In My Shoes

by Stephens, Adrian

  “Nikki,” her mother said softly, “your father is just concerned for you is all. I don’t think he’s telling you not to see this boy…”

  “Not at all,” her father said comfortingly. “I just want you to be careful. Be smart. Use your good judgment. And…if you happened to spend more afternoons here than at his house, that wouldn’t be so bad either.

  “That said,” he continued, “you’ve never done anything to take away our trust, so I’m not telling you that you can’t go to his house. Yet,” he said smiling.

  I guessed he was being playful. I tried to give a convincing smile. I don’t know that it worked.

  “Sweetheart,” her mother added, “you know we love you. We don’t want you getting hurt. Jake seems like a nice boy. I’m sure we’ll find that he’s a good person, just like you.”

  I finished eating, and asked to be excused. I went upstairs and into Nicole’s room. My head was spinning. I didn’t really know what to think of all of this. I didn’t really want to think about it, but their words kept popping back into my head. My chest felt heavy.

  Not having my father around is something I’ve had to deal with most of my life. I’ve had times when it hurt a lot. Most of the time, I deal with it just fine. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on a whole lot, but being in this house makes me realize how different my life is from Nicole’s. It makes me sad that her parents are concerned about me because I don’t have a father. I don’t know if that’s a natural parental thing, or what. There are lots of kids out there who are still good people even though they only have one parent.

  After thinking about it for way too long, I got up and tried to finish my studying. It took a lot longer than it should have. I was easily distracted tonight. It was eight o’clock by the time I finished. I had hoped to have more time. I had to take a shower and get dressed for bed, but I needed to find a way to do my hair for tomorrow. My hope was to have some time to research it on the internet and surprise Nicole. If she could see that I learned how to do her hair without her showing me, I thought she might just be impressed.

  I undid the French Braid, showered, dried off, got dressed for bed and blew my hair dry. Nicole has a computer at her desk, so I sat down and got on the internet. I searched for ‘hairstyles for teenage girls.’ I didn’t find a lot there. One website had lots of pictures of popular teenage hairstyles, but no instructions on how to style the hair.

  After about an hour, my head was spinning. I had been to a ton of websites and learned a lot about hair. Nicole apparently had medium length hair with no bangs. Usually, she wore her hair with a part either down the middle or off to one side. Sometimes, her hair was straight and sometimes it was wavy.

  Nicole had several different hair styling accessories. I looked them all up, and identified what they were and how they were used. After everything I learned tonight and with what I learned the other day, I was sure that I could easily do her hair. I was wrong.

  After practicing for a while it was passable, but not nearly as good as I would have liked it. Once I felt somewhat competent with doing her hair, I turned everything off and crawled into bed. The bed felt nice after the long day. Nicole’s bed was definitely more comfortable than mine, not that I’d say that out loud.

  It’s been so difficult to process everything going on around me. There have been so many changes, it was hard to be sure that we were keeping everything together. I don’t think we are forgetting anything important, but I wasn’t confident. The last few nights, I’ve been so exhausted by the time I’ve climbed into bed, that I was out as soon as my head hit…

  DAY 5

  I opened my eyes and let out a sigh. At some point, we have to turn back into ourselves, right? I mean, we can’t stay like this forever. Whatever it is out there that made us like this wouldn’t make us stay like this forever. I have dreams, and most of those dreams don’t center on me being a girl.

  I woke up a little early today so that I’d have extra time to do my…well, Nicole’s…ugh, my hair. I feel like I’m having an identity crisis. I mean, it’s Nicole’s hair, but it’s mine right now. If I start calling her things my things, am I going to lose the ability to recognize myself as Jake? It makes me nervous because I want to be comfortable fitting in Nicole’s shoes, but I don’t want to become too comfortable to the point that I don’t see myself anymore. I wouldn’t think that could happen, but after living in her shoes twenty-four hours a day for more than four days now, I am starting to feel more like her than like me.

