Nail Polish

“What? Why? Did something bad happen?” Dee asks suddenly panicked. Did something bad happen to the driver? He didn’t even know Elizabeth, yet he had sympathy for the possibility that she was in trouble.

“No, no, Elizabeth is just here.” Lif doesn’t do a good lot of explaining as she’s pulling her shoes on- The exact same ones she was wearing before.

“And?”

“And she’ll leave if we don’t get out there soon. Pack your clothes, you’ll have to change in the car.”

“Wh-” The audacity! His brows furrowed as his face flushed down a dark red. “Wasn’t she the late one? Can’t she wait a few extra minutes so I can get out of a skirt?”

“No, she’s just like this. Hurry and get your cl-” Lif’s phone buzzes again and she checks it. Suddenly she moves quicker, grabbing a secondary pair of shoes and two handbags. Dee doesn’t even get to step towards his clothes before Lif has grabbed his hands and began pulling him towards the door.

“Lif wait-”

“I’m sorry, Dee! She gave us thirty seconds before she’s going to drive off.”

Dee was helpless as he was forcibly dragged out of the house and into a shitty van that was so obviously red but covered in white paint that neither blended into the red nor fully covered it. Lif attempted to open the sliding door and grunted when it was locked. He flinched as she hit the side door a few times.

“Calm down! I’m opening it!” A voice called from the inside. Dee decided to use this moment to express his concerns.

“Lif. I-... I can’t go. I’m in a skirt,” He kept to a whisper, not even wanting the driver to know of his misfortune.

“Fuck, I know Dee. I’m sorry. But she was going to leave us,” She chewed her bottom lip. “If… If it makes you feel better, you probably won’t know anyone at the party. It's on the...Fancier side of town.” Rich people. Ugh.

“I’m worried that people will know I’m a boy in a skirt, Lif.” Half-truth.

“I wouldn’t worry too much-”

“I don’t have shoes, Lif.”

Quietly, she held up a pair of shoes she grabbed quickly from her room and smiled awkwardly.

Dee grabbed them and put them on and only marveled for a second how they were thigh high boots with high heels. If he had these before, he might’ve never left the bathroom. He squeezed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them, he saw Lif looking at him concerned.

“Those are a bit tight on me too. We can switch shoes if you want.”

No way.

“No, it’s fine…” He breathed in through his nose before he held up his phone. “I don’t have pockets. I’ll lose my phone.”

“Thought of that one too.” She handed him one of the black bags she had grabbed. It was shaped like a heart, and he grimaced. If he had that then he knew for a fact he’d have put his phone on silent. Lif mistook it as him being embarrassed at how much he was being forced-feminized.

“Please forgive me Dee. I promise, I genuinely thought you’d have time to change back.” Her brows were upturned and her eyes squeezed shut.

The door to the van swung open, crashing to the other side. “Fucksake-” Behind it was an older woman wearing grey sweatpants and a hoodie and her hair tied in a very messy bun. In all honesty, it looked like she had just woken up and the only thing keeping her awake was the coffee staining her shirt.

Dee didn’t want to go in that van. But Lif was already climbing in, and he had to follow.

“Hi Elizabeth-” Lif started a greeting.

“Who's your friend? I thought you were bringing that boy you liked?”

Dee pulled the car door shut as hard as he could, nearly falling over. He did perk up slightly hearing that last comment. Lif laughed, brushing off her comment and any hope that it was more than just a tease.

“No, this is Dee-” He glared at Lif. He hadn’t meant to, but it was a clear sign that Lif had to change her story. “-na. Deena. She’s the girl I like.”

Dee wasn’t sure if that made him feel much better or like throwing up. Regardless, Elizabeth whistled.

“Nice to meet you, Deena. I’m Elizabeth, I’m Lif’s aunt.” She stuck a handout and Dee tried to be polite when shaking her hand. She then ducked under, moving back to the front of the van and starting the engine.

