Scott Taylor Miller is tired of being known as Snotty. On New years Day he resolves to take control of his life and make himself into Taylor. However, Scott is unaware that his new asthma medicine will change him in ways he cannot foresee. Forces both within and without will try to define him. If he doesn't want to be Snotty any longer, ...just who exactly is Taylor? The Taylor Project Part 3 by Tracey Willows Copyright © 2012 Tracey Willows All Rights Reserved.

Chapter Four

Friday, January 11th, Taylor Project — Day 11

Turns out it wasn’t allergies yesterday that had me all stopped up. I started coughing in the night couldn’t sleep and woke up with a 101.3 fever. So I’m sick today and was probably sick yesterday when Mrs. Gerstacker chewed out my ass for blowing my nose in the cafeteria. Dad took me into Doc Buford. The doctor listened to me breathe, took my temperature and made tsk tsk noises. He ran tests, negative on flu and strep. So I got antibiotics even though he thought it was a cold and antibiotics don’t cure a cold. He sent me home to rest. Grandma is staying with me today so basically it is a stay in bed and sleep day. I feel crappy. The one good thing is I don’t have to go back to school today. Maybe the whole thing will have cooled down by Monday.

Oh and my being sick I ruined Dad’s plans for the weekend. We were going out to eat again with Julie and her daughter Hailey was going to be there too. Apparently it was going to be a big get together deal. Sorry Dad, I really don’t care right now.

Monday, Jan 14th - Taylor Project — Day 14

I was sick all Friday and most of Saturday. My fever finally broke Saturday evening better and I was feeling better yesterday. I even stuck by my resolutions and cleaned the house. I tried to get out of school this morning, but Dad said if I felt good enough to clean house then I was good enough to go to school. Today wasn’t as bad as Thursday. That was the worst school day ever, but it was pretty awful. I’m not just Snotty and gay any more. Apparently I’m also a coward. It is a known fact at school that I stayed home on Friday because I was too scared to come to school. Morons. I was home because I was flat on my back in bed sick. At least I feel like today was a victory because I didn’t cry once. I kept singing Taylor Swift’s Mean in my head and it helped. If anything I was angry. I told everyone that I was sick and they just didn’t believe me. Even though I still have the cough and I’m sucking down cough drops like they were candy to keep from hacking up a lung in class.

The worst part was Mrs. Gerstacker’s class. Instead of kicking my chair Kevin turned to whispers. He called me Snotty, made little nose blowing sounds, called me a coward and asked if I was going to run home. I tried to ignore him, but finally I was fed and turned around and shouted at him. “I was sick asshole!”

Of course, I’m the one who got sent to the Principal’s office, because Kevin whispered quietly and I shouted. The lecture I received wasn’t kindly this time. Now I’ve got after school detention on Friday. Dad wasn’t happy. We’re supposed to be doing the big get together meeting this Friday that we couldn’t do last week because I was sick. We still can. It will just mean picking me up at school. I’m not sure why I’m the one in trouble. I was sick. I’m the victim here. Is it really OK to make fun of sick people?

I watched Labyrinth over the weekend while I was sick. I watched a lot of movies, but that one came back to me. The girl, Sarah I think her name is, complains all through the movie how it isn’t fair. She was right. Jareth cheated all the time. It wasn’t fair, but there is a point where the big nosed gnome, Hogwart or something, complains to her that she isn’t being fair. And this is what stuck with me. She responds back “No it isn’t. But that’s the way it is.” Life isn’t fair. Is this one of those growing up lessons? If so I don’t like it. Why can’t life be fair?

Thursday, Jan 17th Taylor Project — Day 17

Everyday it’s been a little bit better. Mrs. Gerstacker rearranged the class seating on Tuesday so Kevin isn’t sitting behind me any longer. That right there made a huge difference. I’m still the favorite punching bag of the week, but I’m handling it. I sing ‘why you gotta be so mean’ in my head and it helps. Today was even better. Things are almost back to their normal levels, but that’s just because the animals found a new victim to play with.

