Jon was the first member of the Gibson household to wake up the next morning. By the time he’d finished his shower, the rest of his family was only just starting to stir. So he tried to keep quiet as he returned to the box of clothes his big sister had given him after her recent shopping spree.
His arms dug down into the pile of black fabric, pulling out item after item. Hadn’t these all been too small yesterday? It didn’t matter, they seemed to fit now, giving Jon a lot of different choices. One hand reached for the very bottom of the box, and bumped into a smaller package. Although it was still hidden by a few final layers of cloth, it felt like the kind of vinyl pouch that something new might come in.
But these were all hand-me-downs, weren’t they?
- Two Days Earlier, at the Mall -
Sarah McMillan reached for a particular brightly-colored package hanging from a hook on a wall.
“No,” Zoe informed her. “I know I said I’d wear whatever you picked out, but I’m drawing a line here. I will not wear those. Hard pass.”
Sarah grabbed the package anyway, turning to Zoe with a smile. “Don’t worry, these aren’t for you. They’re for your brother.”
Zoe was skeptical. “You think he’ll wear them?”
Sarah shrugged. “Probably not. He probably won’t even want to be associated with them. But we want to keep him on his toes.”
- Present Time, in Jon’s Room -
Jon retrieved the package from the bottom of the cardboard box and brought it into the light: it was a six-pack of Disney Princess-branded girl’s briefs.
For a short moment, Jon’s heart stopped beating.
However much he had changed over the previous day, however much he had accepted Zoe’s hand-me-downs and wearing a dress in public, however much he was hardly even aware that he had regressed in age by two years, somehow the item in his hand, emblazoned with the visages of Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine and others, was still absolutely antithesis to his quintessential values.
It was inherently, undeniably, and fundamentally girly. And, just as Sarah had predicted, Jon refused to be associated with it.
He threw the package into the garbage bin by his desk as violently as a 16 year-old can throw a soft package, and turned back to the blouses and skirts that were now arranged on his bed.
He picked up each garment in turn, holding it against his body, then placed each back down on the bed. He brought his hand to his chin, furrowed his brow, and repeated the ritual once more. To many choices. He couldn’t decide. It was hard to decide when he was completely naked. He should put some underwear on first.
Jon went to his usual drawer, but everything there seemed too big. And it was one thing if he was wearing pants and his underwear slipped off: the crotch of his pants would at least catch them and he could pull them back up. But he was going to be wearing a skirt that day, so any slippage meant that the garment was going straight to the floor.
His eye turned to the garbage bin by his desk.
“No,” he said out loud.
But at the same time, he didn’t know what other option he had. Go commando? Not in a skirt. His eyes darted back and forth between the collection of clothes on his bed and the corner of the package that stuck out from the top of the garbage bin. His heart started pulsing. He took a breath. He closed his eyes.
He tore open the vinyl package and pulled a pair of panties up his legs, emblazoned with the face of Rapunzel upon it, until the elastic waistband settled itself above his hips.
