I’m really much taller than I ever wanted to be. That’s the problem.
I hover near a rack of clothing that bears around twenty dresses varying in color from pastel pinks to faded yellows. The dresses would barely reach my thighs, and my legs aren’t the sort of legs other people want to see. They’re too thick and muscular and difficult to shave.
The first time I tried shaving my legs, the results were messy and embarrassing. Patches of untouched dark hair and lines of raw skin remained, and it all grew back in a few days anyway.
My mom walks out from behind a rack of fluffy-looking lavender dresses and approaches me. “Try to find something to do,” she says. “I’ll look for something for your sister over there.” She wanders away.
I see a mannequin dressed in a mild sea-blue color–a floor-length, mermaid silhouetted gown. The bottom sparkles with sequins, and a lopsided green bow trimmed with glinting rhinestones is tied around the waist. I find the dress on a nearby rack, and, after checking over my shoulder, I hide myself behind a corner and hold it in front of me. It would fit perfectly if I only had the shape to fill it out a little more.
I can see it though. I walk into the prom wearing this dress, and I have a guy on my arm–it wouldn’t matter who. I dance and drink punch and I’m just as lovely as a blue mermaid spinning in the sea.
“Did you find one?” my mom says behind me, and I jump a little.
I turn and hand the dress to her. She lowers her eyebrows as she raises it to the light to examine it. My sister half-runs to my mother to see. I know it won’t look good on her already. She’s too short and thick-waisted.
“That one’s pretty,” my sister says as she brushes the fabric with her fingertips.
“You better try it on,” my mom says. “It isn’t too see-through, but I don’t know if I want you wearing anything this tight.”
My mom tucks a wavy wisp of chocolate brown hair behind her ear and sighs as my sister disappears into the dressing room. “Thanks for coming along with us, Nathaniel.”
“It’s no problem, Mom.”
“I know it must be boring for you in this sort of place.”
“It’s not that–” I say.
She doesn’t look at me–she examines the price tag on one of the short, yellow dresses. “Oh, what is it then?”
It’s that I’m too tall–I’m always too tall, and all I can see are blue mermaids.
–Story by Lydia Matheny
–Photography by Michela RivaRunning sports | Concepts Nike Kyrie 7 Horus CT1135-900 Release Date – SBD