Oscar got caught doodling about how he much he hearted One Direction. That made him more of a target than me. It’s pretty much an open secret that he’s gay, but he usually stays in the closet about it. I can’t say that I blame him for hiding it. I feel sorry that he is target number one now, but I don’t dare show it. I’ve already get called gay, queer, faggot, etc. If I so much as smiled at Oscar the rumor mill would make us gay lovers before lunchtime. Does that make me as bad as the others?

I wish it was like when we were back in kindergarten. There weren’t all these rules. You could meet someone and play awhile and you were friends. We moved here to Pine Hill at the end of fourth grade and it hasn’t ever been like that. Four years later and I’m still the new kid. If you’re an athlete like Rick you’re instantly popular. Band isn’t cool, but Cathy is in band and they’re like one big club. If you’re on the outskirts like me, Dave, Lloyd or Oscar you don’t really belong anywhere. Even the outcasts don’t really stick up for each other. Dave and Lloyd didn’t call me a coward, but they still call me Snotty. Some gay kid made a video about how it gets better after high school. Then he killed himself. That’s depressing.

Chapter Five

So Friday night and I was all dressed up like Sunday church just to go eat out, because this was the big event. Rick and I were in jackets (no ties thankfully) and we’re drove over to pick up Julie. Thankfully they didn’t live in Pine Hill so that she doesn’t know of my reputation as Snotty. Of course since Dad drove an extended cab truck we all look redneck. Formal wear and pickup trucks just don’t go together.

Dad pulled into a trailer park to pick them up. That surprised me. Julie worked for a bank so I expected something more than a trailer from her. Granted it looked like a nice trailer from the outside, but it wasn’t a house. I wasn’t allowed inside. The White’s had a cat so I had to wait in the truck while Dad picked up Julie and her daughter.

I expected Hailey to look like her mother, blond, skinny and dressed all up, cheerleader material. However, Hailey didn’t match that image. She had the most casual dress of any of us, a nice pink top matched with a knee-length denim skirt. She looked a lot more comfortable than I did in my monkey suit. Even better she didn’t give off a cheerleader vibe at all. Her hair was a dark blond bordering on brown with fine streaks of gold in it. I guess that’s what they call highlights. It looked natural, but I wouldn’t know how to tell. Regardless, I thought she had cool hair. Much better than my unruly black mop. I’ve got Harry Potter hair. I mean the book kind, no resemblance at all to Daniel Radcliff.

“So you must be Hailey, I’m Scott.” Lame. That was obvious.

“I am. Glad to meetcha.” She didn’t sound at all lame when she said it. She sounded sincere.

There were a few awkward moments getting seat belts on. I wanted to give Hailey some space, but the backseat of a pickup isn’t roomy at the best of times. Since Rick took up like half the backseat it was crowded. I ended up in the middle between Rick and Hailey. I flailed around for what to say, but was stuck for a while. Rick started talking about football and sports and asking Hailey what her school was like. Despite being in the middle they both talked past me like I wasn’t there. I tried to work on sinking into the seat so I wasn’t touching either of them. I got the impression that Rick was putting the moves on Hailey. That made me a little queasy. That would be just what I needed. Dad dating Julie and Rick dating Hailey and me stuck on the outside. Plus Hailey looked like a nice girl and Rick wasn’t a nice guy. OK, he was a good guy as far as being a team player and all, but he wasn’t a good guy were girls were concerned.

When Rick got the birds and the bees speech from Dad, I had to listen, too. I already knew about sex from health class, but Dad’s talk was a different. He basically gave Rick a blank check to go have sex, just as long as he did it safely. He warned Rick, but his warnings were a mix of safe sex and not to settle down to fast. One of the lines was “you don’t have to buy a cow to get milk.” I know how girls acted around my father. I’ve lost count of his girlfriends. His injured knee might have ended his football career, but he still worked out every day and he worked as a salesman. He was quite successful at talking people into things. That means he gets a lot of milk for free. From what I can tell Rick gets a lot of free milk, too. He has a reputation as a player at school that even I’ve heard down in middle school. It looked like he was sizing up Hailey to be another notch in his belt.

