Keith

I was halfway through my drive home before I realized that I had what could very easily be construed as a date that night. “OH, CRAP!” I screamed while stuck at a red light.

The car in front of me, a red convertible helmed by a gym bro with guns of steel, honked real loud when I did that. In the lane next to me, an old lady in a jeep gave me the finger and shouted, “we’re all gridlocked just the same as you, you little shit!”

I heaved a heavy sigh and drummed my fingers on the wheel until finally, blissfully, mercifully, the light changed and I got to continue my drive home.

My parents were finishing up a sale of a pair of swim trunks to a father and son duo when I marched in. “Hey, kiddo, what’s going on?” Mom asked. 

“I messed up.”

“Is it a legal issue?” Dad asked, not looking up from the abacus he was crunching numbers with. 

“Hm, no, a personal problem,” I said, drumming my fingers rapidly on the front desk. 

“Are you on drugs?” Dad asked. “Because the course of operations depends highly on what drugs we’re talking about-”

“It’s not drugs, either,” I said. 

“Is it a girl?” Mom said, raising both eyebrows and pressing her hands together. 

“A boy, actually,” I said. 

“Ooooohhhhh,” Mom said, smiling. “I see. Didn’t expect this one, but-”

“No, not like that,” I said hurriedly. “Well, kinda.”

“Kinda?” Mom asked. 

“It’s not a date- it’s not supposed to be one, but I’m worried it might be!”

“Do you want it to be?” Mom said. 

I hesitated, ran my top teeth over my lower lip. An image ran through my mind of me in that dress again, my hair done up and makeup on my face, and Underhill… Zeke at the door with a bundle of flowers in his hands, dressed in that tux he’d rocked yesterday, leaning in for a-

BAD! BAD BAD BAD! You don’t like boys! Bad brain! “... No,” I said, in a low, soft voice. 

Mom and Dad side-eyed each other in a way even a moron like me could tell meant they didn’t believe it. Finally, Mom sighed lightly, and said, “Then it’s not a date.”

“It’s not?” I said, hoping they didn’t hear the note of disappointment I detected in my own voice. 

“In my experience, it’s only a date if the girl says it is,” Dad said. 

“But I’m not a…,” I started, before trailing off. I wasn’t sure how to finish. 

“Your father is half right,” Mom said. “It’s only a date if both parties agree it is. You don’t want it to be a date, so it’s not a date. Does this boy want it to be a date?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” I said. The disappointment rang clear as a bell that time. Did I want it to be a date? No, that’s ridiculous, I’m not gay. 

Wait, no, that’s not… If I am a girl, then that would make me gay.

Okay, so it’s not a date because I’m a lesbian 

Or, I would be a lesbian if I were a girl, which I’m still not one hundred percent sure that I am. 

Right?

Mom turned to Dad and said, “Honey-bunch, could you mind the shop for a few minutes while I talk to our daughter upstairs?”

“No problem at all, sweetheart,” Dad said, going back to fiddling with his abacus. 

The warm, fuzzy, rapturous rush of euphoria threatened to boil every last trace of boy out of my brain at the words ‘our daughter.’ They really thought of me as their… They… My own parents were convinced I was a girl. Zeke probably was as well. I was currently the biggest hold out at only like forty… Fifty… Seventy-five percent sure I was a girl. 

Okay, let’s entertain the idea for a moment that I am a girl. As far as Zeke was concerned, he’d gotten brunch with a girl, who’d then asked her to hang out at her place later that night. Said girl was, in his parlance, pretty, and had a bunch of things in common with him. And they’d held hands and shared a milkshake already. 

Crap!

Okay, the smart thing to do was to make it clear to him that this wasn’t a date. Guys hated being led on- I knew that much from experience- so the intelligent thing, and the moral thing, would be to tell him in no uncertain terms that we were only going to be friends who watched anime and got food together. 

