Be a girl

For the first time in a long time, I felt happy. Like a veil I hadn’t even realised I was wearing had suddenly been lifted, and I could see properly for the first time. All the girls agreeing to treat me like one of their own filled me with a warm, fuzzy feeling deep in my core. I was still nervous of course, which manifested itself as a tightness in my chest. But the elation within me made the anxiety much easier to ignore.

Looking around the room, all the girls were smiling at me. Those feelings from earlier, that I didn’t belong, that I was an imposter, had suddenly washed away. What did I do to deserve such good friends? Even if it was just for tonight, I was one of the girls, and it was the best feeling in the world. They had silenced the voice in my head that whispered to me that I would never get to be a girl. It had no power over me tonight.

Claire pressed her index finger against her chin pensively. “You know. If we’re gonna treat you like a girl, you’re gonna need a girl’s name,” she said.

My face immediately went flush. She was right of course. If we were committing to this, then I would need a girl’s name.

Before I could even think about what name I wanted to be called, Rachel butted in. “Yeah! ‘Ben’ is too much of a boy’s name. But what’s the feminine version of ‘Ben’? ‘Benjamina’?”

“Rachel, no offence, that’s a terrible name,” Izzy said, which prompted a stuck out tongue from Rachel. “It doesn’t need to be a feminine version of ‘Ben’.”

“Well, have you got any suggestions?” Rachel snarked playfully.

Izzy shrugged. “I’m terrible with names. I’ve got nothing.”

“Well at least I had a suggestion!”

The two bickered amongst themselves back and forth for a bit. Rachel would suggest a name, which Izzy would then shut down. Rachel seemed to have a talent for coming up with names on the spot, but it was quantity over quality. All of them were terrible, and Izzy was right to tell her that. Claire remained quiet. She simply stared at me.

Tuning out Rachel and Izzy, I thought about a girl’s name I could give myself. One immediately appeared in my mind. It had been stuck there for weeks now, ever since Claire mentioned it. Like a worm, it had wriggled its way into my brain and found a happy home there. Out of the way, and yet hard to ignore, especially after Claire had deflected when I asked about it.

I suddenly realised why she had remained quiet while the other two were brainstorming. She’d already offered her suggestion. Weeks ago.

Bea.

A B-E-A-utiful name for a girl, she’d said. And I agreed. A very Claire suggestion, but I liked it. It already had that personal touch since it was my initials turned into a name.

A knowing smirk appeared on her face once I’d realised the name by which I wanted to go. “I have a suggestion,” she said, quieting the other two. I blushed even harder than I already was. She knew. And she knew that I knew that she knew. Damn it, Claire!

Granted, it was probably better this way. There was no chance in my current state that I’d be able to speak loud enough to get Rachel and Isabel to stop brainstorming. And I definitely wouldn’t be able to actually say the name out loud either. My anxiety was through the roof, my face was boiling from being so flushed; I was a complete mess. Talking was out of the question until I could manage to calm down.

“What’s your idea, Claire?” Rachel asked.

Claire shot me a knowing smirk. Her head rested lazily in her hand, elbow on the desk. “Bea,” she said after a short moment of quiet.

“Cute,” Isabel commented before turning to me with a sweet smile. “What do you think?”

I wanted to say that I liked it. That I wanted them all to call me that. But all that came out was a flustered squeak. I was so utterly, hopelessly useless right now.

“I think she likes it,” Claire smirked.

‘She’. Claire had called me ‘she’. The word struck me like a lightning bolt straight through my heart. My hands instantly flew to cover my face. I couldn’t handle this. It was too much for me. But I didn’t want them to stop. I just needed some time to calm down. To collect myself.

Not that they would allow me that.

“Nah, look, she doesn’t like it,” Rachel said, and she couldn’t have been more wrong. Another wave of euphoria washed over me, and I felt I might drown in it. All she did was use a different pronoun to refer to me, so why did it feel so good? It shouldn’t, should it? But it did.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Claire said. She addressed me next, “What do you think, Bea, do you like the name?”

Somehow, being called ‘Bea’ felt even better than ‘she’. It just felt… right. As though it really were my name, even though it wasn’t. Like ‘Ben’ had always been a false pseudonym that never truly belonged to me; a label that had been applied to me without my input, and one I simply accepted because there was no other option. A moniker that I begrudgingly endured because everyone said I had to.

