It took some more convincing after that, but they both ultimately had to agree that I was right. If anyone was going to do this, if anyone should dress up as a girl, it had to be me. I wound up focusing so much on the logic behind that and the reasons why I was the only one who made sense, that I didn’t have to stop and think too hard about what I was actually signing up to do.

At least until the two of them had finally agreed, and we shifted to talking about the specifics. Dustin raised a very good point in that before we committed everything to this plan, we needed to make sure it’d actually work. At that, a new fear crystallized in my mind: okay, sure, I could want to do this, but would anyone actually believe I was a girl? That thought was kind of chilling. Obviously not, right? But then Noelle insisted we wouldn’t know until we tried, and so we planned to have a dress rehearsal on Saturday.

Literally.

I… was going to have to wear a dress in under twenty-four hours. I tried to ignore how that made my stomach do flips to even think about.

I was supposed to stop by Noelle’s place tomorrow afternoon to see if we could find some clothes that would work well. If it all worked out and I looked convincing enough, we could do a few run-throughs of the presentation to prep for Monday.

It all came together so quickly that it made me a bit dizzy. I felt a little bit like I was standing on the edge of some steep cliff, one foot out, ready to step off and plummet into something unknown. But… that made sense, right? What guy wouldn’t be overcome with a weird mixture of terror and fear and inexplicable excitement at the thought of doing something like this? I tried to remember that Dustin and Noelle needed me, and the more we talked about the plan, the more excited they got. 

Noelle, in particular, was all smiles, behaving completely differently from her guarded nature when we had first interacted earlier in the day. That part was fun at least. I liked seeing her so happy and joking around, and her excitement was contagious. Even though Dustin tried to maintain a cool facade, she was able to drag him into having a good time too.

But unfortunately, this night wasn’t going to last forever. Noelle was busy chattering away about outfits, and was starting to pull some things out of her (obviously also huge) closet, when Dustin noticed the time.

“Maybe we should get going,” he said, glancing over at me. “It’s getting late.”

“Aw,” Noelle said. She flopped down on her bed and spread her arms and legs out, wiggling her fingers. “You two could stay the night, you know. The bed’s plenty big enough!”

I froze, my heart pounding. Another joke. Right.

Dustin frowned. “While I certainly know how much that’d piss off your dad, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” His voice grew a little more pointed as he gave me a flat stare. “Isn’t that right?”

“Y-yeah,” I said. I mean, it was a big bed. Certainly big enough for three people without any of them touching. Probably more comfortable if they were touching though. I did a full-body shiver, trying not to think about it. “Not a good idea,” I repeated, trying to keep my voice level.

Noelle sat up again, giving Dustin an exaggerated pout. He rolled his eyes, and she turned to grin at me instead. “Fine, fine. But you do strike me as someone who’d be fun at a sleepover.”

What was that supposed to mean? I smiled like a dope, and then realized what I was doing and wiped the expression from my face, and then realized that staring blankly was weird too and ended back in what I intended to be a cool smirk but almost certainly wasn’t.

“You have to ignore her when she gets like this,” Dustin said. “Or else she’ll just keep teasing you mercilessly.”

“R-right,” I said.

Honestly, it was way too hot and confusing in here, suddenly. Maybe going home would be the best choice for now. Before things got too out of hand or I suddenly said or did something that would lead both of them to hate me. I mean, what was I even doing here with—

“Hey. You there?” Dustin said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Time to go.” Uh oh, he looked irritated.

I nodded awkwardly, and looked again at Noelle. She didn’t seem to find it strange that I had spaced out, though, thankfully. She just gave me a wave, and cheerfully called out, “See you tomorrow!”

And that was that.

With Dustin’s iron grip on my shoulder, I found myself marched out the door, down the stairs, and out of the house. I had barely blinked and we were outside again.

Wow, this place was set so far back from the road that all you could hear was crickets, somewhere out in the neatly manicured woods surrounding the house. It was kind of nice. I looked up at the night sky—we had been working for so long that it was dark now, and a full moon hung above us.

“O-okay,” I said, turning to Dustin as he finally released my shoulder. I tried a wan smile, still feeling a bit uncertain about where we stood.  “So… we’ll meet back up tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he said tersely, and then turned to walk over to his car, parked away from mine.

I let out a breath. Okay. Not too bad, I guess. Somehow I had managed to get through this whole night without making a complete ass of myself. Minor miracle.

