I stood with my little brother as we waved goodbye to our parents. They set off on their week-long business trip. Since I’m 18 and the older sister, I’m responsible for my 14-year-old brother Brian. Yeah, there weren’t any grad parties to go to this late in June so I didn’t technically have anything else to do, but I still didn’t want to babysit. I would have rather been out with my besties. I had only become Sherri Moore about a year ago and the fervor of feminine friendship was still fresh. Still, I have a responsibility as an older sibling, even if it’s now the responsibility of an older sister rather than an older brother. 

 

“Come on Brian, let’s finish lunch.” I said as I ushered him back to the kitchen. We sat and ate our sandwiches in relative peace. He dug into his Italian sandwich while I nibbled at my turkey on wheat. Mayonnaise dribbled onto his plate as I thought of how fast my metabolism used to be. Spironolactone had slowed that down like crazy, but I still managed to keep a nice figure. 

 

While we washed up, Brian asked, “Hey sis, do you think we could play crabapple war today?” Crabapple war was something we played when we were younger. We would go in the backyard and hide behind the trees as we tried to hit each other with crabapples. I had fun playing with him, but it was just so muddy and boyish I didn’t want to be anywhere near that anymore. 

 

His big green eyes almost made me concede, but the activity was just so entirely not what I wanted to do anymore. I decided to let him down easy as I said, “It’s too rainy for that today.” He looked so dejected I had to add, “Maybe you could ask some of your friends.” He continued to sulk off to his room after that. 

 

I had never actually seen Brian play crabapple war with his friends before. I actually hadn’t seen his friends around much this past year. His friends seemed to take to puberty a lot better than him. I thought maybe he could’ve been like me, but I was pretty sure I was just projecting. Maybe this was just how some teenagers acted. 

 

I went up to my room and sat down at my laptop. I had it on this vanity my mom got me when I came out. My room was still pretty boyish, it didn’t really make sense to replace everything when I was gonna move out to college pretty soon. I still had my blue walls and my old king sized bed, but along with the vanity I had added some pink bean bag chairs to fem it up a little bit. My DVD collection had a lot more chick flicks in it as well. 

 

I pulled my rolling armchair up to vanity and started up a playlist of the newest makeup videos. These videos had helped me learn fast when I just came out. Now I used them to stay on the cutting edge of style. I tied my chest length dark brown hair back and got to work replicating the looks. I always liked the way my blonde highlights popped when I put my hair up.

 

After a few videos, Brian came knocking as I was wiping a smokey eye look off. He was dressed in jeans and an older hoodie instead of the black zip-up one he normally wore. He started, “Hey sis –” 

 

“AND THE PLAYERS GONNA PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY, AND THE HATERS GONNA HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE, BUT I’M JUST GONNA –” I stopped my ringtone and answered my phone. It was my friend Courtney. 

 

“Hey girl,” I began, “what’s up?” I stuck a finger out to shush my brother.

 

“Sherri, you gotta get down to the mall. The salon is offering a BOGO spa treatment and Nat and Cass are already here.” Natalie and Cassandra were part of our friend group. 

 

I crinkled up my brow in regret as I answered, “Sorry, you’re gonna have to ask Sierra. I’d love to go but I gotta watch my petulant little brother.” Brian scowled at this remark. 

 

Courtney said, “Good luck with that. Guess I’ll go, kiss kiss.”

 

I responded, “Kiss kiss.” before hanging up. 

 

Brian was fuming at this point. Apparently what he had to say was so important. He shouted, “I wish you wouldn’t call me stuff like that!” 

 

I responded in kind, “I miss when you weren’t such a brat!”

 

“YEAH, WELL I MISS WHEN YOU WERE [DEADNAME]!”

 

That name echoed around the room until it fell into stunned silence. 

 

I was furious. Heavy breaths came snorting out of my nose. I was a bull who had seen red. Forget Brian’s insecurities, forget my projections, if he was willing to say something like that then he was either an incredibly spiky egg at best, or more likely a future transmisogynist at worst. How convenient that both extremes called for the same treatment? 