Unable to speak, I responded with a nod. My hands remained covering my face as I was far too overwhelmed at the moment. Maybe this was a bad idea. I was too flustered to function – would I remain like this for the rest of the night? If so, how could I survive several hours in such a state? But it felt so good. It was a high I’d never even realised existed up until this point. And all I could do was stand here, basking in its warmth.

Claire hugged me once again, and this time I leant into her embrace. Finally, I took my hands off my face, and wrapped my arms around her waist. Another pair of arms joined the fray, wrapping themselves around both Claire and me. Then another.

I needed this. All of it. For so long I had been living in the depths of despair. But my friends had offered me a helping hand and pulled me out. I wished I could stay like this forever. No worries in the world. Only bliss.

We all broke free from the group hug, and I realised that the feelings of being an imposter seemed like a distant dream. It was hard to imagine that those feelings were even real anymore. So long as I could convince myself that I was indeed one of the girls, then I would feel like I belonged, and the girls referring to me as though I was one of them helped immensely. Quieting the voice inside my head – the horrible, dreadful, despicable voice – with their affirming words.

They did give me some time to collect myself, to come down from the high that they’d brought on. Sure, I was over the moon, but it turned out to be hard to breathe up there, what with the vacuum and all. A few minutes later, my heart rate had died down, and my larynx had returned from vacation.

“How are you feeling, Bea?” Claire asked kindly.

I smiled up at her. “Good,” I said, and for once, that wasn’t a lie.

“Alright,” Claire said, clapping her hands together loudly, “now that this is officially a girls’ night, we should do some girl stuff.”

“And pray tell what is ‘girl stuff’?” Rachel asked with a devious smile on her face.

“I dunno. I’ve only been a girl for a few weeks. I’m new to this!”

Rachel’s sinister grin grew wider. “Well, since you’re new to this we better give you a lesson! You see, the first activity on a girls’ night is that we always take each other’s bras off and compare the size of our breasts.”

“Really?” Claire asked, nonplussed.

The other girl nodded vigorously. “Mhmm! And then we have a big make out session together.”

“Wow, I had no idea!”

Rachel nodded once again to really hammer her point home. At least until she could no longer keep a straight face. She snorted, and wheezed, then cackled like a witch, so overwhelmed with giggles that she was rolling around on Izzy’s bed from the convulsions.

“No, you dork!” she cackled, still barely able to contain herself. “You really are new to this, huh? That’s what horny straight dudes think we do. Or at least, what I convince them that we do. Idiots lap it up too. Hilarious stuff.”

Unsurprisingly, Claire was very embarrassed that she’d fallen for Rachel’s silly ruse. It was a rather ridiculous claim she had made after all. Though she was right in that it did seem like something straight out of a straight boy’s fantasy. I’d spent enough time around those types of guys long enough at my old school. I shuddered at the memory, glad to no longer be at that school anymore.

Rachel looked over at Izzy and burst into another fit of laughter. My eyes glanced over in her direction too, only to see the poor girl’s face so red it almost matched the roses on her dress. I imagined that was about how I looked only a few minutes ago.

“Pfft, looks like Izzy likes my idea!” Rachel chortled. That only prompted the flustered girl to cover her face in embarrassment. I couldn’t quite understand why Isabel might enjoy Rachel’s suggestion; it didn’t exactly sound like my idea of fun. Seeing my friends topless, or kissing them, were thoughts I’d never considered before, nor did I want to. The only reason I was even thinking about it was because Rachel mentioned it.

Managing to control her boisterous laughter down to a mere excitable giggle, Rachel said, “Man, I can’t believe I didn’t realise that Izzy’s gay sooner! Girl, you are hopeless!”

“Leave her alone, Rach,” Claire said.

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry.” Rachel let out a deep breath in an attempt to stop laughing, only to giggle once again. With a second exhale, she finally managed to contain her laughter.

“Good,” Claire said, smiling over at Izzy who had calmed down somewhat. She was still red in the face, but less so than before. “How are you feeling Izzy?” The poor girl simply nodded.

“Alright, well, as much as Izzy clearly liked my idea, I don’t think we’re having a make out session tonight,” Rachel said, lying on Izzy’s bed with her chin resting in her hands, and kicking her feet in the air behind her. “Any ideas for what we could actually do?”

“You’re the expert,” Claire quipped. “Me and Bea are both new to all this.”

“I’d hardly call myself an expert on girly stuff,” Rachel replied.

“But we still need to think of something to do.”

“We could paint each other’s nails,” Izzy squeaked.

We all stared at her. She still looked rather flustered, but had calmed down a bit since Rachel’s teasing. Rachel shrugged. “Sure. Although I’m not sure I trust Claire to do a good job.”

