Mom had gone somewhere; I don’t remember if it had been to the store or to the bar or a quick trip to Nevada. I had spent the first part of her absence in the bathroom, shaving my face and under my arms. I had cut my penis a couple of times as I shaved it. I had heard a couple of the girls at school talking about waxing their legs, but I hadn’t yetfigured out how to get some without asking a lot of questions.
After all this time, I’m not sure why I had never tried her eyelash curler before. I had seen her use it often, but I never had the inclination. Maybe I was feeling the need to up my attempts at being feminine, or maybe it was just fate. Maybe it was because I broke my own rules. Never mix her clothes and her makeup bag.
I had a white towel on my head. It was my favorite one because it was the thickest and longest—it fell nearly to my knees. I had chosen my favorite green broomstick skirt. I went over to her makeup kit and pulled out the eyelash curler. It wasn’t easy to do, but I thought it would be simpler than using her eye shadow. I closed my eyes and put the contraption up to my right eye and squeezed the handle. I counted to ten and released my grip. I was afraid it would hurt. It hadn’t, but I could feel my eyelashes on my top eyelid. I took that as a good sign that they were curled. I started thinking about trying to use her mascara next. Without opening my eyes, I moved the curler and crimped my left eyelashes. I opened my eyes. My eyes instantly started watering. I looked closer. Both of my eyelashes were poking straight up into my eyelids, mostly hidden behind folds of skin. I quickly closed my eyes again and turned the eyelash curler so it was upside down. With a lot more effort, I was able to fit my right eyelashes into the curler. I had to tip the curler at an awkward angle to get it to fit underneath my brow, but this time it pulled painfully at my eyelashes.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Her voice was quiet, shocked.
I froze, eyelash curler still stuck on my right eye. I hadn’t heard anything. Not the car coming down the driveway, not the front door opening or closing.
“Get out of my clothes. What are you trying to do? You’re not a girl!” She was still quiet, but I could hear her anger increasing.
I managed to unclench the eyelash curler from my eye and dropped it on her dressing table. I opened my eyes and yelped. The lashes on my left eye were poking into my eye. I started blinking them furiously, but it only made it worse. With each blink, the lashes dug in.
“Get out of my room.” I could barely hear her, her anger was so great. “Get the fuck out of my room, you little faggot.”
I rushed past her, one hand over my eye, the other in front of me to keep me from running into something. I got into my room, ripped off her skirt, and started crying.
I could hear her pace from her room to the living room over and over again. She was in a rage. Most of what she said was in such a bluster that I couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. I only caught several phrases over and over again. “Faggot.” “Better off dead.” “Embarrassment.” “Sissy.”
I’m not sure how long her tirade went on. I kept expecting her to rush through my door and attack me. She never did. In some ways, the fact that she didn’t made it worse. I was so disgusting she couldn’t even look at me.
I managed to quit crying after a time. Without a mirror, it was difficult to try to fix my eyelashes so they wouldn’t dig into my eye. I took my fingers and pulled on them as hard as I could, trying to straighten them out with my nails. My eyes were watering so much that it made it harder to get ahold of them.
Mom had been quiet for a long time when she opened my door and came into my room. She started to say something, but then she looked at my face, which I’m sure looked horrible, puffy and red.
She came over and sat on the bed next to me. She touched my cheek. “Move your hand. Let me see your eyes.”
She let out a small gasp as I lowered my hands.
“Brooklyn.” Her voice surprised me. It was no longer angry. It was soft and concerned. “Sweetie, what have you done?” She took my hand. “Come here.”
She took me to the bathroom and gave me a warm hand towel and told me to hold it over my eyes.
When she left the bathroom, I looked in the mirror. My eyes were swollen, especially my right one. The eye was completely bloodshot. My eyelashes were bent at every angle, many of them broken at different lengths.
Mom came back after only a few seconds. She didn’t say anything when she saw me looking in the mirror instead of using the hot towel.
“Sit back on the toilet, baby.”
As I sat, she knelt in front of the toilet so her eyes were even with mine. She tenderly took out the eyelash curler and again curled my eyelashes. There were a couple that refused to curl any more than they already had. She used a tiny pair of scissors to snip those. By the time she was done, my left eye looked almost normal, but my right looked horrible, but none of them were poking me any longer.
“It will take them some time to grow back, but they will. I’ll run to the store tonight and get some eye drops. That will help your eyes feel better.”
I was too ashamed to look at her. I kept my eyes on the bathroom mat below her knees.
“What were you trying to do, honey?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t budge.
“Have you done this before, trying on my clothes?”
I gave the slightest of nods.
She let out her breath slowly. “No more. We don’t wear girl clothes, right? You’re a boy. You’re not going to wear dresses or use make up. You’re not gay.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You’re not going to do this anymore, right?” Her voice was pleading, but still kind.
