Chapter 4:

Part II:

March 1995

IT HAD BEEN an interesting few months since September. I had basically two camps of people that I dealt with on a daily basis, the girls and the guys. Wonder that. The guys began razzing me pretty hard about the length of my hair. One such incident happened the day before spring break.

"Ralphy," Lucas had cornered me, "I used to call you a girl because you were such a wimp. Now I'm sure that you must be one – or want to be with your hair like that!" I attempted to get by him to go to Biology, but he blocked the way.

"Go away Lucas, I don't have time for your crap." I said as I tried getting by him again.

"Or what, the little girlie will start crying to her mommy? Or you'll fight me like the girl that you are? I'm real scared." He said this as I once again tried pushing past him.

"You know, even if I was really a girl, I know that I could take care of you just as easily as your pal Matt." He was obviously taken aback that I was speaking up to him like this. The incident with Matt seemed to bring a spark of uncertainty to his eyes. "Now, you can either move out of my way, or try to beat me up. I'm not going to take any more of your pathetic trash talk." Yeah, I'd grown up a bit since September... Now if only he would move out of my way...

"Well, Ralphy, I guess I'll let you go for now, but you watch out." He said this as he turned around and started to walk away. I noticed that part of the reason for his retreat was the principal coming towards us. Oh well, if nothing else I didn't get beat up, that was a start right?

I walked up the staircase to class. I got in there a minute early and started talking to Amy.

"Brandon, I can't believe it, I think Lucas was actually afraid of you!" Amy said.

I forced myself to chuckle, "Yeah, boy I'm glad he doesn't realize nothing has changed! I'm still just as short as I was at the beginning of the year, and I've lost weight even... I'm even less of a threat now than I was then!"

She laughed a bit too. "Hey, what are you doing over the break?" She asked.

"Well we're going to stay at home. My parents can't really afford to go anywhere since we're going on the trip this summer. You?" I asked, knowing that money would definitely not keep her from going anywhere. Her mom was a doctor and her dad was a lawyer. There was certainly no lack of money at her house.

"Mom and Dad have to work next week, so I'm stuck at home." She paused for a second as if pondering something. "Hey! Would you like to come hang out at my house on Monday?"

I didn't know what to say. I hadn't been invited over to anyone's house in a long time, let alone a girl's house. What would we do? What would the other kids say? I spoke without thinking any further though, "Sure! Where is your house?"

"It's down..." It turns out she only lived three blocks away in a nicer section of houses behind our house. She wrote down directions during class, and wrote a time of noon down.

"Amy, thanks for being such a great friend! I'm really excited about coming over." I somehow kept from squealing with the glee that I felt.

We walked down the hall and the stairs together before splitting off to our separate classes. I couldn't believe it, she was a real friend that was really inviting me to come over to her house to hang out! Over the past few months we had reaffirmed to each other that neither of us wanted to date the other, but were just good friends. Still, this was the first time that we were going to have seen each other outside of school.

I had been quiet the past few months to most people in my classes. That was the main reason why I think the bullies had been giving me a wider berth. My novelty as a target had worn off. My hair had also given me a bit of a status bump as well. It was almost down past the bottom of my neck now, and a lot of the girls had decided I looked like a rock star.

I didn't know if that was really the case or not, but what I did know was that it was becoming harder to comb in the morning. Mom had said something about taking me to go look for some hair stuff today when she got home. I didn't know what she meant, but I hoped it would be something else that would get me closer to my real goal of becoming more like a girl.

This was all running through my head when I walked into Social Studies. The class was normally a waste of time, but with everyone being excited about getting off for break it was even more pointless. We got through the class after having to do a crossword puzzle while yet another episode of America's Funniest Home Videos played.

Leaving there I went over to the band hall for band practice. Mrs. Remar made us practice up till the last minute of the period. She was getting us ready to go to contest next month; something that sounded both cool and scary at the same time. I had maintained my first chair status, and with some lessons I was taking, had gotten through the entire book that the second year students were learning out of. Band had become a place where I could really focus my talents and energy – and I was putting tons of work into it.

But that day I went through the period thoroughly distracted, thinking of going over to Amy's house, not really paying attention to my music. Thankfully I had practiced enough that I was still getting my parts right. At the end of class I put my saxophone away and hurried to choir. Mrs. Schultz knew that she had no control over her classes, so she chose to show a movie that day to avoid the fight. I was honestly grateful; when she was getting hammered by the kids it was stressful for all of us! That took me to lunch.

Amy and I sat with her friends talking at lunch, in what had become a normal routine for us. One of our friends, Ashley, asked me. "So Brandon, how long are you going to grow your hair out?"