“Excuse me!” Claire exclaimed, placing her hands on her hips. “I’ll have you know I have perfectly steady hands!”

“Prove it!”

“Sure!”

The two both scrambled to their feet, while Izzy went and grabbed all the bottles of nail polish she owned. She had a nice range of colours, ranging from soft blues and purples to bright pinks and rich reds. Rachel snatched up a bottle of blue nail polish and handed it to Claire, then sat down in Izzy’s desk chair and held out her fingers for Claire to paint.

Meanwhile, Izzy turned her attention to me, and asked, “What colour would you like your nails painted?” My heart skipped a beat as I remembered that I was also included in this activity. I could hardly believe it. Having my own nails painted? It felt surreal.

But I immediately remembered that I was still wearing my gloves, and I didn’t want to take them off. I showed my hands to Izzy and shot her a concerned glance. “It’s ok,” she whispered, looking over at the other two to make sure they weren’t listening. They were too wrapped up in their own world to notice us. “I can just paint your toenails if you’d like.”

I nodded and sighed. “Thank you.” Izzy was always so understanding.

“What colour would you like?”

Now that was an excellent question, and a hard decision. I’d never had my nails painted before. And I loved all the colours. I probably would have preferred to go with the soft blue that Rachel chose, but she got in first, and I didn’t want to ask if I could use it too. Instead, I chose out a pretty lilac colour.

Izzy smiled at me and patted the ground beside her, motioning for me to sit. I obliged and removed both my shoes and socks to give her easy access to my toenails. She gently gripped my toes and began to paint them. It was somewhat uncomfortable to have someone handle my feet in such a delicate manner, but I did my best to ignore the discomfort. I just hoped she wouldn’t accidentally tickle me.

While Izzy got to work, I looked over at the other two girls. Claire had a strained expression on her face. She was concentrating heavily on the task of painting Rachel’s fingernails, so much so that her tongue was sticking out, and I wasn’t sure whether she realised or not. Rachel certainly wasn’t saying anything on the matter, instead just giving her friend a smug grin.

Finally, Claire finished her brush stroke. “Nailed it!” she cheered.

“Don’t get too cocky,” Rachel snorted, “You’ve still got nine more to go!”

To her credit, Claire did paint Rachel’s other nails much faster than the first. She was starting to get the hang of it. Izzy however was much more practised, and managed to finish painting all my nails in the time it took Claire to paint just one of Rachel’s hands.

I stared down at my toes and waggled them. The bubbly feelings pulsing throughout me were indescribable. I’d always wondered what it would be like to have my nails painted, and now I no longer had to. It was amazing. Warmth radiated through my chest. I was in bliss. I would have liked to thank Izzy, but I was simply too overwhelmed by emotion to speak. I didn’t mind.

Izzy sat down beside me and handed me a bottle of rich magenta nail polish. She smiled at me and held out her fingers delicately. I gulped. I wasn’t sure I trusted myself to paint Izzy’s nails for her; I couldn’t understand how she trusted me.

But she still waited expectantly, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. She was my friend after all, and she had done nothing but treat me well. I eyed the bottle nervously, and slowly unscrewed the top. I cautiously pulled out the brush and held it towards Izzy’s hands.

Izzy placed her hand firmly on the floor, to make it easier to keep still, and gently instructed me through the process of painting her nails. She told me not to worry about missing and accidentally painting her skin; she could clean it up later.

I put all my focus into the activity, not daring to let a single stray thought distract me. I needed to get this right on the first try. I wanted to impress. I probably pulled a face similar to Claire, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was doing a perfect job.

I let out a sigh of relief when I was finally done. Izzy looked at her freshly painted nails, and smiled at me, telling me that I’d done a good job. I smiled back.

“Izzy, Izzy, look,” Claire exclaimed, rushing over to us. She displayed her fingernails proudly to us and grinned. Rather than pick out a single colour like the rest of us, Claire had asked Rachel to paint her nails in a specific pattern. Each hand was painted symmetrically, starting with a pale blue on the thumbs, a soft pink next, then white, then pink, and back to blue once again.

“You would,” Izzy giggled, and Claire’s grin stretched even wider.

I basked in the moment. I was still struggling to comprehend that this was really happening. Not only did I have friends who went out of their way to include me, we’d even painted each other’s nails. It was like a dream come true. Everything felt so right.

Right here, right now, I was Bea, a girl hanging out with her friends at a girly sleepover. I wanted this moment to last forever.