At least I thought that was what was happening. Rick kept talking about himself. I thought he was doing a wonderful impression of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. After a bit I noticed that Hailey wasn’t responding the way girls usually did. She had been at first, but she no longer seemed engaged in the conversation. She made a comment now and then which was enough to keep Rick talking about his football triumphs. She looked bored. In fact she took her iPod out of her purse.

“So Hailey, what kind of music do you listen to?” I knew she was in choir. So she had to like music, right? Didn’t all the girls?

My question turned out to be inspired. That was all it took to get Hailey off and running about music. This was clearly a passion for her. I can’t sing or play a note, but being Cathy’s best friend paid off big time. It became clear that Hailey and I had similar tastes in music. I knew almost every band and song she mentioned. We were also both Gleeks. We talked the rest of the drive to the restaurant and most of the way through the meal. I actually had a good time. Rick, not so much. That was just a cherry on top for me. So the good news was that spending time with Hailey shouldn’t be a pain. I bet she’d hit it off with Cathy as well.

Sunday, Jan 20th - Taylor Project, Day 20
Time for another weekly update.
Journal — check.
Exercise — I haven’t had much time without Dad and/or Rick around to use our workout room, but I’ve been keeping up so check.
Allergies — the antibiotics cleared up my cold. I can breathe again. The air purifier that Dad promised finally arrived and I cleaned the house. I guess check, but still snuffling.
Bully target — improving since my meltdown day, but still in minus column.

Now that I've got that out of the way, something strange and important has happened. I think Hailey and I are already friends. We swapped IM information and have been doing a lot of chatting online this weekend. So why is it that I can meet someone new who doesn’t know about Snotty and make an instant friend, but at my own school people would almost as soon spit on me as talk to me? It’s like I’m just a label, Snotty, and that overrides anything else. It gives me hope that the whole Taylor project can really work. If I can just change enough to break past my label then I won't have to be Snotty any more. I think this is the first real proof I have that this can work. Yet, I don't know what I did differently to make friends so easily. Was it simply that she had no preconceived notion of me as Snotty? If so will any gradual change ever break past the label?

Anyway, I like Hailey. She turned out to be pretty cool. She asked me a lot of questions about my Dad and Julie dating. Although she knew more than I did. Trading messages with her I found at that our parents have been going out since before Thanksgiving. Hailey actually met my father before Christmas. I don’t think Dad mentioned Julie until recently. I could be wrong. I don’t pay too much attention to who Dad goes out with. I wish I had. I kinda think Hailey is expecting our parents to get married someday. Apparently her mother hasn’t dated at all really since her divorce. I didn’t tell her about my Dad’s dating history. I don’t want to bust her bubble. It makes me feel a little dirty knowing what is going on. Julie seems like a nice woman, but I’m sure given Dad’s opinions that she is already giving out free milk. It’s bad enough thinking about my father having sex. That’s just squicky. What’s worse is Hailey though. She’s going to be crushed when the breakup comes. Still, what can I do about it? Maybe this time is different. Dad never dated anyone with kids before.

My Dad’s a good guy mostly. Yeah, he pushes about sports and exercise, but he took care of us when Mom left us. He’s always been here for us. It’s just that for some reason this time I see things on the other side, what it will mean to Julie and especially Hailey. It makes me feel ashamed to be a boy.

Chapter Six

I hated PE with a passion and PE hated me right back. I swear the course was designed to humiliate all non-jocks and keep us in our place at the bottom of the food chain. The first thing I had to do each class was strip down to my underwear and dress out. Being half-naked made me feel even more vulnerable to than usual. Worse if my eyes even strayed to someone else I’d immediately accused of being a fag. I’d learned to change in the corner facing away from everyone else and to change fast. Then once the humiliation of changing was over came the demonstration of just how much I suck at all things physical. The one consolation I had was that there weren’t really any jocks in PE any more. They all took athletics so I was only in there with the other non-jocks. That was better but it still sucked because even with the jocks out of the picture I was still near the bottom of the barrel.