I was so caught up in my own thoughts I barely realized Mom had led me upstairs and was holding dresses in front of me. “Um, what are you doing?” 

“Oh, just experimenting,” Mom said. “Let’s start at the beginning- what’s this boy’s name?”

“Zeke Underhill.”

“Zeke Under- wasn’t he one of those boys who beat you last year in the finals?”

“One of those people- he’s the only boy on the team,” I corrected her. 

“Ah, of course,” Mom said. “You certainly have a history with him- what did you invite him to do with you, exactly?”

I back-filled her with the most recent events pertaining to all this, and she nodded while holding dozens of different dresses in front of me. There was no way she’d made all of these for me, right? Surely not- I’d seen most of these in the display window at some point, but nobody had bought them. I couldn’t imagine why- they were positively adorable. 

We’re using words like adorable now, brain? When did this happen?!

“Hmmm,” Mom said. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but he might think this is a date.”

I sighed. 

“But you can see it as an opportunity instead of that,” Mom said. 

“An opportunity for what?”

“To dress up,” Mom said. “Show your true self- or at least your hidden self- to somebody outside the family, someone who already knows and whom you know is cool with all this. Plus, it’s letting bygones be bygones with someone who you got off on the wrong foot with. And, on top of all that, making friends is always easier when you’re being your most authentic self.”

“Are you saying I should dress up,” I said, taking a sleeveless blue maxi-dress out of her hands and holding it against my stomach. 

“I’m suggesting it, yes,” Mom said. “But only if you want to.”

My hands trembled. 

“I’ll do your makeup for you,” Mom offered. 

I breathed in deep through my nose, out through my mouth. Then I nodded. “Let’s do this.”

The hours flew by as I tried on a dozen different dresses, finally settling on a hot pink shirt-dress that stopped just above my knees. Mom helped me with my hair and makeup, narrating the endeavor as she went so that I could take mental notes in case I ever wanted to do this myself. I watched the process carefully, trying to commit each individual step to memory. 

Finally, when it was over, I took stock of myself in the mirror, and… 

And… 

“Whoa,” I said, my eyes going wide at the side of the cute girl in the cute dress with the perfect makeup and the collar length hair brushed out and blown dry and pushed back by a white headband. I was wearing foundation, and red lipstick, and dark eyeshadow, and mascara that made my blue eyes look huge. 

“Thank you, I like to think I do good work,” Mom said. 

“Y-you do,” I said, reaching out and poking the mirror. And the girl in the cute dress did the same. Because that girl was me, and I was… 

And I am-

“Kate, your friend is here!” Dad called from downstairs. 

I gulped, then Mom gestured me towards the door. I moved for it, then she said, “Wait.”

“What?” I said, stopping in the doorway. 

“The piece de resistance,” Mom said, reaching behind her neck and removing the golden butterfly necklace, then putting it around my throat. “Perfect. You look beautiful. My beautiful daughter. All ready for her not-date.”

“It’s not a not-date,” I said. “Wait a minute, it’s not a not-not-”

Mom just laughed, and said, “Go get ‘im, tiger.”

I glided downstairs barefoot, the dress’ skirt bouncing about around my legs, warmth and giddiness bubbling up inside me. Zeke stood in the landing next to the back door, which led to the staircase that brought you to our apartment above the shop. He didn’t bring flowers, but he was holding a big box of pizza, which was even better given how hungry I was. And he wasn’t wearing a tux, but he was clad in a suit jacket over a tight-fitting t-shirt, as well as skinny jeans and converse. His hair was combed, parted to the right, and he had that big, stupid, handsome smile on his face. 

I’m a lesbian, I’m a lesbian, I repeated inside my mind, Or I would be a lesbian if I were a girl, which I’m still not decided if I am-

“Wow,” Zeke said as I met him at the base of the stairwell. “You look beautiful.”

