I pat my face dry like the girl in the YouTube video told me to and stand before the bathroom mirror with my eyes closed.
I admit to myself that my plan terrifies me. What if I see myself and I like it? What if it makes me happy? But … what if I put on the makeup and everything stays the same and I keep wanting to disappear? What if there’s no way out of this and there never will be? What happens if when I die they bury me in a suit and tie?
In order to do this properly, I’m going to have to look at myself, but my hair’s up in a ponytail and that means I have to see my face without anything to hide its shape. I take one breath, then another, and open my eyes.
A sad-looking boy stares back at me. I try to be objective about his appearance, because I want this whole exercise to be as scientific as possible. He has good cheekbones, full lips, big eyes, and nice olive skin without too many blemishes, but his nose is too big and round at the tip, there’s a faint shadow of hair growing on his upper lip and along the edges of his jaw. Dark circles have formed under his eyes from never sleeping, and his forehead is too high, the brown hair already receding the littlest bit—or is that just in my head? His eyebrows are way too thick. It could be worse. The boy staring back at me only barely qualifies as a boy. He’s pretty androgynous. Scarily thin, if his grandma is to be believed, and his collarbones do poke out pretty far. Who knows how long before puberty ruins everything, though? The thought makes my stomach lurch again.
Okay, step one of the experiment—the inspection—is done. I breathe. My shoulders rise and fall. I’ve got time to do this without freaking out. Dad should be at practice for another hour, and then he’ll probably hang out for a while afterward with the assistant coach.
My phone buzzes and I see a new text from Eric—a sort of wishy-washy abandonment of our plans, but it’s fine because I was going to cancel anyway. I need to do this.
I read back over my handwritten notes that I took down as I secretly watched a few YouTube makeup videos at school. Step 1: Wash your face and pat dry. Check. Step 2: Apply primer. I rummage in the Kmart bag and groan when I realize I forgot to get primer. It’ll probably be okay though, right? Step 3: Apply foundation. It takes a minute to get the plastic off, and then I accidentally squirt foundation on my shirt, but after a minute or two I’ve got a nice little glob on the back of my left hand and I’m ready to go. I follow the movements of the girl from the YouTube video as best as I remember, dabbing foundation on first and then blending out from the center of my face in big, round motions. I look silly at first and there’s a moment I wonder if I’m doing it wrong, but then it all smooths out and my breath catches.
I look like a girl. Or, I mean, I’m starting to. Mostly right now I look like a girl ghost, but even that’s enough to make my neck tingle and my muscles relax in a way that’s mostly foreign. I take a step back and look at myself. The faint shadow of facial hair is gone. The harsh angles around my nose are softened. The dark circles around my eyes are still there but a little brighter. I smile and realize that I haven’t done so in probably months and that my smile is pretty in a timid, nervous way. Next comes eyeshadow, which I copy from the pattern on the back of the little plastic case. Nothing fancy, just tan and brown and an understated gold shimmer—I want to look like a girl my age, not a prostitute or a drag queen. Not that there’s anything wrong with being those things, I guess, just … that doesn’t feel like me.
Part of me starts planning for my next trip to the store, for buying black lipstick and gray eyeshadow and pulling off a real goth look, and I get so excited I don’t even really notice how uncomfortable it feels jamming these brushes all over my eyelids. Eyeliner is even less comfortable. My lines are messy and there’s no way I can pull off wings yet, but it makes my eyes look bigger all the same and that’s nice.
The YouTube girl said to use an eyelash curler, which I chose not to get because they looked like medieval torture devices. I’ve got thick eyelashes anyway. I try to stop myself from blinking as I brush mascara on. Next is blush, which is a little tricky because this girl said to smile and trace a “U” under the apple of my cheek, but other things I’ve watched have said to stick to the top of my cheekbone. I just sort of rub it on and hope for the best—it’s subtle enough that the end result looks okay.
I’m a little dazed as I try to concentrate on my transformed face. I want to get an idea of what I look like, a real objective idea, like when I looked myself over before, but my eyes won’t focus. My fingers feel numb and they’re shaking. I have to brace my elbow to put on lip gloss. And then I rub the excess off on the back of my hand, smack my lips, step back, and let my eyes take in my whole reflection.
And there she is.
I touch my jaw and she touches hers. I watch her lips part in awe and, for the first time in a long time, it’s not in a tight frown. She blinks slowly. I blink slowly. Because this is me.
All I can do is stare. At some point the stretched-out neckline of my ratty thrift-store shirt slipped off my shoulder. A strand of hair falls across my face. A girl who could be my sister stares back at me—it’s not even that I did a good job with the makeup, because I didn’t, but she’s there.
There’s a surge of vertigo as I realize this is what it’s like to bridge the gap between me-the-body and me-the-self. Or the start of it. It feels like waves are crashing in my ears, warm foam rising up to envelop me. I wrap my arms around my stomach and take a long, clean breath. And that’s really it—I feel clean for the first time in years. I feel—
Whatever epiphany I was closing in on shatters when I hear the front door open and Dad’s heavy footfalls down the hall. Of all the days for him to come home early, of course it’s today. I scramble, trying to shove all the makeup out of sight, but mostly dropping it on the floor. I kick what’s visible behind the toilet. I’m hyperventilating and it’s hard to think. I have to wash my face. I have to wash my face.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Hey, bud?” Dad calls. I hear him puttering somewhere between the main area and the kitchen. “You home? I cut practice short so I could get us a birthday dinner. You still like Chinese, right?”