Plus the lack of jocks was offset by having a bully for a teacher - Coach Teller. I’m sure must have been an Army drill sergeant before he became a coach. He’d call us all maggots if he could. He is the physical manifestation of how much PE hates me. Actually I think he hates all of us because we aren’t jocks and he’d rather be coaching football players than teaching PE. Still, he hates me more than the others I think, because I’m weaker. I hear it all the time, move your ass Miller, faster Miller, keep up Miller. I keep hoping my exercise at home will help me improve some, but no sign of it yet.

Dodgeball at least didn’t suck as much as the other things Coach Teller had us do. There was very little structure and Coach Teller mostly ignored us leaving us to play on our own. That meant he didn’t hassle me. Dodgeball days were sometimes even fun. Nobody took it seriously as a real sport. We counted off, divided into two teams and jumped right into playing.

My strategy for dodgeball was pretty simple — run with the herd. I don’t try to grab the ball and get people out. If a ball came my way, I’d go for it, but I wasn’t an aggressive player. I usually survived the first couple of back and forth surges and then get knocked out when the herd started to thin. Today was playing out the same way. If only my nose would stop running. I wasn’t stopped up, but my nose kept dripping like a faucet and I had to stop and blow it a lot. At least I could breathe. It was better than being stopped up any day.

On the third round I was having a good game for me. I’d gotten another player out and lasted longer than usual. In fact there were only three players left, then two, then just me. Ok, so there was a half-dozen players on the other side and they had all the balls. No way was I going to win. I was up against the wall trying to dodge them all and being moderately successful. I knew I would lose, but I didn’t care. Last man standing was good for me. Then I dodged left when I should have dodged right.

The dodgeball caught me right in the chest and pow my chest just exploded in pain. Not itty bitty pain. It was almost as bad as getting hit in the nuts. It hurt so much I was couldn’t speak for a second. Then a cussword exploded from my lips. “Mother-“ I cut it off. I knew better than to drop the f-bomb in gym. I don’t usually cuss like that. Dad can cuss up a storm at home, but I’d get my ass busted at school or sent to run the bleachers at best. I walked off rubbing my chest. It still hurt pretty bad, but the pain was dying down from a sharp spike to an aching throb.

I didn’t understand where the pain came from. Dodgeballs sometimes sting a little, especially the smaller underinflated ones, but they don’t actually hurt. Getting hit by a paintball normally hurts a lot worse. The pain was ebbing, but as the shock passed a secondary reaction set in. I wasn’t really crying, but my allergies kicked in and I started snuffling. It was the thin runny kind and it was gross. I grabbed for a tissue to blow it out instead of sucking it down.

“Look, Snotty’s crying! Did the big bad dodgeball hurt your boob, Snotty?” Winston wasn’t one of my usual tormentors. He was one of the zealous churchgoers. His name wasn’t even Winston. It was Eugene but his last name was Churchill and he was a little on the chunky side. So everyone called him Winston. Why he got a cool nickname and I got Snotty, I have no clue.

“I’m not crying,” but I knew the tissue in my hand and my nose running made it look like I was having a boohoofest. I wiped my nose as best as I could and sang Mean in my head. Oh, it helped. I felt the tears turning to anger.

Coach Teller blew his whistle. “New game everyone, back in positions. Miller, back on the floor.”

I could hear the disdain in his voice as he singled me out for his disapproval and I wanted to snap at him. Yet, the restart was good for me. I was past the point where I might cry. I was able to lose myself in the herd and blow my nose then. I was feeling pretty good about that. I’d still been teased, but I’d held it together. My chest still throbbed right on my nipple where the ball had caught me, but it was passing. I didn’t think anything more about it until that night.

