Chapter 1: Gail
Maybe it started before I encountered Lance staring at me at that party over a decade ago, but I knew my brain had blocked a lot of the thoughts and things I wished I could and wanted to do back then.
I was talking with a lot of the girls for appearance, to please my parents at the time, but no one had really taken my fancy; if anything, I just wanted to be them. I remember feeling someone watching me. I scanned the room casually and spotted the culprit. A young boy whose name I didn’t know the name of at the time. When he realized I noticed, he blushed and quickly looked away. It infuriated me at the time. Why was he looking at me? He excused himself from the conversation he was having with a young dark-skinned girl at the time and fled.
My anger urged me to follow him, and follow I did. I followed him to the bathroom and found him attempting to compose himself in a stall. I waited for him to come out. He looked less flushed now, but that didn’t last for long as my anger took over and I pushed him up against the stall. He was struggling at first, but I was older and bigger, so it was futile.
“I saw you staring. What are you, a queer?” I exclaimed.
He froze, fear filling his dark irises.
“Answer me,” I demanded coldly.
I regretted it, but then, I was just angry and exercising the power I thought I had. Really, I was just as scared as Lance was.
His eyes turned glassy, but he didn’t speak. Eventually, I dropped him and left him there. I retreated away, scared he would report the violence or words I had said to someone, and it would get back to my parents. I could have been mistaken for all we knew; maybe he wasn’t staring.
I went outside and stayed out there; that was where my parents found me later when it was time to leave, too.
“What are you doing out here?” my father asked.
“I’m ready to go home, I’ve had enough partying and mild conversation for one night,” I reply quietly.
When I got home, it was late, and my parents retired to their room pretty quickly. I went into my room and stripped out of my clothing and down to my boxers. As much as people admired my looks, the black hair and unusually pale eyes, both my father and I and my grandfather had all had for generations in this family, I never liked what I saw. My clothes felt awkward and stiff.
I thought about what I would look like in dresses and with longer hair that I could hide behind. I knew my parents would never accept it, though. I crawled into bed, and my dreams were filled with the dresses, gowns, pretty hats and the perfect features and the body I wanted, and had dreamed of since I was a toddler.
A few weeks passed, and I ventured out of our castle to a neighbouring kingdom to do some shopping for my mother’s birthday. I wandered through some clothing and jewelry stores looking for something she would like. I paused in the hat section of a store, looking at a hat with a large feather on it. It was one of those ones that were popular in the late 1800s to early 1900s, with a large black and white feather draped over the side. I liked it, but I knew my mother wouldn’t, and I’d never be able to wear it outside the four walls of my room, so what would be the point of getting it?
I reached out and ran my fingers along the feather before looking around cautiously and taking it off the rack when I made sure no one was around. I stepped a few feet over to a mirror and placed the hat on my head. I fixed it until it sat comfortably on my head. I studied my reflection and smiled briefly.
“That looks cute on you,” I hear someone comment.
I froze briefly before quickly taking the hat off and looking over at where the voice came from. I saw a young girl with dark skin and brown and golden corkscrew curls. She was wearing a bright orange dress that really stood out. She was pretty and looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her to a time, name or memory as to why or where I’d seen her before.
“You should put it back on. I was being serious,” she comments when I don’t say anything.
“Men don’t wear these kinds of hats. I was more so trying to get an idea of what it would look like on my mother, but she probably wouldn’t like it anyway,” I replied, shaking my head before taking a step towards the place where the hat was originally hanging.
The girl grabbed my wrist, and I felt a spark run up my arm as she took the hat from me and placed it back on my head.
“Pirates wear hats like these; men’s clothing is so boring most of the time anyway,” she comments. “And where does it say this is a woman’s hat, huh?”
“It’s in the women’s section, I’m looking for my mother, need I remind you?” I reply again, reaching up and taking the hat off again.
“Maybe I can help you,” she states. “As a woman, maybe I’d know what she’d like,” she comments.
I smiled, “Okay, lead the way. But my mother’s never been easy to shop for,” I warn her.
“We’ll see about that, my name’s Zara by the way,” she adds.
I followed her through stores trying to describe things my mother did like, and wore or had in the castle, without giving away too much information. I could only imagine the rumours that would get out if she found out who I was and how she’d met me.
Sure, the story was cute and funny now, but back then. I worried about my reputation and image getting destroyed.
She brought me to a dress store and was looking through some of the selections when I spotted a dark purple dress that caught my eye. I reached out and touched the sparkly pattern; it was silky and soft. Zara noticed.