My jaw dropped, and a smile crept onto my face as I broke off eye contact and chuck… Giggled. I didn’t have a chuckle, I had a giggle, apparently. Probably had one my whole life, and nobody had the decency to tell me when it was no doubt exceedingly obvious to anyone who wasn’t me.  “Thank you,” I finally managed to say over the crowd-like scream of my own pulse. “Let’s take things up to my room,” I said, cocking my head back. 

“Forward, aren’t we?” he smirked. 

I blushed, realizing what I’d just said. “Oh, shut up. Come on.”

“Okay!” he smiled. That big, toothy, handsome… Handsome?

Handsome. It was okay for me to admit he was handsome. There was nothing wrong with me acknowledging he was handsome, that didn’t necessarily mean anything, I was allowed to think a guy was handsome as I invited him into my room. A girl was allowed to think a guy was handsome, even if she was a… 

A… 

Lesbian?

A lesbian, yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

I set up a picnic blanket on the hardwood floor of my room for us to eat on, then went and got some plates and napkins from the kitchen. Zeke made himself at home, sitting on the blanket and looking around. “Nice room. Love all your figures and model kits!”

“Thanks!” I smiled. “My parents got me into making them. They actually met at a model building contest.”

“There are model building contests?” Zeke asked. 

“Yeah, mostly at anime cons,” I said, sitting down next to him.

“Hm, neat. Can’t say I’ve ever been to one.”

“Never?” I balked. 

“Not a once,” Zeke said. “No cons at all, actually.”

“Seriously?” 

“Seriously,” Zeke repeated. “My folks were never big on anything they considered a waste of time. You can imagine how they feel about the whole competitive robot fighting thing.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry,” I said, my brow furrowing and my eyes going wide. “My parents have always been so chill… I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a playful wave of his hand. “Maybe we can go to one sometime.”

A gulp caught in my throat. He was asking me to- and that was- planning a second- he couldn’t possibly be- “T-together?” I asked, my pulse quickening. 

“Yeah, all three of us!” Zeke said. “Faith has been saying for a while how much she wants to go to one soon- something about wanting to try cosplay.”

“Oh,” I said, “Right.” I hoped the clear note of disappointment in my voice wasn’t as audible to him as it was for me. All three of us. He wanted us all to be friends- that was probably all he wanted. A thought popped up inside my head, and I tried my best to stomp it out, but it wouldn’t die: I was disappointed that this wasn’t a date. . 

I opened the box of pizza sitting in front of me, and my mouth watered at the sight of it. “Is this… What I think it is?” I said, pressing my hands together and looking at Zeke expectantly. 

“A pineapple, bacon, and jalapeno pizza,” Zeke said with a nod. 

“A PB&J!” I said, bouncing up and down where I sat. 

“You like that? Good,” he said. 

“Love it- it’s my favorite!” 

“Cool! Mine too! I never get to eat them, though.”

“Lemme guess, Faith isn’t a fan?”

“Jalapenos are a no-go-zone for her,” Zeke said as he helped himself to two slices. “Also, she’s skeptical of the concept of pineapple on pizza.”

“Philistine.”

“Heh, that’s what I call her sometimes too.”

I smiled as a warm fluttering sensation ran through my chest. I wanted to stamp it out, but… I also didn’t. “So, ready to watch some Gundam?”

“Hell yeah I am!”

“You ever seen the OG?”

“Nah. How’s it hold up?”

“Goofy in places, jank as hell in others, but still pretty fun,” I said. 

“Aight then, let’s do this!” he said, raising his hands into the air like a goober. 

We watched the show, and even though I’d already seen every episode twice, I can’t for the life of me recall anything that happened in it that night. I kept looking over at Zeke, seeing his facial reactions and body language, letting that warm feeling I got from sitting next to him and watching him be his goofy self stoke into a full-on fire. It filled me up, and by the end of the night, an entire pizza and two hours worth of anime later, I admitted to myself how much I wanted this to be a date. 

Crap.