Marcus and I were sitting on the floor in my room, trying to study when he brought up something that I had never expected could change everything.

”My mom has been asking about you”, he says. ”If we’re still together and stuff and I tell her that fuck yeah, we are.”

I rolled my eyes. ”But?”

Marcus coughed before saying, ”You’re invited to dinner on Friday.” I stared at him and he stared back. ”I understand if you’re not comfortable telling her yet but know that I’ll stand up for you, okay?” I couldn’t move, the thought of meeting her like this was terrifying. ”But, if I’m honest, I don’t think she’s gonna care. She likes you, Lucas. Girl or boy doesn’t change that.”

I sighed. ”Have you come out to her as…” I stopped myself, deep in thought.

”You mean Lucassexual?” He asked, grinned and shot me finger guns.

I threw my pen at him. ”I’m serious!” I said.

Marcus sighed, dragged a hand through his hair with an exasperated sigh. ”No”, he said. ”I haven’t told her anything. I don’t know what I’m supposed to come out as, you know? I was head over heels for someone I once thought was a girl but turned out to be a guy. Does that make me bi? Pan?” He shrugged. ”All I know is that I love you and that’s all that matters.” He smiled reassuringly at me, moving to grab my hand and I let him.

”But what will she think?”

”Who cares what she’ll think?!” he grinned, his arms flailing around him in a wild gesture, but all I noticed was his blinding smile.

”So you don’t think I should go there in a dress and makeup?”

Marcus blinked a few times. ”To be honest”, he started. ”No, no I don’t.” He shook his head with a fond smile on his lips. ”All I want is you to be you. You can borrow one of my suits if you want.” He grinned mischievously and I rolled my eyes. ”It’ll probably be too big for you but who cares.”

”Thanks”, I said, leaning forward to press a kiss against his lips.

After that, we went back to study. When Friday came around, Marcus had come by to pick me up in his car and he had brought with him one of his old suits, one he argued would fit me.

”Marcus”, I said, moving in front of my wardrobe mirror. “It’s too big.” Marcus opened my bedroom door and peeked inside with a grin.

”Looks perfect to me”, he said as I turned to glare at him. ”I swear.” As for emphasis, he placed a hand over his heart.

I looked back at my reflection with a small smile, turning around so I could get a glimpse of all the angles. ”I guess you’re right”, I said. ”I’m just nervous.”

Marcus smiled before walking to me, putting his arms around me. ”Don’t be”, he said as if it was the easiest thing in the world to come out as trans to your boyfriend’s mom. ”Will it make you feel better if I put on my Justin Bieber-wig for dinner?” I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me and I shook my head in disbelief, my hair tickling the side of Marcus’s face that was pressed against my neck.

”I can’t believe you still have it!”

”I saved it for a moment like this”, he said and I could see him waggling his eyebrows in the reflection on the mirror. I smiled warmly at him. He pressed a kiss to my neck before stepping back. ”Are you ready to go?”

Before I could change my mind, I nodded and followed him out to his car. We sat in silence the whole drive apart from Marcus occasionally singing along to the radio.

Marcus told me words of encouragement as we stepped out of the car and onto the front porch. He opened the door and said, ”We’re here!” It didn’t take long before footsteps were heard approaching us, soon followed by the familiar face of Marcus’s mom.

”I wasn’t aware that this was a costume party”, Mrs Jones said as she looked between Marcus and me with an eyebrow raised.

I watched Marcus open and close his mouth several times before looking at me with a question in his eyes. I kept watching him, my ability to form words had been thrown out the window. ”It isn’t”, I heard Marcus say.

”What?” Mrs. Jones said. She was frowning, her smile was unsure, as if she didn’t understand if she was expected to laugh or not. As if she didn’t know if Marcus was joking.

Marcus sighed as he turned to face his mom. ”It’s not a costume party, mom”, he said before gesturing towards me. ”This is how Lucas wants to dress.”

”Lucas?” she asked with a frown. ”As in a boy’s name?”

Never before had I seen Marcus’s face change so drastically into an expression of horror. He turned to look at me with glassy, almost doll-like, eyes and mouth hanging open as if an apology would slip through it at any moment, but it never did.

”Yes”, I said. ”As in I’m a boy.”

