Sam has to face some ugly facts...and pretty dresses...

7. I don't have to wear dresses...

Yes, I do have to wear dresses. Rats.

Mom, Hannah and I were in my sister's bedroom, going through her closets. Yes, plural. Hannah was extracting mounds of stuff she figured might fit me and that she couldn't wear anymore. Mom sorted things into acceptable, unacceptable and judgment-deferred piles. The acceptable collection seemed to be mostly dresses. I watched it grow with dread and trepidation, and other 18th century English Literature words.

I didn't actually help more than someone made me because, for my part in this debacle, I was getting cold feet. In fact, just watching was encasing me completely in ice. "I didn't agree to this, yet." I tried to point out, sitting in Hannah's media chair in front of her desk.

"Pfft," said Mom, retrieving another wispy piece of feminine clothing from the depths of Hannah's geological record. "'Yet,' means that you know that you will so you might as well admit it. Oh! This yellow sundress is just going to look terrific on you, honey!"

I made a face, and the ice moved into my gut. Eight or ten dresses were in the acceptable pile, and all the full-length pants had gone into unacceptable along with some boyish-looking tops. The waiting-judgment stack consisted mostly of skirts, shorts, capris (which are neither shorts nor pants), one-piece jumper suits, and tops to go with the bottoms.

"Doomed," I muttered. "I'm going to get killed if I wear this stuff in public." I knew it was true. Even my friends would turn on me and laugh, even if they didn't throw rocks in the great stoning-me-to-death party.

Mom shook her head, and Hannah shrugged like it really wouldn't matter to her. "It's getting crowded on the bed," Mom said, pushing the reject pile off onto the floor, then scooping up all the dresses as a bundle and pushing them on me. "Go put these in your closet, Samantha." Part of the deal was that for today, at least, everyone would call me Samantha as much as they could.

Wincing, I took the bundle of clothing and headed out and across the hall to my room. Slightly smaller than Hannah's (it didn't have two closets), it was occupied by my father, who was industriously boxing things up. My closet was already empty of all clothing, even my shoes, and Dad was starting on my dresser drawers.

My old box of boy-type toys had been dragged out of the back of the closet and sealed up with only Pookie Bear and Space Robin (an off-brand androgynous action doll) lying on the bed, looking forlorn. Pookie's torn ear had been taped up, his plastic nose re-colored with a Sharpie, and he'd been re-stuffed with polyester fiber-fill years ago, but he couldn't have looked more forlorn if his skin had been empty and his ear hanging by a thread. Some part of me still remembered the taste of his nose.

Lying next to Robin did not help Pookie, the poor little Starbound adventurer was missing half of the yellow and green spacesuit that had been in the original box. A mint condition Space Robin was worth more than $200 on eBay, but my toy was priceless only to me.

"Hi, sugar," Dad said cheerfully—for contrast with my own mood, I'm sure. "Just put those in the closet." He grinned. "There's plenty of room for them now." He meant the dresses I was carrying.

"What, uh, what happens to my old stuff in the boxes?" I asked, not moving yet.

"We're going to burn it," Dad said with a straight face. I don't know what my expression looked like when he said that, but he immediately added, "No, I thought we'd just put it out in the storage building until things get settled. Hmm?"

I struggled with the bulky wad of dresses, trying to hang them all up at once. "Dad, I know you were kidding at first, but you almost gave me a heart attack." I didn't like the idea of my stuff in the storage building, which was sometimes visited by possums at night, but the idea of burning all my boy-toys had scared me. At least, if they were in storage, I could hope to get them back someday.

Dad laughed—the shit. "Look, honey, this is all because we think it will be better for you. Now don't try to press all your pretties into the closet like that. Take them one at a time and hang them up nicely."

Well, pushing them at the closet bar was not working anyway, so I laid them on the bed and picked one up. It was a blue party dress with little roses around the neckline. By chance, I saw myself in the mirror holding it, almost as if I were checking to see how I would look in it. My jaw dropped open.

I remembered Hannah wearing this when we went down to Virginia Beach on vacation, and we attended a party at a beach house, three years ago. She'd looked good, but I saw that with my beautiful new curls, I would look better. Oh, crap.

"You'd look good in that," Dad observed.

"I could get killed in that," I said, hurriedly hanging it in my now forlorn closet. "I'm a boy!"

Dad snorted. "With your looks, that hair, maybe a little makeup, in that dress... No one would believe you were a boy. Samantha..."

I looked at him warily, picking up the next dress.

"Come around this side of the bed, honey. Where you can see yourself in the big mirror on the back of your door."

I blinked. Sure enough, there was a full-length mirror on the back of my door where my poster of R2D2 and BB-8 used to be. "Where did that come from?"

"It's been in the back of your mother's closet for ages. But she already has a long mirror, so she never needed it. But you do."

"No, I--" But I'd already moved to stand in front of it.

"Hold the dress up," he ordered.

It was the yellow sundress that had white lace trim and poofy sleeves. I held it up. The last of the afternoon sun came through the window, lighting up the dress and my yellow hair. Did I look like... a golden angel?

"Don't tell her I said so," Dad remarked, "but you're prettier than your sister."

I nodded, numb with dread. If I looked that good as a girl, would they ever let me change back?