“Yeah!” I say. My voice cracks, displaying how it’s deepened—yet another act of betrayal. “Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Bathroom. Uh.” I run the tap hot and grab a washrag. “Minute. Be out in a minute.”
“Take your time. Got a surprise when you get out!”
I make do with the hand soap, but even when I scrub so hard my skin hurts all it does is smudge everything. I blink the water out of my eyes and look up to find a panic-stricken raccoon staring back at me in the mirror. Makeup wipes. I was supposed to buy fucking makeup wipes. And of course he came home early. It’s my birthday. How could I be so stupid? Except I guess I’m a broken, stupid person, so maybe it’s not surprising at all. Everything’s going to be ruined. And all for what, for this mental illness? This fetish? This … this whatever this is?
I slam the heel of my hand into the sink, and a bolt of pain shoots up to my elbow. I yell in frustration, and that’s all it takes to break me. The roiling thunderstorm in my chest crackles forth, the one always rumbling just under the layer of numbness. I hold onto the sides of the sink and feel my breathing go ragged and hot.
My mouth peels apart and a guttural scream comes out. I open my eyes, only to see my reflection glaring back at me, this disgusting body again, always, and forever. Before I know what I’m doing, I cock my arm and punch, then again, then a third time, crunching glass drowning out my voice.
It wouldn’t be so bad if I could just stop thinking about it. About what a freak I am.
Freak.
I hear footsteps in the hallway. Through my blurred vision I notice blood dripping from my knuckles. I smear it on my pants and hiss fire through clenched teeth. Dad pounds at the door. Why can’t I just be normal? I think back to the drawings from last year, to all the futures Mom imagined for me, and I can feel them sloughing off with every second I keep wallowing in this. He keeps pounding and I feel the vibration inside my skull. He’s going to break the door.
“What?” I scream.
“Morgan!” Dad says. “What the hell’s goin’ on in there?”
“Nothing!”
“Don’t lie to me,” Dad says. “Open the door.”
“No,” I shout. “Go away.”
“Morgan, hey,” Dad says, his voice taking on a softer tone. “Whatever it is, we can … we can talk about it. I know you’ve been stressed, and I’ve tried to give you space, but you’re still my son.”
God.
“Go away.”
“Morgan, please,” Dad says. I want him to yell. Part of me, a deep, animal part, wants him to kick the door down, notice the makeup under the sink, put two and two together, and force me to confess. The rest of me notices the quiver in his voice and it tells me, not for the first time, that I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to everyone I love.
“GO AWAY!”
“You’re all I’ve got left,” he finally says, his voice catching.
All I’ve got left.
All I’ve got left.
I don’t say anything, just press my back to the wall and slide down until I’m sitting with my face buried in my knees.
“I … listen, I know I haven’t been the best dad since … since everything. I know you’ve needed me, and I haven’t … I mean. I’m here. Now. If you wanna talk.”
My lips part a millimeter, but then, as my thoughts stumble through the wreckage of this breakdown, a memory I haven’t thought of in years catches my attention: I was nine, maybe ten, and it was past my bedtime but I couldn’t sleep. I wanted a glass of milk and an Oreo, so I snuck through the living room, behind the couch where Mom and Dad sat, her watching a late-night talk show while he scribbled plays in his big red binder. And as I was coming back from the kitchen, unnoticed as usual, something on the show caught my eye.
I peeked around the couch, cookie hanging from my teeth, and saw one of the men running for something—president, maybe—say that of course he would consider nominating a gay person to the Supreme Court, not only that, but a lesbian, a bisexual, or even a transgender person. I didn’t know what transgender meant, but I felt what it meant, and I knew part of me felt good to hear a man that important say something like that. But then the host grinned and said, “All rise for the Honorable Justice Chick with Dick!” and the live audience laughed, and my little stomach twisted into knots, and then Mom snickered, and a snort of amusement escaped from Dad.
Even if I tell him, even if he pretends to be okay with my secret, I think I’ve always known I can never, ever forget that deep down, under any smiles and encouragement, he’ll think I’m a joke. A frivolous, useless, hilarious person who could never be something like a judge or a director or … or anything, I guess, but a “chick with a dick,” which I found out much later is a porn term on top of being a punchline. But the other part of me is so tired of feeling this way. Of being alone.
I decide to test him, to give him one chance to push through the cobwebs, to show me he knows me even a little.
“I’ve just been really lonely,” I say through the door.
“I get that,” Dad says.
I rub my temple and sniff. “Maybe … maybe I should get back into sports.”
This is not me. But this is the me he wants. I know it is.
“Really?” Dad says. There’s a note of joy in his voice, like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Mm. Get some exercise. Spend more time with you and Eric.”
Tell me no, I want to scream at him. Tell me you don’t think I can handle that kind of commitment and I need therapy. Sit me down and make me tell you what’s wrong, because no way are you stupid enough to believe this is the solution.
“Well!” Dad says. My shoulders sag and as the last bits of rage ebb away I feel the old pressure behind my eyes. The numbness returns. “Well, I think that’s a great idea. Fantastic! If we start workin’ you hard you might even be ready for varsity next season.”
I sniffle, throw the makeup back in the Kmart bag, and stand on wobbly legs. The makeup is gone, but I still feel its mark upon my face. Dad smiles when I open the bathroom door, but then I walk past him, eyes dead, and stride down the hall toward the door.
“Hey,” he says. “Good. Now let’s eat, okay?”
“I’m not hungry,” I say as I wrench the front door open.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” I say. He starts to argue, but I slam the door, unchain my bike, and ride off into the twilight.