“That one’s pretty, not sure if it’s your mother’s style though,” she comments.
She wasn’t wrong.
“You weren’t looking at it for her, were you?” she commented.
I froze again like I did when she saw me in the hat, but dropped the part of the dress I was holding quickly, I couldn’t feed into this want, it was sick. I was sick. Boys didn’t wear dresses or feathered hats.
Zara quickly located the dress again and pulled it out again. It was long, clearly made for someone tall.
She held it up against me.
“Zara, what if somebody sees?” I asked, worriedly looking around.
“Who cares?” she comments.
I glare at her.
She glares back, taking my wrist and hauling me off to a dressing room. Once the attendant who showed us to the fitting room left, Zara and I went inside and locked the door. She hung the dress up on a rung before turning to me.
“No one’s going to see you in here, now just try it on,” she reasoned.
I hugged my shoulders, uncomfortable once again with myself.
“Come on, a dress never hurt anyone, it’s just a piece of cloth that society gave a gender at some point, you know, a long time ago, all children, boys and girls wore dresses,” she comments.
“We don’t even know if it will fit,” I comment quietly.
“I’m a pretty good judge of size, I think it will. Just try it on. I promise I won’t tell anyone,” she continues.
I caved, not seeing another way out of this. I had gotten myself into this mess, and now I had to live with it. I gently tugged on the buttons of my suit and hung up the coat, the button-up shirt and my dress pants so they didn’t get too wrinkled. I was left in my boxers.
I felt extremely uncomfortable, and bare in front of Zara. She took the dress down off the hanger and unzipped it before handing it over to me. I took it gently and lowered it so I could step inside and pull it up around my waist. I put my arms into the long sleeves, and once everything was in place, Zara zipped it up. She went around fixing it a bit before she turned me towards the mirror.
“You’re beautiful,” she exclaimed.
My hands went to my hips. My facial hair wasn’t thick like my father’s yet, since I was still young, now I just wish my chest would fill out the dress a bit more and that I had long hair instead of short.
No one had ever said that before, either. You’re beautiful.
They had called me handsome and charismatic, a myriad of words used to describe men, but never beautiful. No one had ever told me it was okay to want any of this, not society, not my family, no one. I didn’t even know who this girl was, but she had broken down the many walls I’d spent nearly two decades building and hiding behind, pretending to be the perfect heir for my parents and kingdom.
I removed the dress with a little help from Zara this time, and once I was safely back in my own clothing, I handed it back to her.
“Denial just makes us miserable, you know,” she commented quietly. “You won’t be happy if you deny yourself what you want or who you are.”
“Zara, you don’t know what my family is like. This isn’t about just me; people are depending on me, and I can’t just play dress-up whenever I want to. People won’t like it either,” I reason.
“You looked happy in the feather hat, and in that dress, you were a completely different person. This isn’t about them. You deserve to be happy regardless of what others want or think,” she argues.
“I can’t do this,” I exclaim.
“Why? Who cares about what others think? If you’re miserable and this makes you happy, you should be able to do it. Why doesn’t your family want you to be happy? They should love you no matter how your happiness looks,” she continues.
“When you’re royalty, image comes first over happiness,” I confess, not knowing what else to do at this point.
“That’s a load of bullshit,” she cursed. “My parents would never make me miserable just to uphold their image. Happy, healthy rulers equal a happy, healthy kingdom.”
“That might be how it works where you come from, but it’s not where I come from,” I reply sadly.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
It wouldn’t take long for her to find out who I was. My features were pretty recognizable.
“Gareth Kingsley,” I admitted.
“Zara Carver,” she introduced herself fully in return.
“Maybe you should come visit my kingdom and see how it is run, as its heir and a female, it is drastically different from other kingdoms,” she comments, smiling. “You could also use the time to comfortably explore yourself away from the public’s eyes,” she adds.
“Won’t your parents care?” I ask.
“Someone like me wouldn’t have been seen as royalty very long ago. We fought to get to where we are. People who are different are welcomed, not shunned, where we come from,” she replies.
“Okay,” I reply.
“Good, and I’ll be buying this for you,” she comments, holding up the dress.
I follow her to the front desk, and she pays for the dress.
“It’ll be waiting for you at my castle when you’re ready,” she comments before handing me her number and departing.
In the end, I hadn’t found anything for my mother, but I had found some place more interesting that I wanted to explore for myself.
