I found my spoon! *puts away fork that was used to eat cereal* I am now fufilled on my quest of life
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CHAPTER FOUR
Luke’s alarm went off at four the next morning. He rolled over and into a sitting position in an attempt to wake himself up. His hands found his eyes and he tried to rub the sleep from them, but his vision was still slightly blurred. Because of the party, Luke had been out past midnight, but he couldn’t let a lack of sleep steer him away from his goal. Every weekday he would get up at four and run until five thirty. He didn’t have weight lifting until six thirty, so he had plenty of time to stretch and relax afterwards.
Luke changed into a pair of light sweats and an old tee shirt. It was starting to get colder as winter approached. After that he got on his running shoes and put in his headphones for is ipod. He was out of his room by four thirty.
He jogged the first three miles easy at an eight minute pace around the school yard. He took a break before jogging three more at speed control, and then one last one sprint. He ended in front of the gym building. Like always, he entered the unlocked main door. It was slightly warmer in there. He sat down on one of the benches at the entrance and bent down to stretch out his knees. A light caught his attention. That didn’t make any sense, he was always the only one here at this time in the morning.
Luke got up and walked across the marble floor and up to the large glass windows that allowed him to see into the gymnastics gym. At first, all he could hear was the music. He couldn’t pin point the band, but he had heard it before. He leaned up against one of the pillars as he tried to search for a person. His eyes fell on a tall blonde girl. He knew that girl.
Renee had her hair pulled back into a semi-neat bun with a piece of green ribbon. She was wearing a lime green leotard that matched. She stood on the outside edge of the large blue floor that was used to do routines. Do something, he willed her. Her head was buried in her chest which was heaving softly, she was focusing. As the song finished she started to swing her arms around a bit and move her feet. She jumped a few times and reached a height that didn’t seem possible. As the song closed, Renee fell still again, waiting for the next tune. Luke took a step away from the pillar so he could get a better view of what she was doing.
A quick beat started and Renee took off. She ran with her arms straight at her side before throwing them above her head and going into several handsprings, she ended at the opposite corner with a flip. She stopped and put up her arms like they did on the TV shows that Vanessa always made him watch. After a short period of smiling she turned around and did a back flip. An expert one at that. She continued to do flips and intricate dance moves on the carpeted floor. Every move was on cue with the music. At mid point, when the music slowed, she did too. Her moves became more delicate and soft. The music picked up to an extremely fast tempo for the end and so did she. She ended in the middle of the mat doing the splits. Ouch. Her head was buried in her chest again and her whole body heaved as she tried to get a deep breath. A thin layer of sweat was covering her body and it made her glisten softly under the florescent lights.
“Whoa,” Luke went up closer to the glass. When he turned a bit to get an even better view, his bag hit the pillar and his water bottle fell out. The hard plastic made a large crack sound as it hit the ground. Luke jumped and so did Renee. Her eyes flew open in shock. She turned to face him, but he was already hiding behind the pillar. Luke listened as the music turned off and saw the lights go out as well. He stayed in his hiding spot. Not too long after, he could hear footsteps coming his way. He moved to the other side of the pillar.
Renee came walking around the corner with a pair of sweatpants on her bottom half, her leotard on the top. She had a bag thrown over her shoulder and her ipod in her ears. She was singing lightly to herself, but broke off to take a sip from her water bottle. She exited the gym building with her head bobbing. Luke let out a breath once she was a ways down the path.
Luke went back to his stretches as the memory of what he had just witnessed played over in his mind. Wow, that girl was talented. Hadn’t she told him that she wasn’t in any sports? She had lied, what else had she lied about?
It was three now. School had finished at two-twenty. I had gone through the day with the same glances from Payne, and some ridicule for how much trouble I could have been in due to what happened to his arm. Fortunately, he had told the nurse that he had fallen over on his own accord, and then he had gotten almost twenty stitches. I could say that I felt bad for him, but that would be a lie. That creeper probably deserved it. Now I was at ‘Hairs and Style’ a small shop in downtown New Germany. I was going to start on my new look, and hair would be the biggest thing. I would deal with clothes later.
“So, tell me what you needed…again?” The lady behind the desk asked. I rolled my eyes at her.
“I need you,” I pointed to her, “to hack off all of this,” grabbed my hair, “so I can look like a boy. Do you think I would look good brown?”
“Paul,” the girl called. Her voice was shaky as her eyes stayed on me. Was it that hard to understand?
“Yes Staci?” A tall blonde guy asked as he came out from one of the back cubicles. He was wearing black pants, a white shirt, and a pink tie. His hair had a handful of expertly placed low lights. “Oh,” he said in a rather soft voice, “who’s this young beauty? Wow, your hair is absolutely beautiful.” He grabbed a piece of it and started to observe. I could feel myself blushing.
“So,” he started, “need a trim?”
