Hazing Bra - 5 (Don't Give Up)

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"Don't give up, Thomas!"

Thomas.... she hadn't thought with that name in a while. She was Olivia. Livie to Lily, who always daydreamed about a sister who shared a name like hers. Bernice and Carol were the...other girls in the dorm. Lily liked to joke they were secret lesbians. Olivia listened, half-heartedly, to Lily's theories with a slow nod. It had been enough time since this began that she wasn't exactly sure how many days had passed... 

How many days since she wanted to be a man among men by completing the hazing ritual with a stolen bra, worn like a man. She had to wear it and so many other bras like a lady. She hadn't seen the guys since that day. Bianca had come round a few times, mostly to mess with her. Her parents had begun to treat her like family. She was even invited to Thanksgiving dinner. Any questions about Thomas were answered with a smile and reassurance he was fine and still...trying to find himself, which was the truth.

Since the day she failed and added to her jiggling burden, Olivia had given up trying to mess with the bra and prove any sort of stake. Feigning a mind-shredding migraine at one point, Lily walked her through more girl stuff than she ever wanted to know. Fate then punished her, at the depths of her cycle, with a real migraine as bad as her pretend one.

Loose clothing and quick excursions outside were how she hid her expansion and her body from others and herself. But she couldn't escape it any more than she could escape Lily always trying to cozy up or Bianca scolding her.

"Don't give up, Thomas!" The words from Bianca were said in irritation more than pleading or encouragement. Bianca had taken to dressing up like something between a formal schoolgirl and a delinquent as she chomped on hard candy and scowled. When Olivia asked for advice, she transformed back to Brandon, straining the seams of her outfit, and reiterated, "Prove. YOUR. Stake!" But she felt no revelation.

At girls' volleyball, she flailed around in shorts as her chest did more to deflect the ball than her arms did. Beneath the rude whispers, cold laughter, and jagged stares whenever she fell down, she heard Lily crying out, "Don't give up!" like a little cheerleader.

Olivia got so used to the girl's lockers and gym, that the stress and fear sublimated away. Just one girl in the crowd. On her way out, she lingered and noticed a guy with a lame disguise of shock-red hair and water balloons under his top. Keeping her distance, she watched. His approach was way different than hers.

He marched into the lockers like he belonged and shook his hips. Reaching into a random locker, he plucked out a bra like Olivia's, put it on, and walked out without a word. Olivia was tempted to yell and call him out, but he hadn't been punished like her and she had to know why.

Keeping her head down, she watched him stride out. Clad in a bra all wrong for him, the guy bounded around the walkway. He flexed for people passing by and cut through the forest for the parking lot. Why did he get a pass?!

Fuming, Olivia booted a nearby tree but just came away sore. Prove your stake? Prove it how? Do what?! Be tougher? She could do that.

Before the sun rose, she got out to run with the best support a sports bra could offer, a sweater over her shoulders, and legs free in shorts so she could move. No more sweets, like Lily tried to tempt her with. She did yoga, stretches, boxing, sit ups, and ran till her legs gave out.

"Don't give up!" Echoed in her head. Tough, strong, better, and worthy. She pushed every part of her till long soaks in the tub filled the evenings.

Wearing the bra she'd taken, Olivia focused on being Thomas, on being a man again. But her flesh refused to budge. She imagined spending more time in this body than her old one with a dozen fretful notions clouding her focus. She stopped before anything got worse.

She wept into her hands. It was so hard. Pushing herself and being like this, enduring everything and being someone she wasn't. She knew she was Thomas, not Olivia, but Olivia was winning. How could she win? She....

Suddenly, like a mallet to the face, she understood what Bianca was stupidly trying to get at all this time. Prove your stake. How the guy had come in like he belonged. Fake it till you make it. She was so afraid of what she might be or become or what she could do... that she had no way of saying, "THIS IS WHO I AM".

With a deep breath, she ran, even though she knew it wasn't the answer. She ran because it was how she'd been able to focus. She culled thoughts with action and shaped action into will. His will, herself. Thomas. Olivia. Both her and him. Racing with her bust heaving forward, she focused. Not on the past but on the future. She let the weight go. She let the fear go. She let it all go but the words, as she burst through a ray of blinding sunlight, "Don't give up."

Art by Bethany Weaver
Story by MajorKerina