Alex pondered what he should wear on his date. He briefly considered the cosplay clothes that Allie said were cute, but decided that he didn’t want to embarrass himself in a crowded restaurant. He ended up just wearing a flannel button-up and some of his nicer jeans. He plucked some of the weird stray eyebrows hairs that had started growing back in patches, but otherwise left his face alone.

He parked outside the Indian restaurant they had agreed to meet at, and saw Allie waiting right outside the entrance. He hurried over and greeted her.

“Hey, I hope you weren’t waiting for too long!”

“Oh, it’s fine, I just ended up getting here a little early because if I caught the next bus I would’ve probably been late.”

The two headed into the restaurant, Alex standing there in a slight awkward silence as Allie asked the hostess for a table for two. Soon they were seated, with a complimentary basket of naan on their table.

“So, uh…” Allie said. “How’s your work?”

“It’s fine. I was kind of stressed this past week because I was oncall, but I’m pretty okay now. You?”

“I mean, yeah, nothing exciting. I had to restock a bunch of Funko Pops. Pretty thrilling stuff.”

Pause.

“Oh yeah, Alex, do you have a preference about, like, pronouns? I think I asked before but you didn’t respond. I mean, not a big deal anything, if it’s private just let me know, but I just want to check how I should be referring to you.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. I wasn’t sure what you were asking, actually. I mean… I’m a guy, so… I mean, I feel like you can just assume?”

“Oh, so he/him then?”

Alex nodded.

“Alright, good to know. I think I called you a cute girl at one point when we were messaging? Sorry about that.” Allie grimaced.

“It’s fine.” Alex paused. “Honestly, whatever pronouns are fine. I know Jazz has a lot of non-binary friends, so I kinda get the general idea? Wait, Jazz said you were a lesbian, though. Did you think you were getting set up with a girl?”

“No, I wasn’t sure either way. I mean, I guess I’m technically bisexual, but I mostly date women because a lot of guys are a pain in the ass, and I just say lesbian because I don’t want to explain all of that to every dude who hits on me. I do stick by most of what I said though, you are cute and that would be a cute casual outfit on you.” She winked. “Besides, I’m kinda into androgynous guys anyway.”

Alex blushed. He started to reply, but was interrupted by the waiter coming to take their order.

***

After dinner, full on garlic naan and saag paneer, the two of them ended up hanging out at Allie’s apartment. Her housemates were out, so it was just them hanging out on Allie’s couch and talking. They ended up having a long, meandering conversation about various pop culture and philosophical topics, which Alex really enjoyed in the moment but afterwards couldn’t remember most of the details of.

Eventually, Alex glanced at his phone and realized it was 1 in the morning.

“Hey, Allie, this has been really fun but I have work tomorrow and I think I really need to go get some sleep.”

“Whoa, when did it get so late! Alright, well, let me know when you get home safe, and maybe we can do this again? I’m pretty busy next week, but the week after should be good?”

“Yeah, I’m free most evenings and pretty much all day on weekends, so whenever works for you! And I’m really glad we got to hang out like this.” Alex and Allie exchanged a tight hug before Alex drove home and went straight to bed.

***

The next day at work, Alex ended up eating lunch with his work friend Ian, plus Ian’s mildly obnoxious teammate Ryan.

“Oh, dude, you said you did a cosplay for that con, right? I wanted to see a picture but I kept forgetting to ask.”

“Oh, no problem.” Alex pulled out his phone and showed Ian the picture.

Ian nodded. “Oh, pretty nice. Steins Gate, right?”

Not wanting to be left out, Ryan craned his neck to also look at the photo. “Ew, dude, no offense, are you supposed to be dressed up like some anime girl? If I saw a chick who looked like that on Insta, I’d-” Ryan mimed gagging.

Alex was kind of pissed about Ryan always shoehorning himself into the conversation, not to mention how rude he was being. He quickly shoveled the remaining food on his plate into his mouth, before abruptly standing up, mumbling “I think I have a meeting in five minutes,” and quickly walking off.

***

After work, Alex ended up kind of pouring out all his feelings into a message with Allie. A minute later, she responded:

‘Do you want to talk? I’m free rn if you want to do a vid call’

Alex sent ‘yeah that would be great actually thanks, i really just need someone to vent to’ and started the call.

He was briefly distracted from his woes by seeing Allie’s face pop up on the call. Even from the weird below-the-chin angle of her phone’s selfie cam, her face was undeniably adorable. She was clearly lying on her bed, with a pillow visible behind her head, with her cheeks looking slightly red and a perfect texture for squeezing.

