“Did you do your dress thing?”
“Nah, rescheduled it for maybe next weekend, why?”
“Can we hang? Like right now? I need a ride and a few other things.” Like a dress for meeting Lucas tomorrow. I headed out of the house and down the street toward Jenny’s.
“Sure. Whatcha need?”
“A dress?” I squeaked, hoping no one else heard. There was a long pause and I had to pull the phone from my ear to be sure we were still connected. “Jenny?”
“For your mom?” She asked after a minute.
“For me.” I sighed. “Look, I’ll explain when I see you. I’ll be there in like two minutes. Please?” She was the only friend I had with a driver’s license.
“Okay.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief and half raced to her house. She was already waiting outside near her car when I arrived. Her gaze ran over me, stopping on my hair first, still curled and sticky with hairspray, it really needed a wash. “You’re wearing eyeliner.”
I winced. “I can’t get it off, but I sort of like it?”
She hit the button to unlock the car and got in on the driver’s side. I got in and shut the door. “Tell me everything.”
I blushed, but spilled, laying out the entire day for her. When I finished, she stared. I looked down, my clothes back to normal, glasses on my face, and other than the liner, everything was just me, boring Tory.
“Say something!” I demanded.
“You kissed Lucas Hart.”
“He kissed me,” I protested. Was she mad? Would she hate me? She wanted him. All the girls wanted him. He might have kissed me, but that was only because he thought I was a girl.
“You really dressed as a girl?”
“You should see my eyes,” I said, wishing I had a picture. I needed to study the color and depth. “It didn’t look like me at all, but I want to do it again.”
She burst out laughing. “All right, princess. Let’s go find you a dress for the ball, and maybe some makeup.”
“Camera first,” I begged. Would Lucas let me take a picture of him? At least something to remember him by. He’d probably want nothing to do with me when he found out I wasn’t a girl.
“Okay. But I gotta ask, do you want to be a girl? Like, are you trans?”
“I want to be me.”
“Okay, but are you a boy, or a girl, or both?”
“Mostly a boy, I think.” But dressing up, feeling pretty, that was something fun too. “Maybe sometimes being a girl would be okay too?”
She smiled. “Okay.”
It took three stores, after picking up my new camera, and lots of covert maneuvering in the dressing room to find the dress. Everything made my hips stick out, or my shoulders, which made me feel like I looked like a boy, even when Jenny assured me I didn’t.
“You still look like a girl. I think it’s the liner, and the hair. I’ve never seen your hair have so much body and texture. I love it.”
“Okay, but love on it later. I need something to wear that says girl.”
“Why not just be you?”
“What if he’s mad?” The idea of anger crossing Lucas’s pretty face made my stomach flip over. “Wouldn’t most guys be mad if they were duped into kissing another guy?” I knew there were some guys in school who would hit me if faced with the same situation.
“But you never told him you were a girl. He just assumed.”
