Click. My fingertips dance over the jagged wood as I gently push the door closed, powerful wind fighting me from the outside, creating the music they move too. I make my way to my mom’s room, the Law and Order theme song that I know too well blowing down the dusty hallways. I collapse gently on her bed, immediately snuggling my winter flushed face into the coarse fur of my puppy. 

     “How was school?” She asked, quickly grabbing the remote and pausing her show, hoping not to miss anything despite this being the 10th time she’s seen it. 

     “Fine.” I mumble, “Boring, really.” I finish, finally lifting my face to eye hers. “So, my chorus concert is on Thursday.”  I say in a grumbly voice, not looking forward to the idea of dressing up like a fairytale princess. 

     “Yeah? What are you wearing?” She asks, taking her phone out, presumably to scroll through the rotten faced, hubris lives on facebook.

     “I don’t really know,” I drone, shaky breaths filling my lungs, so much trouble for something automatic. Not a dress. 

     “Well what’s the dress code?” She asked, eyes not leaving the device in her hand.

     “She either said white on top and black on the bottom or all black.” I said, trying to capture the information from the back of my brain. 

     “You need to figure that out.” She mumbles, adjusting her head against the bed frame.

     I think back to the last concert I went to, black velvety dress with a pink ribbon on my waist. Something so clearly screaming Belle from Beauty and the Beast, something so clearly not..me. I had gone up on that stage, so still, as if I was a mannequin, so out of place among the others. Longing gaze prompted towards the ‘boys’ half of the stage. The neck ties, bow ties, slacks, collared shirts, gelled back hair. Something I wanted so sincerely to be. Something I was that no one else knew. They would see my fixed stare and think I had a crush, never knowing that I was wishing in my complicated brain to be a cookie-cut copy of the boy before me. And when my eyes would finally tear away from that dream, they would catch the eyes of my family in the audience, so proud of their perfect daughter. And when the night was over, when we took our final bow, a sigh of relief would leave my body like a front loader finally letting go of its load. It was over and I was done pretending, I could go home and replace the dress with my brother’s sweatpants and a white shirt. But when the time came that I finally slinked off to my bedroom to get ready for a long night of penny-in-a-fountain dreams, I would break down. My chest would constrict like a cobra slowly squeezing the life out of a gentle mouse. I would shove my head into my pillow, willing the dreams to go away, praying to finally become happy with who I was, but believing in the front of my mind that it would never happen for me. 

     I snap out of my thoughts, afraid that if I keep swimming, I’ll drown. My eyes snap to my mother as she begins to talk again.

     “But, I think I have a black button-up you could wear or you could wear Brycen’s white one that he wore to homecoming.” She says, finally shutting off her phone. “I’ll go find it, see if you can find the dress code.”

     She goes downstairs as I become a statue, overwhelmed with emotions, mind never leaving that word. Button-up. 

     My mind is stuck on that simple word. It’s a fast car driving in circles, a broken record that can’t do anything but repeat the same phrase. Button-up. Something so simple yet so astonishing. Always in the mens section at any store and here I was, wearing one. I begin to think I was mistaken. I begin to think I didn’t hear her right. I begin to think I clouded my brain with something I wanted to hear and didn’t hear what was really there. 

     I open my phone to the email Mrs. McGahey had sent the previous day, shaking myself of the evil thoughts and checking to see if there was anything about the dress code within the schedule. I scan over the paragraphs, finally catching a glimpse of the information I needed, I needed to wear all black.

     I hear my mom coming up the steps and I walk into the dining room to meet her halfway. 

     “It says to wear all black,” I say, motioning towards the phone in my hand.

     “Well here then,” She saids, handing me the black button-up shirt she had gotten from one of the baskets in the basement, “Try this on.”

     I grab the button-up from her hands, sharp, bitten nails draping over hers. I make my way into the bathroom, putting my phone down and moving the material around in my hands. I pull my beige hoodie over my head, glasses coming up with it and falling onto the carpeted floor. I quickly slip the shirt over my shoulders and do up the buttons, letting them linger in my fingertips. I grab my glasses from the floor, slipping them over my nose and glancing at my reflection in the mirror. 

     Tears well up in my eyes as I realize I am wearing a button-up, the kind of button-up that men wear under their suits. The kind of button-up that I wished I could wear before. Every doubt erased from my mind, leaving a clean slate for brand-new memories. Every worry, abandoned as I realized they didn’t matter anymore. For once, I didn’t have to be the damsel in distress, I could finally be the knight in shining armor. 

     I grab my long forgotten hoodie off the ground, wrapping my jittery fingers around the door knob and twisting the handle as if time relied simply on me. I leave the bathroom, sliding my feet on the hardwood floor as I make my way once again to my mom’s room. 

     I will never forget the chorus concert on December 13, 2022 because I will never forget the day I became me.