“Well, I already feel a little better just from seeing your face,” he joked, before turning serious. “But yeah, this guy at my work--he’s kind of a douche, which I already knew--saw my cosplay and said it was disgusting and that I looked terrible dressed like a girl. This is a big part of why I didn’t do an actual crossplay, because I know people love to make fun of gross sweaty dudes wearing schoolgirl uniforms or whatever, but who am I kidding? That’s basically exactly what I was doing, and I dunno, I thought I looked cute. I felt cute, at least, a lot more so than usual. Usually I hate looking in the mirror, but something about the costume I guess distracted me from all the stuff I usually don’t like about myself. But I should’ve known that I was basically being delusional and obviously I looked gross and like a pervert and Jazz’s friends were probably just all humoring me because they’re really nice and they’re more used to stuff like drag, but even then I’m sure they had to resist the impulse to laugh or be disgusted, because like I should know this but obviously those are the only two ways people respond to guys wearing women’s clothing, and even though at the time I felt like I liked it it’s kind of been ruined for me now and I feel like, I dunno, I wish I could just go back in time before I heard someone say that, but on the other hand maybe it’s better that I know the truth so that I don’t gross anyone out or cause them, like, emotional trauma from having to remember seeing me in the future-”

Allie interrupted Alex’s frantic, run-on sentence. “Alex. ALEX. Listen to me. Please calm down, okay? Everything is okay. One guy was an asshole, but he’s just an asshole and he’s wrong. Look, I pride myself in having great taste in girls and judging who’s cute, and you’re definitely cute, okay? You were cute in your cosplay and you’re cute now. You can dress however you want, and the only thing that can stop you is if you let the assholes get to you and give them that power over you. Okay? Do you have anyone around you can talk to, like your parents or a therapist or anything?”

Alex unsuccessfully tried to repress a sniffle. “Uh, I have a therapy appointment tomorrow. I don’t think I can talk to my parents about this though, they’ll think I’m a weirdo and I just know that they won’t get it and they’ll probably agree with Ryan and-”

“OKAY, so, please talk to your therapist about this, okay? This clearly has you really upset and I just want to make sure you’re okay. I’m free right now, do you want me to come over? Just to keep you company. We can watch dumb YouTube videos together?”

“I really appreciate you offering, Allie, you’re the best, but I kind of just want to go lie in bed under a blanket now and not move.”

“Okay, that works too. Go be a lil depression burrito, and let me know how you’re feeling tomorrow, okay? If you’re still feeling this upset I think you should probably take the day off work. I know you put a lot of pressure on yourself to get work done, but your health is more important, okay? Promise me you’ll at least consider it if you’re not feeling better.”

“Okay, yes, I’ll let you know how I’m feeling tomorrow and I can decide more then. Thanks Allie, I do feel a little better. I think I’m gonna go now.”

***

Alex ended up taking the next day off work. He just told his manager he wasn’t feeling great, without specifying. 

I mean, it’s kind of true, right? I’m feeling pretty damn shitty, even if it’s mental instead of physical.

Even though he was feeling somewhat better than yesterday, just from the passage of time, he kept picturing walking into work and seeing Ryan’s smug face, and wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep it together.

He was tempted to also skip out on his therapy appointment, which was scheduled for 7 pm, but figured that he had promised Allie. Besides, cancelling this late would mean he’d be charged a cancellation fee.

He managed to force himself to get up out of bed at 6:30, threw on the same clothes he had worn yesterday, and just barely made it to the waiting room by 7. His therapist--a soft-spoken, middle-aged white woman named Sheryl--called him in.

He immediately started the session by recounting yesterday’s events, staring at an ornate pattern on a rug the whole time. He felt an intense fear that if he looked up he’d see Sheryl’s eternally neutral eyes staring at him, silently judging and jotting down mysterious notes on her little pad.

“So it sounds like this interaction really upset you,” Sheryl said. “Do you have thoughts about if there was anything in particular that caused such a strong negative reaction?”

“So, I know we’ve talked a lot about how I care too much about what other people think of me and tend to base my self-worth on that, so that’s definitely an aspect of it. It’s also just kind of upsetting to feel like I did a good job at something, to feel certain about that, and then having my sense of reality directly contradicted or undermined by someone else saying something.”