 

Brian took a step back in fear, but I grabbed him before he could run. I threw him into my chair and used the pink duct tape on my vanity to keep him quiet. I taunted him, “You wanted to play with me so much so I’m gonna teach you a new game.” I grabbed a random assortment of brushes off of the vanity and held them up to his face as I squeed, “MAKEOVER!” 

 

His eyes nearly popped out of his head. He let out a pathetic, “MMMMPPHPPHHHHH!” as he started squirming. I couldn’t let him get off that easily. I taped his arms down to the chair and then secured his ankles to the center pole of the chair. His struggling waned as he seemed to accept that there was no escaping this punishment.

 

“LOVING HIM WAS RED, RE-E-E-ED RE-E-E-ED–” I picked up my phone again. 

 

“Hey Mom!” I answered.

 

“Hi sweetie, we just got to the airport. How are things going with you and Brian.”

 

“Oh things are going great here. Brian is just a doll.” I had to hold back my giggle. I added, “We’re bonding.” 

 

My mom answered, “Oh that’s wonderful to hear.”

 

“Yeah I think we’ll be a lot closer when you get back.”

 

“That’s lovely sweetie. Okay they just called our boarding group so I gotta go.”

 

“Okay, love you, bye, kiss kiss.” I puckered and mockingly did bises to Brian as I put my phone down. 

 

After I butterfly clipped his neck length dark brown hair back, I announced, “Now! Let’s start off with your eyes!” 

 

I started with a dab of eye primer on his eyelids. He squeezed his eyes shut as I rubbed the primer in. I flipped open my Laura Mercier eye art artist’s palette and dipped my eyeliner brush in the dark brown espresso bean color. As my brush approached Brian’s eyes, I could see his pupils shaking. In a reassuring tone I said, “Hold still now and I won’t poke you in the eye.” This seemed to get him to calm down a touch. 

 

I encircled both eyes with the dark brown, and I would say to my credit, without poking him in the eye. I can’t remember how long it took me to master applying eyeliner to myself. I picked espresso bean because even with the smokey eye it gives this lovely doe-y look that is just to die for. I picked up my little sponge and smudged the eyeliner out just a little. Then I went back to the eyeshadow palette with my shadow brush. With the same espresso bean color I made a nice gradient from his upper lash line to the crease. I did the same from the lower lash line and then smudged them both. 

 

The smokey eye was coming along great, but now I had to pick a highlight color for it. Since Brian has green eyes like me, a pink would be a great choice. I wiped my shadow brush before dipping it in the primrose shade. I put it on his upper brow area and it came out perfect. The look needed some mascara. When I put it on him it was a little clumpy so I combed it out. His eyes looked gorgeous.

 

Because of the tape I couldn’t apply the blush where I normally would. I decided to put it on his nose. It’s a look that’s a little bold for me, but it has looked great on Courtney and it apparently looked great on Brian. After blending in the blush with my bigger sponge, I got my highlighter out. I put it on the top side of the apples of his cheek. I do that to make my cheekbone look higher and it worked just as well on him. The makeover was coming along so well I almost forgot it was on my bratty little brother.

 

I suppose I lost track of that because he hadn’t made a peep since I taped him down. I decided he was so quiet I could risk taking off the tape from around his mouth. With a hand on the edge of the tape, I said, “I’m gonna take the tape off so I can do your lips, but I don’t want to hear any screaming.” 

 

Brian gave a quick double nod, and I pulled. 

 

There was no screaming. 

 

“Sis,” he said, “I’m really sorry. I should’ve never called you that.” He gave a downcast look of guilt that looked way more precious due to the makeover. He continued, “I just got mad because I just really wanted to spend time with you. I’m not really friends with the guys at school anymore, they just don’t make sense to me. They call anything that isn’t the manliest thing ever gay or girly. I look at you and I get kinda jealous. You get to go out with your gal pals. You get to be pretty. You get to be girly. You get to be a girl. I just– I just wanna be like you sis.”

 

I wrapped her in a huge hug and whispered in her ear, “You are… sis.”