Exotic - Chapter 22: Chapter 22

We should talk.
The text came from Caleb's number, ominously short. It also came at eleven pm on Sunday night, after an entire weekend of not-entirely-undeserved radio silence from both Proust siblings.
It had given me plenty of time to think, fret, and reconsider my life. But the second Caleb texted me, I bolted upright, responding in a matter of seconds. All rationality went out the window, along with the plan to give Caleb his space and take back my own until he figured out how he really felt about me.
free now?
Ellipse. Ellipse. Ellipse.
Need to get out of the house. 1 sec.
I peeled myself out of bed and climbed into my drag wardrobe as I waited for him to call. The mirror reflected a face I winched at the sight of. My pores were looking huge, and the bags under my eyes were pronounced. I applied a layer of moisturiser under each, and then my phone rang with an incoming call.
"Hey."
"Hey," Caleb replied, sounding slightly breathless. I waited in vain for a follow-up, as he breathed down the line.
"You alright?"
He laughed breathily. "Well, I'm grounded which I didn't know was a thing parents could still do after you turn eighteen. My mum wanted to confiscate my phone too, but dad stepped in. And my entire family thinks I have a secret girlfriend named Steph who I've been dating since last year because Lauren decided to flex her improv skills and give my offhanded excuse an entire complex backstory."
I would have laughed, if not for the tiniest of details. "Why do they think her name is Steph?"
Caleb hesitated. I could literally hear crickets over his side of the phone. "I guess she thought she was being funny. Because... yeah."
I groaned. "She cannot fuck us around like this."
"She's adamant you deserve it, after you made her pretend to be your girlfriend," he said through gritted teeth. "My parents have been quizzing her all weekend. She might kill you."
"Yeah well, I didn't think it would ever come back to bite me," I told him. "Hindsight is 20/20"
"My mum stalked your Instagram," he let me know. "And noticed you don't have any photos of Lauren on your feed, so... if you want to keep that lie going, get to that."
I chewed nervously on my lip. "I'm sorry. I'll tell her I'm sorry."
Caleb sighed, but it lacked the usual sting. He just sounded exhausted. "I'm sorry too. Because I showed your photo to my mother to prove 'Steph' was a real person. The singing one."
My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. "You did what?"
"Look, now she knows that I've been lying about where I've been going, she's on my case," he argued. "I couldn't show her a real girl because she's following up every lead now. I didn't have a..."
"Are there any members of your family who have not seen me in drag?" I demanded. Caleb paused a lot longer than I liked. "Holy shit Caleb..."
"They don't know it's you," he argued. "They don't. They think you're a pretty blonde girl I met at Aidan's birthday party last year. Mum's only comment was that you dress a little scantily. They don't suspect a thing."
I hated how my heart skipped at pretty, before returning to the catastrophe at hand. "And Lauren isn't so pissed at me that she'll drop the truth to any of them?"
"She's not like that," Caleb assured me. "She won't betray you. I just... wanted to keep you up to date, alright? Because my mum was serious about inviting you to dinner."
I groaned aloud. "Can't we just stage a tasteful breakup?"
"I mean, I'm not exactly pleased that you're fake dating my little sister," he responded. "But my mum's already suspicious of you. Not a he-moonlights-as-a-drag-queen kind of suspicious, but... Lauren's never had a boyfriend before and if you break up, I have a feeling you will not be forgiven. Because, while I love them all, my family is kind of insane."
I feel back into the carpeted floors of the wardrobe. My wigs were in dire need of brushing. "And what does them hating me have to do with anything?"
His pause was unreadable. As many parts of Caleb were.
"Because I don't... want them to," he finally said, quite simply. "Not when everything that went down yesterday was fifty percent my fault. You shouldn't have to be a martyr just so I don't have to deal with you anymore."
The sentiment had gone from being sweet to slowly sour, but I decided to focus on the fact that Caleb didn't want his family to hate me.
"I'd say sixty percent your fault," I finally said, after revelling in giddy glee for way too long. "You could have just answered the phone when your mum called."
He sighed again and then cursed. I heard a shout in the background, and Caleb responded with a curt thought I heard the cat come back! After a brief silence, he spoke to me again. "I've got to go. But... are you going to Crescendo this Friday?"
I nearly answered yes, automatically, before remembering my previously made plans and slapping myself for being such a flaky friend. "Nah, I'm having the night off. Have fun though."
"I'm grounded, I'm not going anywhere. Just wanted to... check," he sounded suddenly distracted. "Good night."
I smiled to myself. "Good night."
When he was gone, I dropped my phone to my chest and took a deep, rattling breath in. I wished that with my newfound out-ness, I was allowed to call Aaron and wax lyrical about the rhythm of my heart and the caramel of his voice, but I quickly reminded myself that the details of my life were still very much in the dark.
Instead, I stripped down in my wardrobe and painted Sephora over my bags for eyes and sun-deprived skin. With each stroke of the blending brush, I glistened more and more. I tinted my lips ruby red, and shadowed my eyes, before saying fuck it and drawing a bold black line across my eyes. It was quintessential Sephora Utah, with a dramatic twist. I combed my hair under a short, platinum Marilyn Monroe wig and brushed my naked shoulders with powder before taking a quick photo.
mormon.vixen: beauty tip: when you don't have time to sleep, paint over the bags under your eyes <3
I waited to wash off the makeup longer than I should have on a school night. I watched the comments roll in, each one more flattering than the last. It bought an easy smile to my face.
Until I saw a comment from a familiar account, a regular fan who I didn't know personally.
baaaaabe! are those your real eyes???
My heart caught in my throat, and my lungs seemed to fill with cement as I scrolled up to double-check the photo. I glanced up to the mirror, to find my own brown irises staring back at me. Fuck.
I didn't know how I'd missed it. Sephora's green contacts were part of my transformation; my ritual. I scrambled to edit the photo, turn it black and white, but forced myself to pause. It didn't really matter. My eye colour was the least of the risks I took, posting photos online. I was more anxious about how easily I had overlooked it; after a year of my Sephora ritual, I'd posted a photo before realising I was missing a vital ingredient. It wasn't as if I looked all that different with my natural eyes; if anything, I just looked more familiar.
I looked just the tiniest bit like myself.
I quickly switched the photo to black and white. Responded a shushing emoji to the commenter with keen eyes, followed by a string of hearts. I hoped it would be enough to keep them from persevering in eye-related comments.
I didn't know why I was so stressed. I wasn't a celebrity, with every move being scrutinised by the entire internet. I was a fresh-faced drag queen with four hundred – approaching five hundred – followers. People weren't going to plaster my real eye colour across the internet like evidence.
But it did shake me up. Sephora's green irises were another much-needed barrier between me and the world. I saw it differently through her eyes. I saw opportunity. I saw freedom.
I saw the future.
When I looked up into the mirror, caged by makeup products and drawings and fairy light, and gazed into the murky mud of my real eyes, I just saw a lovesick kid who was failing out of high school and didn't know how to drive. I didn't know how to rebuke that overwhelming part of myself that despised who I was without Sephora on my shoulder.
Tears washed the eyeliner away, leaving tyre tracks down my cheeks. It wasn't a good release like I'd had with Aaron the day before. They were the kind of tears that came no matter how much you tried to hold them back, that clogged your throat and made the roof of your mouth sting. Tears that put an ache in your stomach, and made your lungs feel worthlessly small.
I cried them out in the confines of the wardrobe until I'd used up my reserves for the week. I was careful not to leave a trace of Sephora on me when I cleaned myself up.
In bed, I curled around a pillow like it was my heart and clung to it until I wasted away into sleep.