“I’ve noticed--and feel free to disagree with me here, this is just my observation--that many of your strongest emotional reactions are tied into your sense of self. Not just how you try to judge your own value, but also the ways in which you conceive of what you as an individual are like. Something we’ve been working on is your ability to hold onto a strong, reasonable idea of your own internal reality, without letting others disrupt your equilibrium so much, which I think can sometimes be a challenge for you because you don’t always have a clear self-image.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. I think I told you about how weirded out I was when someone told me I was handsome last year, because it just really doesn’t fit with how I think of myself. Or I know I kind of got really in my own head about worrying if I was gay or not, not because I think being gay is a bad thing, but because I think I’m pretty much just attracted to women, but people have said that I seem gay before and it made me feel like I couldn’t trust my own feelings and like I just had no idea who I was and what I was like. I have trouble even looking in the mirror a lot of the time, because I feel like I don’t even know what I look like and it weirds me out every time.”

Sheryl wrote something down. “So, do you think your appearance when wearing this costume is important to how you see yourself?”

Alex thought for several seconds. “...I guess it kind of is, yeah. I felt better about seeing myself in the mirror than I usually do--I actually felt good about how I looked for a little bit--and it really hurt to feel like that was being taken away from me.”

“So I know we’ve discussed anxieties you have about your appearance before, many of which I think you recognize are distorted or are negative exaggerations. It’s interesting that you say wearing these clothes helped you feel better about your appearance, because from what I recall most other changes you tried making didn’t have much of an impact on your feelings. I think it will be worthwhile to return to this topic. If you have a safe space where you can do so and feel comfortable, I might suggest that you experiment more with different styles of clothing, so you can try and discover how you feel about different ways of presenting yourself. I think if you manage to find a place where you’re happy with your appearance, that will help you have a more confident self-image and be more able to hold onto that idea.”

I guess that seems reasonable. I don’t really want to weird my parents out while experimenting with clothing, but actually I could probably go over to Allie’s place and try stuff. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.

***

“I’m excited!” Allie said. “I think we’re actually about the same size, and I have a big bag of clothes I was going to donate to a good cause. And today, that good cause is named… Alex!”

“Are you sure you don’t mind me coming over to do this, and borrowing your old clothes? I know it’s kind of weird and a lot of people would probably call me a pervert.”

Allie scoffed. “Those people suck, and I’m completely fine with it or I wouldn’t have offered. Besides, getting to dress up a cutie like you sounds like my kind of fun!”

They spent the next half-hour sorting old clothes into piles, based on if Alex liked the aesthetic and if they were likely to fit. Although they were similar sizes, Alex obviously didn’t have boobs and had slightly broader shoulders.

Finally, Alex took the “approved” pile and went into the bathroom to try them on, despite Allie’s protests that she wanted to see everything.

The first pair of jeans he tried on was too loose and kept slipping down, but the second pair actually fit pretty well. After going through a number of tops, he decided his favorite was a light teal, long-sleeved cold-shoulder buttonup that fit closely to his arms but was looser around the body. He unlocked the door and stepped out into Allie’s bedroom, and was suddenly blinded by a phone camera flash as she snapped a picture.

“Allie! Stoppp. You better not send that to anyone, okay?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to send it to anyone. Else.”

Alex rushed over and grabbed at Allie’s phone. She had already sent the picture to Jazz. Jazz responded a moment later:

‘cute! Our lil Alex is all grown up ?’

What was the egg emoji supposed to mean? That he was coming out of his shell?

“You’re as bad as Jazz,” he complained jokily. 

Looking at the photo Allie had taken, he had to admit that, except for a slight motion blur, it was pretty flattering. He actually didn’t hate looking at it, which was a big step up from most pictures of himself.

His auburn hair, now fully neck-length, was being relatively cooperative that day, and the top made his boxy frame less obvious. The jeans--tighter than what he normally wore--actually conformed to the contours of his body, rather than just hanging straight down in a vertical line. 

“So? What do you think? Obviously I think it’s cute, but what really matters is what YOU think!”

Alex paused, searching for the right words. “It feels good. If I avoid thinking about society and all its bullshit around caring too much about how people choose to dress, I think I like it! I don’t think I could ever, like, wear this to work or around my parents, but in a hypothetical situation where all the people had disappeared except for you and me, I think this would do just fine.”

Allie gave Alex a tight squeeze. “I’m really glad you like it. I know when I first met you it felt like there was always this sadness hanging over you, and this is one of the first times I’ve felt like that cloud has lifted.”

She gave him a quick peck. “Plus, it doesn’t hurt that you look cute as all heck right now.”