled and threw them onto the guest bed.

“Let’s go hiking,” she offered.

When I was younger, that sentence would have been both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it got me out of helping her at her house cleaning job. On the other hand, she liked repeating tedious and boring hikes. It was a special day when we drove more than ten minutes to get to the trailhead.

To me at that moment, though, it was simply a nice way to combat my eyestrain. Bucking my dependence on my computer didn’t mean abstaining from screens, after all.

Agreeing to go turned out to be a mistake.

My hubris did not let me see that gritty, billowy clothes were the exact opposite of what one should wear on a midsummer hike. I was having trouble enjoying the dense greenery, pretty sandstone bluffs, and running waterfalls with how dirty and sweaty I was.

I had made the same mistake before, I’m sure, yet it was only on that hike that I truly understood. My mother had even warned me, but… yeah, I was stubborn.

It’s funny looking back on it: I hadn’t really internalized the concept of clothes having a function beyond covering your skin. I always wondered why they asked us to use a uniform for gym class, but I never bothered to do so out loud. Suffice to say, I found out.

When we returned to her apartment, I changed into a different baggy shirt and some of her old shorts.

I stared at myself in the mirror. I could barely remember the sensation of being a man, or of being a human, for that matter. I couldn’t remember the feeling of just not having a long skinny appendage jutting out from my posterior.

While I had mostly grown used to the red woman staring back at me, the clothes she wore—I wore—brought a new feeling. It was neither shame nor disgust; it was none other than my old friend Anxiety.

Most of my anxiety boiled down to uncertainty. Paul and Gabi's uncomfortable expressions came to mind. They're going to see me differently, I thought. Why am I doing this, again?

Because it's objectively better, right? And it was. They were fine clothes, and they didn't look out of place. I wasn't a degenerate for wearing things made for my body… my tail excluded.

I had no counterarguments, only those imagined disgusted visages of my friends. Why do I care what they think? No, that’s a stupid question. Why would they care?

Because they would treat me like a girl.

Why is that a bad thing? Are females worse than males?

Of course not.

But they are different.

I don’t want to be different.

Does it matter? What real difference is there?

That time at the party wouldn’t have happened if I was a guy. I am a guy.

No, I’m not.

But I feel like a guy.

Do I? What does a guy feel like?

It’s not like I could look at myself before the Change.

Why do I hate how I look?

I’m a girl.

That’s not it. It’s because liking how you look is vain. I’m not vain.

Is it vain? Really?

Maybe I’m confusing vanity for just being comfortable. Or something.

I shook my head, muttering something indescribable under my breath. I left the room.

That night we sat on the couch in her modest apartment, watching Webflicks. It was funny seeing old shows filled with normal humans. I heard that they had to cancel or reshoot almost everything.

We had just finished the first film, and we were stuck scrolling endlessly.

“By the way, have you had a period yet?”

I steeled myself. Remember, it’s not bad. “Nope,” I shook my head.

My mother seemed to be processing the fact. “Interesting,” she said slowly. “Well, if you do, you can talk to me.”

“I’m sure Liz can help,” I said. I frowned. “Sorry. I mean, uh….”

“No, that’s fair. I barely see you. She’s a nice person, after all,” my mother said with a hint of sadness.

“Oh, how about this one,” she said, moving on.

I blinked. “O-okay.”

We talked little the rest of the night.

The next day, we found ourselves in JPCenny. I was shocked by how exorbitant all the prices were. “Why are pants so expensive? And why the heck do none of these have pockets?” I whined.

“Yeah, it’s stupid,” my mother shrugged. “They do have things with front pockets, you just have to look.”

“But why so expensive?” I groaned.

“Capitalism?” she offered unhelpfully. “Don’t worry about it, just choose some you like.”

I had never been asked to choose my own clothes. I was getting choice paralysis with all bad choices.

After an hour of torture, I finally had what I “wanted.” I went to the checkout with my small selection, and my mother went to collect one more item.

I was absolutely mortified at what she brought back. My eyes were wide and my throat dry.

She placed a package of women’s underwear on the conveyor.

I wanted to frantically assert that it wasn’t for me, but I knew that would be more awkward and cause more drama. I just stood in humiliation as the items were purchased.

I chewed her out when we sat in the car. “Why did you get those?!”

She huffed. “Because I want you to be comfortable,” she said. “The choice to, that is.”

“You never cared before,” I scoffed.

“What?” she asked, offended, “Of course I did.”

“Okay, what about… like, in elementary school when you didn’t let me play the flute because you thought kids would ‘make fun of me’?” I berated, “Because you thought it was too ‘girly’?” I spat.

“That was different,” she explained defensively, her masculine features contorting into a frown.

“How? I look like a girl, and you’re just doing all this daughter BS with me, and I’m not a girl.”

“Are—are you transgender, Noel?”

“I don’t know! But all I know is, this is super awkward and you won’t respect that!”

“You don’t know…?” she worried.

“I don’t think I am, okay? Besides, I don’t even know what that would mean… in… this context.”

“Do you hate being a girl?” she asked sincerely.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I don’t like it when people are weird around me.”

“I see,” she said, quieting down.

There was a long pause as I just stared out the windshield at the other cars and pedestrians, my mind replaying the last few seconds.

“Well, I’m… sorry that I’ve been weird around you. This is weird for me, too,” she chuckled. “But… I’ll try and be more conscious. I’m sorry. I thought you were more… like me. But you’re you.”

I nodded, emotionless. “Thanks.”

“I still mean what I said, though. That I want you to be comfortable. If you don’t like the underwear, then so be it. But they’re yours,” she urged. “You can give them to your sister or something.”

“Thanks,” I said again, monotone.

I started the car, and drove home.

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