  Maybe I’m just being grouchy. I think I’m coming down with something, because I’m achy and my skin feels sensitive. That’s probably not the right word. Agitated maybe. I don’t know. As I’ve learned what is normal for Nicole’s body, I’m aware that I don’t feel right today. It’s probably nothing.

  I trudged out of bed and headed for the closet. Sure enough, I found the clothes that Nicole had organized for me. She had a dress laid out for today, just like she said. Uh-oh. She had some heels going with it. They were very low and wide heels, but they still made me nervous. I figured I would have to wear them at some point, but that didn’t make it any more appealing.

  I took off my night shirt and put it into the laundry basket. Next I grabbed the clothes and laid them out on the bed. Nicole had only set out the dress and the shoes, so I needed to find a matching bra and socks. I went to the dresser and found a bra that was similar in color and she had socks that seemed to be a perfect match for the dress. I put the bra and socks on and went over to the makeup table.

  Nicole told me I should do the hair first, and then do the makeup so I don’t sweat, so that’s what I did. After I finished the hair, I was glad I had given myself the extra time. I needed every minute of it. When it was done, I felt at least good enough about it that I could leave the house. Next I put on the makeup, which still took me twice as long as Nicole. It came out pretty good, though. I mean, I thought I looked pretty, so it must have been okay, right?

  I put on the dress and strapped the heels on, grabbed my things and headed downstairs. Nicole’s mom was in the kitchen already.

  “Morning, Nikki. How did you sleep?” she asked.

  “I slept okay, I think.”

  “Would you like an omelet this morning? Your usual?”

  Whatever my usual is. “Uhh…sure, thanks!”

  She had come over to give me a kiss as she was asking the questions and she looked down at my feet.

  “Sweetheart, you know you can’t wear socks with those shoes, right?”

  “Huh?” I said, looking down.

  “You should be wearing nylons or nothing with those pumps, but definitely not socks.”

  What the heck are pumps? I thought these were heels. “Oh, yeah. I guess I wasn’t thinking. I’ll be right back.”

  I walked up the stairs and into Nicole’s room. I took the shoes and socks off and looked through Nicole’s drawers for nylons. They were in the back of the sock drawer. I sat down on the bed and started putting them on until I realized…I didn’t know if the nylons went on over the underwear or if the underwear went on over the nylons.

  Okay, the nylons didn’t look finished at the top, but underwear was all cute and finished looking. Yes, I was aware how that sounded. So, it seemed logical that the underwear would go on last, right?

  I pulled the underwear off, put the nylons on and put her underwear back on. After putting the shoes back on, I walked back downstairs where Nicole’s mother had breakfast ready.

  “Much better,” she said, smiling.

  “Thanks,” I said appreciatively. One less thing for Nicole to find I did wrong.

  She laid a ham, cheese and green pepper omelet in front of me and I hesitantly started eating it. Omelets aren’t common breakfast in our house, and I’ve never had one with green peppers in it. It was delicious!

  “This is really good,” I said.

  “Glad you like it. Have a good day at school.” With that, she kissed my forehead and walked out of the room.<
br />
  I hadn’t finished my omelet when I received a text from Nicole telling me to meet her outside the locker room before school started. She probably wanted to make sure I wore the right clothes today. Who could blame her?

  Once I finished my omelet, I took my dishes to the sink, cleaned them and put them in the dishwasher. I grabbed my things, got into Nicole’s car and headed to school. It was nice not having to wait for Mike to pick me up for school each day. I could definitely get used to having a car.

  The trip to school seemed short because I was lost in thought. Hopefully today would go more smoothly than the last few days. We have to be getting close to some sort of comfort level, right?

  Nicole wasn’t waiting in front of the locker room when I got there, so I decided to go inside and go to the bathroom while I was waiting for her to arrive. Underwear and nylons down…dress up and forward. Man, I’m glad I’m not usually a girl. Just going to the bathroom is an event.

  I finished up, washed up and walked back outside, where Nicole was now waiting. She looked at me and though she looked relieved at first, her eyes quickly opened wide with panic. She walked up to me, pulled the back of my dress out of my underwear, and looked around to see if anyone was watching. Nobody was in the area.