Mrs Jones turned to me with a polite smile. ”You just want to get attention, don’t you? Why else would you start walking around like that? You’re a girl, Lucy. I know you.”

”Mom!” said Marcus, his voice was hoarse with warning and it didn’t suit him. Any sound from him or look on his face that wasn’t happy or teasing or shy, didn’t fit him.

I sighed, closing my eyes. ”All I ever wanted was to be myself.”

Mrs. Jones held up her hands. ”I get that, I do. But if you don’t want the world to know, then why make it so flashy? When people look at you, they don’t see a boy. They see a girl in drag. Why don’t you just do us all a favor and be who you’re supposed to be.”

This is who I’m supposed to be, I wanted to argue, but my throat was too dry and my tongue was numb.

The next morning I went to school in a dress and makeup. Marcus stared at me with wide eyes. A part of me had expected him to look relieved, but he didn’t. Instead, he had looked at me in worry. The second we stood in front of each other, he gripped my wrist, holding me in place, asking me if I’m okay.

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No, I wanted to say. I wanted to scream. But all I could hear was what his mom had said. That all I wanted was attention.

Why should I change a perfectly good body?

”I’m okay”, I said instead.

Marcus frowned at me. ”Why are you dressed like this, Lucas?”

I yanked my arm out of his grip and said, ”Because I looked like a girl in drag.” Marcus stood frozen and stunned as I walked away from him, leaving him behind me.

”Wait!” he yelled after me but I kept walking, shaking my head. He didn’t come after me and I didn’t know if I had wanted him to or not.

I had pretended to be Lucy for so much of my life, it was a role I was assigned but couldn’t outgrow. A costume I couldn’t take off.

I already had a girl’s body and all I had to do was embrace it. My problem was that I’ve worn this costume ever since I was born, and it never quite fit me. It’s like wearing an itchy shirt you can’t take off and with every passing day it gets itchier and itchier.

I could wear girl clothes and I could wear makeup and I could make myself look like any other girl and I could pass as a girl but it will never be more than an act for me.

I could wear clothes that made me feel comfortable. I could do that but people would take one look at me and think that I was a girl in a boy’s clothes. That I was a girl wearing my boyfriend’s clothes.

That I was a girl in drag.

They wouldn’t see who I was, they’d just see the mask I couldn’t take off. They wouldn’t see that the girl part was the real costume and that there’s another face beneath the act. My true face.

They say some actors were born to play a certain character, but they never expected it to be in the literal sense, like it was for me.

Being who you awerere is a privilege I wasn’t born with. My brother doesn’t know how good he has it. Marcus doesn’t know how good he had it. Instead, he fell in love with me and I ruined his perfect life and perfect world.

And his perfect girl.

I walked like that for a week, dressed up, looking pretty as if I was prepared for Halloween. Pretending to be someone else. Putting on the mask I wanted so badly to take off.

For a week Alex gave me a disapproving look, telling me to stop doing this. But I couldn’t. I had pretended to be Lucy before, I could easily pretend to be her again.

For a week Marcus looked like he was in physical pain, whenever his eyes met mine and for a week I pretended I didn’t notice.

Because maybe Marcus’s mom had been right, and all I wanted was attention.

Friday came around, I pretended not to notice all the looks my peers were giving me when I walked past them. I ignored the questions in Kim’s and Johnny’s eyes when they met mine, but most of all I avoided the piercing blue ones that I loved. Marcus’s eyes. I avoided them because I knew the pain hiding there, I knew the way he looked at me, as if just looking at me like this was too hard for him. A part of me was glad someone shared my pain.

”If you hate this so much”, Alex had said, his arms crossed over his chest, as he watched me put on mascara this morning. ”Why don’t you just stop?”

I met my brother’s hard gaze through the reflection of the mirror before sighing. ”I don’t know”, I said, looking away. It was true, I had no idea why I couldn’t stop. All I knew was the void inside my chest, the ache that I couldn’t quite name and so I pushed it deeper down until all I was, was numb.

”Lucas”, he said with a softness, both in his eyes and in his voice.

”Don’t”, I warned, meeting his eyes again.