I shrugged my shoulders, "I don't know, I'm kind of thinking I'll let it get to here," I said while motioning the just below my shoulders. "It's not as long as I want it yet, so we'll see."

"I think it would be awesome if you grew it out that long. You look cute with long hair. Much better than that spike you'd worn since forever." Nikki chuckled.

I turned bright red and the girls all giggled. "Thanks, I think." I replied.

They started talking about their favorite movies for the rest of lunch. Mentioning how cute this actor or that actor was... I just kind of sat there and took in what they were talking about. Lunch seemed to fly by that day, but everything else seemed to drag on forever! It seemed like three days had passed between lunch and the final bell rang to end school.

After school I picked up my saxophone from the band hall and hurried to the bus. I was truly ecstatic that the break was finally here! Especially now that I had Monday to look forward to! I had Amy's directions in my pocket and nothing could stop me from having a good day going home. Not even some snide comments from Lucas talking about the girl named Ralphy on the way home.

Once I crossed the major street that ran between my block and the bus stop I started skipping for some reason. I didn't even notice it until I got halfway home. I turned around hoping no one had been watching. Thankfully, no one had. I got home and threw my backpack and jacket by the door, got some water, and sat down at the computer.

I had found a new website yesterday that talked about ways of hiding the fact that I was a boy. From what I had read, it was possible to keep my body from becoming more masculine if I started on female hormones in the next couple years. I didn't know if it was possible or not, but my goal was to somehow let my parents know my thoughts and get them on my side by the time I turned thirteen... That was the brick wall I was afraid to hit.

Mrs. Schultz had given me a miserable thought the day before when she said that very frequently boys with high voices end up with really low ones once puberty sets in... She of course had been trying to make me feel better, but only succeeded in making me scared of the future. I was terrified that would happen to me if I waited too long beyond that age to take care of things. Of course I was even more mortified of telling my parents about this.

Since September I had begun to do a lot of little things different. For one, I had stopped drinking coke every day. Before I made this decision I had been drinking at least four cokes after school every day, plus a coke at lunch, and I was afraid I was going to get fat. This bothered me because that would keep me from being able to ever have a chance of looking like a cute girl. My mother was not exactly the skinniest individual and I didn't want to be heavy like her (she wasn't really fat... but she wasn't skinny).

That brings me to something that had been a huge nuisance for me. On the internet I read story after story about boys being able to try on their mother's clothes. I wish I had their mothers; I didn't even bother trying because I knew everything would be way too big. Since I didn't have a sister either, there was no chance for me to act out on my desire to dress as a girl. It was truly driving me insane.

I started a little when I heard a car door slam outside, and instantly began closing the window that I had open. I also quickly cleaned out any trace of the sites I had gone to. We only had one computer and it was in the family room – so I had to be careful not to let my parents figure out what I was looking at online. I had little doubt there would have been huge consequences imposed on me if they did.

As Mom came in the door she asked, "Brandon, are you ready to go?"

I had almost forgotten that she wanted to go shopping for some stuff for my hair! "Umm... sure, let me get my shoes on."

"Take your time, I need to go to the bathroom before we leave," she answered.

I quickly ran to put my shoes on and then we left to go to the store. I wasn't exactly sure which store though. "Mom, where are we going anyway?"

"We're going to Wal-Mart."

"And what exactly are we getting?" I asked tentatively.

"Well, since you insist on growing your hair out, we need to get a few things for you to take better care of your hair. Up till a couple months ago, you could just use your shampoo, a comb, and some hairspray and it worked. Now that it's longer you're going to need to do a lot more to keep it looking nice."

I sat their dumbstruck, was this really happening? Maybe she'd buy me my own hair brush today! Who knows what else? We got to the busy parking lot and went inside. I suddenly was a little self-conscious as we went into an aisle of the store that I couldn't truly feel comfortable as a guy.

"Well first thing we need to do is get you a hair brush, which one do you want." She pointed to three of them, one black, one purple, and one in a teal-blue.

I actually had a number of things that were purple, including a jacket that I was wearing, and decided I wanted the purple one. "That one." She kind of looked at me strange but went with it, putting it in the cart. She also grabbed a small collapsible one that came in black and put it in the cart.

"You should have one in your backpack just in case you need to brush it elsewhere."

I smiled and said, "That's a good idea." I looked around at the rubber bands and other hair ties that were in the area. I saw a lot of Scrunchies, one of the new hot things all the girls had and wished I could get one.