The drive was relatively quiet aside from the shitty engine clunking at every turn or speedbump. But he learned to ignore it after the third bump. Something Dee was oh so grateful for. He could get away with looks, but his voice was undeniably a teenaged boy. The most conversation that happened was Lif giving directions and one time where Elizabeth yelled at a couple of cows in the road.

By the time they had made it to the party, the sun had started setting, leaving the sky to be brighter and slowly dipping from blue to red. As Dee struggled to open the door, Lif and Elizabeth were sharing their goodbyes.

“Make sure to call me five minutes before you decide to leave, okay? I’m not going to wait around a bunch of underaged drinkers in this shitty van. That’s just begging for the police, okay?”

For a brief moment, Dee paused what he was doing to whisper. “Underage what-”

“You don’t have to justify, Elizabeth. You just hate waiting.” Lif grabbed onto the handle of the door and pulled as hard as she could, causing the door to slam open. She hopped out, pulling Dee out with her. When they stepped out, Lif slammed the door shut and Elizabeth rolled down the window.

“Bye Lif, love you.”

“Bye-bye Auntie!”

“Aha, don’t call me that.”

After blowing each other a few kisses, Elizabeth finally drove off and Dee finally was able to whisper yell at Lif privately.

“Lif!” She jumped slightly, turning towards Dee with a smile.

“What’s up?”

“You didn’t tell me there was going to be alcohol here! If my parents find out, they might actually kill me!”

“Yeah I did! I sent you a beer emoji in my message! That was supposed to be code so your parents couldn’t catch on- Look.” She pulled out her phone and scrolled up to the message she had sent a few days ago.

“Look, first emoji was a beer emoji. Then I sent a leaf emoji- Because there was possibly going to be weed. Then I sent two balloons because party. Then I sent-”

Dee furrowed his brow as Lif continued to explain what every single emoji she sent in the message meant. There was no way he would’ve guessed any of this.

When she finally finished, she looked over at Dee, a sympathetic smile growing on her face.

“Hey, look. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. And hey, how in the world will your parents even find you, huh?” She reached out, grabbing both of Dee’s hands, rubbing his fingers with her thumbs.

The butterflies that flew around his arms was embarrassing. He stayed quiet, contemplating over what she said. It was stupid, but he was already here. All he could do at this point was blindly believe her and hope that she’s right.

“... Okay.”

She furrowed her brows. “Okay?”

“Okay you’re right.” he clarified. He breathed in, calming himself down before he smiled. “I’m ready, lets go in before it’s too late.”

Lif grinned, Dee admired her fangs. She let go of one of his hands, interlocking her fingers with the other and leading him towards the house. He tried not to let his heart beat out of his chest.

Which house had the party was fairly obvious based on the amount of teens hanging around it. Plus the littered red solo cups. Plus the bright lights and faint noises of music. Plus, if Dee inhaled deeply, the faint smell of weed.

The pair walked into the house, the door unlocked. Dee allowed himself to look around and made quick note of how big the house was. It was much bigger than his house, but he doubted that he would get lost walking around. He could see there was an upstairs thanks to railing and scratched out his last thought. He might get lost from all those doors.

He also made note of the snack table. It was covered in all sorts of junk foods and sodas- As well as an abundance of pineapple slices. At first Dee assumed that it was because no one would have wanted to have pineapple over chips, but then he saw the discarded pineapple stems in the trash and realized this was a fresh refilling.

And the teenagers- Oh god the teenagers. Everywhere there was someone who was lying passed out, hanging out, or doing something illegal. Dee adverted his eyes from the girls who lifted their tops and exposed their breasts to a group of cheering boys. What was truly unnerving, however, was how many of these irresponsible kids to be his classmates. Yeah, that girl sat next to him in math class. That kid over there? Dee remembered him tripping over himself walking up to the front board.

Suddenly, it was like a rat infestation, everywhere he looked, Dee recognizes someone from somewhere. He tightened his grip on Lif’s hand, who promptly turned with concern.