He just frowned at me before turning to walk away, muttering ”fine”. In some inexplicable way, the ache inside of me grew further, until the chill of it reached the tips of my fingers but I pushed it aside again.

When I left the house, I looked at my bike with a clenching heart before walking towards the bus, putting my headphones in my ears to fill the emptiness inside with music.

I put on my ”:(” playlist that Marcus had created for me some years ago. A few stops away from did I change from Nickleback’s ”Lullaby” to Katelyn Tarver’s ”You Don’t Know”, feeling the mood fit me more.

When the piano started playing and the first sentence was sung, I closed my eyes and breathed it in.

I know you’ve got the best intentions, just trying to find the right words to say.

Something caused me to clench my fists, but I didn’t know what. A part of me imagined Alex’s face in my head and it was to him I sang this song.

Let me just stop trying, let me just stop fighting.

I was so done with fighting. It felt like that was the one thing I had done my entire life. Maybe that was why I felt so exhausted lately? I had fought enough and there was nothing inside of me left, willing to keep fighting.

When the second verse started, I imagined Marcus’s face whenever his eyes met mine lately. Whenever he saw me dressed the way I was supposed to. The way I was born to.

The way that wasn’t me, and he looked at me liked that because he knew it was true.

So why did I do this? Why did I go through all of this again?

I knew why. I had always known why, ever since I started wearing makeup again. The problem was that I wasn’t ready to accept it.

Marcus met me by my locker as he usually did. His arms were crossed and his expression was sour. ”What the hell is going on?” he asked when I stood in front of him, taking out my headphones.

I ignored him, instead, I moved to open my locker but Marcus put a hand on it so that I had no other choice but to acknowledge him. And so I did.

”What do you want?” I asked with a glare. Marcus frowned at me before shaking his head with a chuckle that lacked its usual mirth.

”Who are you?” he asked, his eyes scanning my painted face and I wished I was an origami bird so that I could fold in on myself, like an ostrich hiding beneath the sand. ”It’s like I don’t recognize you anymore.”

”I look the same as I used to”, I argued.

In response, Marcus merely rolled his eyes. ”You look like Lucy”, he said. I swallowed. ”But she’s not who you are.” He smiled at me in a soft and sincere way but I couldn’t help look away, as if that look wasn’t reserved for me.

”That’s where you’re wrong”, I said, held up a hand to shove the one Marcus still held flush against my locker. He pulled it away and so I moved to open it.

”Don’t do this, Lucas”, he whispered in a silent plea. I met his eyes with an eyebrow raised in confusion at his sudden words, but when I saw his expression and how defeated and frustrated he looked, I couldn’t help but look away. ”It’s because of my mom, right?”

I sighed, ducking my head a little.

”I know she’s wrong, Lucas”, he continued. ”I know you and I know you wouldn’t go that far for attention.” I closed my eyes, feeling familiar arms wrap around my chest.

”So I don’t look like a girl in drag?” I whispered.

I felt him shake his head against my shoulder, his short hair tickling my skin. ”You look like a drag, alright”, he began. ”A drag queen.”

I snorted, feeling Marcus’s arms loosen its grip around me as he straightened up, looking straight at me. We were still standing really, really close to each other, every breath he took ghosted against my skin.

”I’m serious, though.” He smiled at me, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. ”You wouldn’t go that far for attention. And if it had been your mom, or Alex for that matter, who accused you of that, I would be the first person knocking on your door and demanding you to move to my house.” I couldn’t help the laugh bubbling out from my chest. That was the moment that I noticed I didn’t feel half as empty as I had just an hour ago.

”Get a room”, came Kim’s familiar voice and within a second, Marcus and I had jumped apart. ”Good to see you’re feeling better though, Lucas.” Marcus snickered, so I turned to glare at him but somewhere along the way, it had turned into a smile, one that Marcus soon reflected.

When Monday came around, Marcus came to pick me up in his car to drive me to school. Alex had looked at us with an amused smile, at which Marcus grinned.

I felt like there was a newfound confidence inside of me as I walked through the hallways in Marcus’s usual outfit. It didn’t hurt that Kim and Johnny grinned at us, holding home-baked blue cupcakes in his hands.

The fact that Marcus was walking next to me, sporting Lucy’s usual look, didn’t hurt either.