As I lay in the tub relaxing in the hot water I recalled the pain in my nipple and Winston’s comment about getting hit in the boob. Looking down at my chest it almost looked like I did have boobs, man boobs, but still. I felt my nipples and they felt very strange. They’ve been tender a lot lately, sometimes sore, sometimes itchy. Not constantly but often enough.

Wednesday, Jan 23rd — Taylor Project Day 23

I have got something major. Bigger than the Taylor Project. Ready? Wait for it.

I’m growing boobs.

I suppose it’s been going on for a while. Thinking back I remember my nipples itching and being sore, but I didn’t really notice until today. We were playing dodgeball in gym and it really hurt. Winston made a snide comment about me getting hit in the boob. I forgot about it afterwards, but tonight in the bath I remembered. I look at my chest and noticed they looked larger. I wasn’t really sure because I’ve had a bit of manboob thing, but this looked worse and focused on my nipples. They also felt different. When I explored my nipples with my fingers I could feel little bumps underneath them.

I rushed my bath and looked up man boobs on the internet. The bumps under my nipples are breast buds. I’m growing boobs — just like a girl. It’s called gynecomastia. I’m still pretty freaked about it, but I’m starting to calm down. It happens in 40% of boys during puberty. Why didn’t they tell us about that during health class? That would have been good to know. It is caused by a hormone imbalance. Just a little too much estrogen and not enough testosterone as puberty gets into swing. So the good news, I’m starting puberty. Lucky me, instead of peach fuzz on my chin or my voice cracking, my first sign of puberty is growing boobs. The articles I read said that I should contact a doctor, but it also corrects itself usually within six months. If it lasts more than a year than it’s called persistent gynecomastia.

I just saw a doctor two weeks ago — Doc Buford didn’t notice. Granted he didn’t have me take my shirt off when he was listening to me breathe, but obviously it can’t be that bad or he’d have asked me why I have these new chest growths. They feel freakishly huge, but looking in the mirror they aren’t that big. So do I tell Dad?

I’m thinking not. If I tell Dad he’ll take me back to Doc Buford. Who will examine me again with my shirt off, diagnose me with gynecomastia and tell me to wait and see if it gets better. Doc Buford is a big believer in wait and see. I think I could deal with the embarrassment of telling Dad and Doc Buford, but the problem is that if Dad knows then Rick will find out. I can’t do that. He’ll blab. I have him to thank for being called Snotty. That’s name is bad enough, I don’t want to be known as the boy with the boobs.

Honestly, writing this down is helping. I don’t say anything to gain by telling Dad. It will probably be gone by itself in six months. I see a lot to lose by saying anything. If this gets out at school things will get so much worse. That day that Gerstacker called me out in the cafeteria was the worst day of my life. If word gets out that I’m growing boobs it will be ten times worse and it won’t go away. I’ll be the freak of the school. So, that’s decided. I’m going to keep my mouth shut and wait it out.

No one has noticed so far, even Doc Buford. So as long as I don’t get naked I should be able to hide it. All of my t-shirts are baggy anyway. No one will see a thing. The only thing I have to worry about is changing in gym class and I think that will be OK. I never use the showers anyway. I feel vulnerable enough just changing clothes. I usually just change clothes quickly facing away from everyone else. There is no reason I can’t just keep doing that. It’s also another reason to step up my workouts. According to what I read exercise can help in some cases. Boobs are mostly fat. So less fat equals less boobs. However, from what I read it also won’t reverse the growth due to hormones, but it can reduce man boobs caused by fat. I had a little of that going. That can be undone with exercise.

Wow did I just write that? Maybe I am turning into Rick and Dad. That’s their mantra, exercise can fix anything. No, this isn’t about wanting to bulk up. I just want the boobs to go away before anyone finds out. If this gets out I’m dead meat. I think this overrides all other priorities on the Taylor Project. I’ve got a new Prime Directive. Hide my chests growths. Exercise, try to reduce them and hope to hell my male hormones kick in and they go away.