Then I heard a crunch of gravel as Dustin spun on his heel and marched back over again. I backed up as he stalked closer, because the look on his face was most certainly not a smile. But then my car was behind me, and he was right in front of me, and… With a bang, he reached out to plant one hand on the car, practically sandwiching me in between him and my Honda Civic. His other hand grabbed my shirt, twisting it to pin me in place. He wasn’t that much taller than me, but it seemed like a lot now as he looked down on me, something dark in his eyes.

“Okay, let’s get a few things straight,” he said, his face way too close to mine. I could feel the heat of his breath. Ironically, the only thought my mind could put together in the moment was… Actually his breath smelled pretty good? He must eat a lot of peppermints or something. But then the sheer panic caught up again. Right. Yes. My eyes skittered back and forth, trying to find a place to look that seemed appropriate.

I opened my mouth to say something, but his eyes narrowed and he shot me another sharp look, so the only thing that came out was a squeak.

“Noelle may like you,” he growled, “though I sure as shit don’t know why. But I don’t. I don’t know who you think you are, or what your game is here, but I’m watching you. Got it?”

I shivered in place, feeling completely overwhelmed. Dustin didn’t look like he was going to let me go though. He was waiting for a response, some kind of acknowledgement. I tried to screw up all of my courage and actually speak.

“Noelle likes me?” I asked in a small voice. Oh, no. Noo. Shit, that wasn’t what I was supposed to say.

Confusion crossed Dustin’s face as he stared at me. “I mean, yeah. Obviously.”

“Why?” I whispered, digging my hole deeper.

Now he looked irritated again. “I just said I didn’t know. C’mon, dude. I’m trying to be intimidating here.” He banged his hand on the roof of my car again.

“Eep! R-r-right,” I said, trembling. “It’s working, I promise! You’re doing great!”

“Oh come on! You—” He let out a frustrated sigh, letting go of my shirt. “Dude. You’re fucking this all up.” He took a step back, still glaring at me.

I took a step forward, closing the distance again. “Um! No, I promise, it was… Hey, let’s just try again? I swear this time I’ll be really scared and impressed.”

“You can’t be supportive when I’m trying to—” He shook his head, jamming his hands into his pockets sullenly as he backed off even more. “Look. I said what I needed to. You get it, right? I’m watching you, and I don’t trust you. If I find out that you’re just using us to… to…”

I blinked. “To… have an excuse to dress up as a girl in front of my entire biology class?”

“Okay,” he said, shoulders slumping. “When you say it that way, it doesn’t make any sense. But there’s something here that’s not right, and... Noelle is my world, okay? I’m not going to let anyone do anything that could hurt her.”

“I promise you,” I said, my voice wavering only slightly, and I hoped in a way that indicated seriousness, not fear. “I would never, ever do anything to hurt her.”

He narrowed his eyes as he gave me a long look. Then with one grim nod, he turned again, and stalked off in the direction of his car.

I let out a breath, leaning for support against the car. I felt like I had just run an entire marathon. What was that? My mind whirled. I clumsily tried to get the door open, succeeding only on my third or fourth try. Even when I got inside, I just sat there, staring at my steering wheel.

No, but, like, what the fuck was that?

I was going to have dreams about his face being that close. Well, uh, nightmares, I mean. Obviously. Because that feeling, of being pinned in place, it just… washes over you entirely, you know? Like it was like one of those fight or flight things, but then you can’t do either? And then it activates some undeveloped part of your brain that just utterly freaks out. My heart was still pounding.

God, what had I even said to him? It was all kind of a blur now. I hope he didn’t hate me. Well, I guess obviously he did hate me, that was the point of that whole interaction, but I hope he… didn’t think I was weird?

This was going to make tomorrow awkward for sure. But who was I kidding? Tomorrow was already going to be awkward. I took some more deep breaths, letting them out slowly. At least I was starting to calm down a bit. All of that would be a problem for tomorrow. I just needed to go home and get some much-needed rest. I felt like today had lasted two or three infinities, and I was definitely getting wound up so tight at this point that if I wasn’t careful, something inside me was about to snap.

And then a sharp rap on my windshield made me jump and just about pass out from complete too much.

Dustin was standing outside of my window.

I hastily started trying to roll it down, cursing my cheap car and its crappy manual windows. Once I had gotten it open a few inches, he leaned down. But he didn’t look angry, at least not in the same way as before. There was some frustration still, but he looked kind of... embarrassed?

“Hey,” he said, after a moment of hesitation. “So, my car won’t start. You think you could give me a ride home?”

rooibos_chai

Her boyfriend's a dick
And he brings a gun to school
And he'd simply kick
My ass if he knew the truth
He lives on my block
And he drives an IROC

But he doesn't know who I am
And he doesn't give a damn about me

Wheatus, "Teenage Dirtbag" (2000)