“Actually,” I grabbed his hand to get his attention on my eyes and not my hair. “I need you to help me become a brunette guy.”
“Oh…girlfriend wants you to. I get it.”
“No!” I answered quickly. “It’s for ah…a…documentary. I am going to live as a guy and document the different ways that people interact and treat me compared to when I am a girl.” See, maybe I could lie.
“Oh, okay. So you want to keep this?” He gestured to my head.
“I don’t know…can I?”
“Of course darling, I would just need to shorten it a bit so it can fit under your wig.”
“Wait, your doing it? Are you really going to help me?”
“Well, I am always up to a challenge.” I squeaked and hugged him tightly.
“Okay dearie, if you could just come with me this way.” I followed him as he led me to the back of the building.
As we passed a handful of different cubicles different hairdressers would lean out of their rooms and say hi. His cubicle was the last one.
“First, we need to find you a wig, sit down here.” I listened and sat down in the chair that was facing a mirror and sink. “And then some stick on eyebrows, maybe even side burns.” He came up behind me and ran a hand through my hair. “Then we can decide how much I am going to have to take off. How does that sound?” I just squealed with excitement and he laughed.
“Okay, I’ll be back in a few.” More like ten. While Paul was gone I decided to look around his cubi. It was quite beautiful if I might be entitled to say so. The walls were a light green with black accent frames and stick on mirrors. There was even a large plaque that said ‘live laugh love’. How sweet. As I checked it out I passed a picture that I assumed was him and his boyfriend. The guy that he was kissing on the cheek was blushing a deep scarlet red. He had brown hair and big brown eyes to go with it.
“Back,” Paul announced as he rolled a cart full of wigs and boxes in behind me. I spun my chair in awe. This just might work. Paul pulled my hair back into a pony tail with a rubber band. He bent down and got out one of the boxes, it was filled with different sized stick on eyebrows in several different shades of brown.
“What do you use those for?”
“Oh, every once in a while we will get some girl that burns her eyebrows off,” he flipped his wrist at the air and it took all of my will power to not break out. He dug through the box for a bit before he pulled out a tray with several different pairs on it. They were all the same shape, but in different browns.
“Here,” he leaned over me and stuck a dark pair over my actual eyebrows, wow, you couldn’t even tell that I had blonde ones under there.
“Whoa, that is so cool,” I reached up to pet them and he swatted my hand away.
“Now we need to find you some hair.” He went back to his rolling gene cart and pulled out three different boxes. He opened one and brought the wig over to me. He placed it on my head, and if I hadn’t known any better, that could have been my actual hair. It was a dark brow wig but the hair was a little too long for this generation’s guy. The hair went past my jaw, ew.
“Next?” I asked, I looked to the mirror to see Paul’s expression and almost laughed. He looked like he had just seen a ghost.
“Next,” He agreed before grabbing the next one. We were still running through the same procedure twenty minutes and fifteen wigs later.
“Uh, this is the last brown guy one.” He informed me. He brought it over to me and showed it.
“Uh,” I didn’t like it even when it wasn’t on my head. It was a bowl cut. He placed it on my head and I sighed.
“Well, it isn’t perfect but I can cut it. How about you grab that book and look for a cut you like when I trim your hair?” I nodded and grabbed it. In the end, my hair got cut so it was just long enough to put in a stubby pony so it wouldn’t be seen under the wig. He placed the fake hair on top of my head and spun my chair around so I wasn’t facing the mirror.
“Hey,” I snapped, “turn me around!”
“Nope,” he bit his lip as he observed me. “I got this.” And with that he started to hack at my wig. I rolled my eyes but put my wig’s life into his hands. He knew what he was doing.
“So, do you know any good guy clothes places in town?”
“Uh, I get off of work after four,” he looked at his watch, “And it is four right now, so when we finish this we can go shopping together.”
“Really?” I was so up to that.
“Really really. Wa la!” he spun me around to face the mirror and I shrieked. I actually looked like a guy! My wig was cut to be long for a guy, but it was perfect.
“Wow,” Paul just smiled.
“Ready to go?” I nodded, still incapable of wiping the grin off of my face.
Paul took me down to the mall and I found some of the cutest girls’ clothes ever, but I was a guy and I had to get that through my head. In the end, I left with a pair of DCs, black converse, three pairs of jeans, every plain colored shirt in the rainbow, two graphic tees, two collared shirts, a belt, a pair of black pants, three different ties, a pair of shades, and a pair of sweats. We were on our way out of the store, me dressed as a guy, and Paul being a guy, when something hit me.
“Paul,” I stopped and Paul turned to look at me. “I have uh…I don’t know how to put this but.” I ran up to him and cupped my hand around his ear before whispering, “boobs,” really quietly. He laughed a bit.
“We can rap you, like corset kind of thing. How does that sound?” I just nodded. Well, that took care of that.