  Nicole sighed with relief. “You have to be careful not to get your dress ruffle caught in your underwear,” she said quietly, with an effort at patience.

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize…”

  “That’s okay. So, may I ask why it is that you have your panties on over your nylons?”

  There’s a question I never expected to be asked in my lifetime. “Uhh…I thought that’s how they went. I mean, the nylons are unfinished at the top and the underwear, well…is finished. It seemed to make more sense to have the cute underwear on the outside of the nylons.”

  “First of all,” she said with a slight laugh, “who did you think was going to be seeing these? Nobody should be seeing under your dress.”

  “I didn’t really think that mattered. I mean, that theory doesn’t really stop you from buying cute underwear, does it?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “So, the second thing?”

  “Well, I was going to ask why you were wearing nylons, but at least you didn’t wear socks.” At least not outside of the house.

  “For future reference, wearing underwear on the outside of nylons kind of defeats the purpose of the underwear. Some girls just wear nylons without underwear altogether. I wear both, but I wouldn’t have even bothered with nylons for that outfit. So, choose what you want to do and go change before more people arrive.”

  “Okay,” I said, turning to go into the locker room.

  “Oh, no! I forgot to go over how to do your hair. You,” she said grabbing some of my hair, “did a pretty good job. You have to be careful not to put the flat-iron on it too long, but…pretty good. How did you do it?”

  “I remembered your hairstyle you normally wear, and I did lots of research last night.”

  “Impressive, but you could have just called and asked me.”

  “I wanted to see if I could do it on my own.”

  “Well, nice job. Now go. I’ll see you next period.”

  “Wait,” I said, turning back to her, “I almost forgot to ask you…what’s the difference between heels and pumps?”

  “It kind of depends on who you ask. Generally, pumps have heels, but they don’t have straps. What you are wearing are low-heeled pumps. Are you doing okay with them?”

  “I think so. It’s a little awkward, but the heels are wide enough that I’m not having too much trouble.”

  “That’s why I chose them for you. You really should get going before people start showing up.”

  “Okay, bye.”

  I headed into the locker room, found a bathroom stall and changed so that I had the underwear on under the nylons. In hind sight, I should have just changed into my P.E. clothes, since the place was still pretty much empty and I was going to need to change into them in about fifteen minutes anyway. Once I realized this, I headed over to Nicole’s locker and changed into my P.E. clothes. Jessica arrived about ten minutes later.

  “Hey, Nikki! How are you doing?”

  “Good, Jess. How are you?”

  “Peachy! So, we decided to go to the movies last night, after all. Why don’t we go to the mall tonight?”

  “Oh, okay.” I guess that means ‘guy shopping.’

  “Great! Oh, my dad is having my car serviced. Do you mind picking me up? You can come by around seven tonight. You’ll have enough time to do your homework and eat by then, right?”

  “Uhh…sure, that should be fine.” I’m hoping she knows how this works better than I do. They’ve done this before, so Jessica likely knows what time I can pick her up, right?

  Jessica changed into her P.E. clothes and we went outside for class. Today was a relatively easy class. We had badminton. Not my favorite, but it didn’t take a lot of energy. A little jumping up and down, which was a little rough because I had a persistent stomachache today, but I barely broke a sweat. I saw Nicole across the field. Her class…well, my class…was playing kickball. I love kickball. Oh well.

  We headed back to the locker room and Jessica caught back up with me.

  “Badminton. Well, at least we didn’t get all sweaty.”

  “Yeah. There are worse games out there.”

  “I can’t think of one at the moment,” she said smiling.

  “Yeah, actually I can’t either,” I said, returning a laugh.

  We undressed and headed to the showers with our towels. The routine was pretty much the same as yesterday. I didn’t enjoy it any less, but some of the fascination had worn off, and it was easier for me to focus on washing up and getting out of there.