“Dee? What’s wrong?” She spoke in a normal tone, but with how loud everything was, she could’ve screamed and no one would pay her any attention.

“Where… Who invited you to this party?”

“Oh! It was an open invite I found online,” Lif let go of his hand and opened her bag to retake out her phone. She typed for a few minutes before pulling up an instagram page. “It’s hosted by some girl named Diana.”

Dee felt like he was going to be sick.

Just then, a few kids stumbled by, clearly tipsy. Dee stepped back, recognizing one of them to be Henry from English. He and his group staggered by, grabbing a few snacks from the table. When he glanced over at the two of them, Dee could have sworn someone dumped a gallon of ice water on him.

Henry approached and it went from too cold to too hot. He squeezed his eyes shut, only expecting the worst. Instead…

“Did you two just arrive?”

Dee slowly opened his eyes as Lif answer. “Yeah, we were mega late due to loose cows.”

“Kickass. Either of you know how to drive? Diana and her brother need a ride to the store.”

Dee shook his head at the same time as Lif.

“Fuck,” Henry groaned. “I’m gonna have to scrape for a fucking Uber.”

“What for?” Dee found himself asking.

“We’re outta beer.”

“Awe fuck!”

⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼↷⎼↷⎼↷⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼

Dee found that he was having a much better time than he expected. He and Lif stayed tied together the entire time in case something went wrong- Not that anything went wrong.

They snacked on some of the junk foods- Dee even grabbing a hand full of the pineapple slices and sharing them. That was where Dee learned that whoever was slicing the pineapple slices fucking sucked at it.

They got flirted with multiple times during the night. Dee couldn’t even begin to understand how Lif was just able to laugh the attempts off when he felt like he would die just because someone said he looked cute. God forbid the ones who were bolder.

They even ended up dancing together to some annoying pop song. Dee didn’t really want to dance to it, but Lif seemed excited, so he joined. At some point, Lif hung onto him during a slower song, and they more so swayed gently to the song rather than actually dancing.

Currently, the two were sitting on a white couch, doing nothing more than talking to each other. The alcohol had been restocked and Lif was slowly sipping on a mixture of lemon-lime soda and some clear liquid that Dee didn’t quite catch- All he knew of certain was that it was definitely alcohol.

Dee had opted for a cupcake.

“You know, I’m glad we came late. We came in time for the good alcohol-” Lif drank down more of her mixture from her cup. He wasn’t entirely sure if she was drunk or not, but she certainly did seem to be gigglier. “You can’t mix a lot into beer to make it taste good.”

Dee licked the frosting around his cupcake, flattening the ruffles down to a frosted point. “I wouldn’t know.”

“You should. Actually, no. Dee, don’t ever start drinking. You look like you’d get addicted.”

He huffed through his nose. “What does that mean?”

“It means you look like you'd get addicted,” Lif laughed, even if she said nothing particularly funny. She tipped her head back, drinking the rest of her drink. “I’m gonna get some more alcohol. Stay here.”

She stood up, walking away. Dee watched her as she made her way to the snack table. Things were starting to settle and honestly. His stomach felt warm, and his entire body felt relaxed. He really was here in a skirt and hanging out with Lif! It almost felt overwhelming.

The feeling didn’t last long, however, when a hand placed on his shoulder. Dee jumped, his tongue missing the bit of frosting he was about to lick. Suddenly, he had a white mess on the side of his lip, which he did his best to lick away. Giving up, he slowly turned to look at the hand gripping his shoulder.

He didn’t recognize the boy from any of his classmates- Or anyone from his school. Although, that could have been the fault of how plain the boy looked. His hair was brown, cut shaggily, as if he hadn’t had a proper hair cut in a few months. His eyes matched his hair, and his clothes weren’t eye catching either, with a plain red shirt and white long-sleeved underneath and baggy jeans. Dee honestly assumed he was about to get hit on again- Something he was excited for. Instead, his expectations fell short.

“I thought I recognized you.”