“So,” we hopped into his small black car, “how much do I owe you?” Paul just laughed again.
“Nothing girl…I mean…dude, it was fun. I enjoyed it.”
“Oh, me too.” We pulled up to a new store. Claire’s, what would we need at Claire’s, that was a girls’ store?
“Uh, Paul.”
“Yes,” he got out of his truck and started to walk up to the store.
“What are we doing here?”
“I have connections.” Oh, connections. Was he in the anti-government group? Was he going to kill me? I gulped and pushed the thoughts away, he was far too nice for that, wasn’t he? I prayed he was. We went in and Paul was greeted by two women in their early twenties.
“Paulie bird!” One screamed as she hugged him. When she pulled away she looked down at me.
“Who’s your adorable new friend? Don’t worry, I won’t tell Jack.”
“Carlie, this is…uh…this is.”
“Charles,” there that was close to Charlene, wasn’t it? “Charles,” I looked around the room. Hats… “Charles Hatsfend.”
“Hatsfend?” She wasn’t buying it.
“Yeah, I’m German.”
“Oh, okay. So what are you two guys doing here?”
“We are getting wrap. Size,” Paul looked me up and down, “six.”
“Oh, why would he? Never mind, I won’t even ask.” When Carlie left to get my wrap thing, Paul started to get into a rather in depth conversation with the other lady that worked there. I decided to slowly pull away and look around. I came to the glasses rack and smiled. I loved the fake glasses. I grabbed a pair and put them on, too girlie. Grabbed another, too many colors. I grabbed one last pair that reminded me of Clark Kent.
“Oh my god!” I screamed. “Paul, can I get these?” He smiled and came over to me.
“Wow, those are hot. If you weren’t in high school I would date you.”
“Really?”
“No, you’re not my type, female and all. If I hadn’t known though, yes I could.”
“Sweet, I’m going to make straight guys go gay!” That is, since I still liked guys. Would that make me gay? Naw, I would act like I liked girls. Carlie started to laugh as she came out with a leather loop thing.
“What’s that?” I asked. Paul took it.
“This,” he handed over the money and thanked her before we turned to leave. “This is what is going to press you down to look flat, and more manish.” He handed it over and I started to look it over. Huh, now I got it. It was a leather wrap that would cover my whole chest and torso. On the chest it had room to put my, uh, girls, while the bottom was padded so it would make me look more straight cut. I then realized the fake abs that were slightly indented in it and laughed. I guess it would be believable if I kept my shirt on.
I was enjoying my time with Paul, and hearing about his wonderful mother and boyfriend, but it was starting to get late. I told him that I had to get back to school, well, and enroll myself back in school as Charles Hatsfend. He decided that he was going to be my ‘big brother’ and enroll me. How kind.
When we arrived at the school we left all of my clothes in the car. Paul and I walked up to the school. Me in my wig, a plain black tee with dark jeans, and my large fake glasses, and Paul in his pink tie. The whole way up the steps and across the pavement to the main building we were getting looks. Some girls were checking out Paul, while, as crazy as it may sound, others were looking me up and down. I scooted closer to Paul and he laughed.
We entered the office and I took my seat while Paul started to fill out all of my paperwork for me.
“Charles,” he called out to me, “come here so she can tell this to you.” I nodded and rose. I went up to the desk and froze. It was the evil lady from the first day. She smiled at me. I signed some papers and listened as she talked my ear off and handed me a new schedule, dorm assignment, and map of the school. After we got all of that figured out, Paul helped me lug my new clothes up to my new room.
“Room B12,” I reached my room and slid in the key card, the lock blinked green and I kicked open the door. I started to unpack my clothes and shoved them into my drawers. Once I was finished I nodded at my handy work and got up to say goodbye to Paul. I traded my room’s phone number for his cell and he left. I made sure to thank him real good before he did. I continued to organize my clothes before the door opened again. I was about to ask Paul how he got back in before I was frozen in my tracks.
“Uh,” was all I could muster as a wet version of Luke entered the room. He was wearing nothing but a pair of basketball shorts.
“You must be my roommate.” He said with a smile. I melted.
“Yeah, I am your roommate. Charles, nice to meet you.” I waltzed over to him and shook his hand. Luckily Paul had gone over all the does and don’ts of guys. I am not sure how accurate he was, but I hoped he wasn’t too far off. I had also practiced a ‘man’ voice with him.
“Hey, do you need help moving in?” The insanely hot and shirtless Luke asked me.
“Uh, no, no. I can do it.” Now I just had to turn back to my girl self and find a way to transfer all of my stuff to this room.
“Okay,” Luke went over to his dresser and threw on a shirt. Why? “I’m going to go hang out with some guys in the common room. I will be down there if you need me.” I nodded. When he left, I wiped the imaginary drool from my face. What was this, actual drool? Whoops. I think I just might be living up to my girl like instincts. I was such a gay guy.