  I headed back to the locker, dried myself off more completely and got dressed. Once I was finished getting dressed, I said goodbye to Jessica and headed for Nicole’s book locker to get my books for English Lit.

  When I arrived in English, Nicole was already there. So was Meredith. Nicole seemed to be in a better mood, so I was guessing P.E. must have gone better. I smiled and took my seat. I said hello to Meredith and she smiled back. This stomachache wasn’t going away, and this one was more painful than I usually have. I’ll have to ask Nicole if she usually gets bad stomachaches.

  I had a hard time focusing on English class today. I was uncomfortable all class, and it seemed to just drag on forever. By the time the bell rang, I was packed up and ready to go. I said goodbye to Meredith and waited at my desk for Nicole to walk up.

  “Hey, are you alright?” she asked.

  “Not really. I’ve had this really bad stomachache all morning. Do you usually get bad stomachaches?”

  “No, I almost never get stomachaches, just…”

  Her eyes got wide with concern. “Wait, does it feel like a stomachache, or does it feel a little lower in your abdomen? Like, maybe, intestinal issues?”

  “I…guess it feels more like intestinal issues, why?”

  She looked around to make sure nobody was nearby. Most of the class had cleared out.

  “Stand up,” she whispered.

  I stood up and noticed that my underwear felt cold, or…wet. “Why do I feel wet?” As I said it, I realized what was happening. I looked down at my seat, where Nicole was looking, and saw blood. Not a lot, but still, it was blood.

  “Welcome to womanhood. You’re having your first period, Jake.” Again, she said it with a whisper. “You have wipes in your purse.”

  I cleaned the seat up and wadded the wipes up in my hand. “You couldn’t have warned me this was coming?” I asked.

  “I’m really sorry. With everything going on, I hadn’t really thought about it. I mean, I can usually tell when it’s getting close, and usually I’m prepared, but I’ve been kind of caught up with…being a guy.”

  “Great, so what do I do now?”

  “Well, it’s not real obvious, but it’s a little obvious. You ne
ed to change your clothes.”

  “I don’t have any clothes to change into. Wait, is that what your spare clothes are for in your P.E. locker?”

  “Well, that’s one use.”

  “I wore those yesterday. I forgot to bring the clothes you told me to bring yesterday.”

  “Okay, here’s what you do. There are some small panty liners in a side pocket of my purse. Go to the bathroom and put one of those on.”

  “How?”

  “I’m sure you can figure it out. There is an adhesive side that sticks to your underwear. Take the paper off of the adhesive side and stick it where the blood is. Once you’re done, go to my house and change your clothes. Just use the clothes I have set for tomorrow. I think I set jeans out for tomorrow. I have extra supplies under my bathroom sink. It’s the first day, so you’ll probably only need the panty liners. Bring a few regular pads in case.”

  “A few?” I asked.

  “In case,” she repeated. “There are instructions in the box, but I’m sure you can figure them out. It’s not rocket science. You’ll miss physics, maybe calculus, but you should be able to make it back in time for lunch.”

  “Yay.”

  “I know. Trust me…nothing thrills me more than getting to share this moment with you.” That was sarcasm.

  “Okay,” I said, “I guess I’m leaving now.”

  “One last thing. Put all of the clothes in the washer and wash them in cold water. Make sure to use cold water.”

  “Got it. Oh, how do I keep from getting blood on your car seat?”

  “Fold the dress over a couple of times before you sit down. If you need, I probably have a towel or something else you can use in the trunk of my car.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you at lunch.” With that, I headed to the bathroom.

  It’s not like I’m unaware that girls have periods, but out of sight, out of mind. I’ve never had to deal with it, so I’ve never paid it much thought. It looks like that’s going to change quickly.

  I walked into the girls’ bathroom and entered an empty stall. After putting my things on the door hook, I found the…panty liner…in Nicole’s purse side pouch and followed Nicole’s instructions. Fortunately, I skipped putting the nylons back on after P.E., so it was a little easier to maneuver. I grabbed my things, washed up and headed out toward the car.