I had already decided though that I was not going to suggest anything to buy. I was feigning absolute ignorance on all of the things we were looking at (even though I really had already tried to learn as much about it as I possibly could!). I didn't want to tip my parents off to anything – I was afraid the first thing they would do was make me shave my head... In the meantime I saw she had added a pick type comb to the cart. I let Mom lead me to the next aisle she thought we needed to go down. I was really disappointed that she hadn't brought up rubber bands at least... We moved onto the next aisle that had shampoos and such.

"Well let's see. We need to get you a shampoo and conditioner set now. Why don't we go with this brand, which scent do you want?" She asked while pointing to a brand that had like ten different scents.

I really wanted to say strawberry, as it was my favorite flavor/fruit, but I was afraid that would give away too much. I settled on something I thought a boy or a girl could go with: "How about the coconut scent?" I asked.

"Okay, that'll work." She said while putting it in the cart. She then looked at the shelf and saw there was a matching hair spray for that brand and grabbed it.

"Don't I already have hair spray at home?" I asked.

"You do, but I think this stuff will work a bit better. And it's also a match to the shampoo and conditioner, so it should work better." She replied, matter-of-factly.

She then walked down to another aisle where there were hair dryers. She looked at several hand blow dryers before settling on one. As she put it in the cart she said, "Your hair is going to take longer and longer to dry on its own, so it's a good idea for us to be able to speed that process up.

She started to go towards the front and asked me, "You are going to keep growing your hair out right?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Because if I buy all of this stuff for you, you can't decide immediately to just shave it back down again." She told me. It was then that I became aware of the there was a higher cost associated with this new hairstyle.

"I'm going to stay with this for a while," I replied.

"Good." She paused, then smiled and added, "Because I think you look good with longer hair." That was the first comment I had gotten from my parents one way or another as to my new style. I was shocked to say the least, and I was using every bit of self-control not to jump up and down, while grinning out of control!

We left the Wal-Mart after paying for the supplies. On our way home I remembered Amy's invitation.

"Oh! Guess what!" I said. "Amy asked me to come over to her house on Monday!" I was excited and knew that she could see it in my face.

"Cool. So are you two going out?" Mom asked me, kind of teasingly, but genuinely wanting to know.

"No, we're just good friends. But isn't that cool? I haven't hung out with a friend from school in... I don't know how long... It's going to be great!" Mom started making more inquiries about Amy and my friendship. Apparently she hadn't realized how close of friends we had become at school.

When we got home she looked at the map that Amy had drawn for her house and said, "She lives in a nice house over there." Mom had met her mom a few times, mainly dealing with her in relation to the trip. Her parents were also going to go along on the trip as sponsors.

"Brandon, put this collapsible brush in your backpack right now before we forget. Then meet me in the bathroom." She said.

"Okay," I replied smiling. I didn't know why I was smiling, but I just was!

I did as she asked and went to the bathroom. She held the purple brush in her hand. "With your hair getting longer you're going to need to brush it out several times a day to keep it from getting ratty. Turn around." She pushed my shoulders to where I could see what she was doing in the mirror while she was behind me. She spent the better part of five minutes telling me how to brush my hair right.

"I'm also going to suggest that you start showering instead of taking a bath." I must have looked heartbroken, I loved taking baths. "You can still take them occasionally, but it'll be a lot easier to wash the shampoo and conditioner out of your hair this way."

"Okay, I guess I can do that then." I answered, a little mollified.

She then went on to tell me that she wanted me to take a shower after dinner using the new shampoo and conditioner, and then she was going to show me how to blow dry my hair. She was very specific on timing of the conditioner and stuff. I acted like I really didn't want to do all this stuff, but inside I was jumping up and down screaming, 'YES! YES! YES! YES!!!!!!!'

We went out for dinner that night to a Mexican place. I loved spicy food, particularly the green chile that we enjoyed in New Mexico, and this restaurant was one of my favorite places to eat. After a good dinner we rented some movies, and then went home. Mom told me to go shower and use the stuff she bought. I was excited!

I spent more time in the shower on my hair than I ever had before. Now, while my hair had reached what I thought was a magnificent start, ten inches, it wasn't going down to my shoulders yet. I probably spent as much time on it though that night as I would if it had been down to my bum. I got done and got dressed, beginning to brush my hair out and told Mom that I was dressed.

She showed me how to use the blow dryer effectively, and once I was done I noticed my hair seemed to be occupying more space somehow. "Mom, did my hair get bigger somehow?"

"Yes I think it did. That's part of what conditioner will do for you. Also brushing and blow drying it probably poofed it out a bit more too."

I sat down on the couch a few minutes later and we watched a movie till way past my normal bed time – I love spring break! I went to bed dreaming, scheming, and plotting to try and figure out a way to get some scrunchies of my own. I couldn't believe just how great everything had gone that day!

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