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It was a regular day, just like any other. They were both laying on Soda’s bed, Sandy resting on top of him, each doing their own thing on their phones. This was how they usual spend their time when Sandy came over, which she often did because she hated being home. The Curtis house was more of a home to her than the one she lived in with her parents. Something, however, must’ve prompted a thought into her head, because she put down her phone and stared at Soda’s face for a couple of seconds. His hair was honey coloured, more edging towards blond than brown, but it changed throughout the year, and he always had a swoop on one side that he meticulously styled with gel and a comb, though when he just woke up and hadn’t even gotten dressed yet or had just gotten out of the shower, his hair fell down on his forehead like a soft curtain that Sandy loved running her hand through. He had soft blue eyes, with rather long eyelashes, curved upwards in a way that made his smiles even bigger and brighter. None of his features stood out in any particular way, they all worked together to form a cohesive piece. His face was neither strongly masculine, with thick, coarse hair, large jaw, strong brow bone, but it wasn’t too feminine either, with rounder features, fatter cheeks, plumper lips. He was pretty, and that was the best word to describe him. She stared at his face for a full 3 seconds before blurting out:
“Can I do your makeup?” She made round eyes at him, pouting her lips a little.
“What? No!” He laughed at the silliness of the idea, but it only made her even more determined.
“Please! My birthday’s coming up and I have to practice!”
“Practice on your own face!”
“Come on! You’ll take it off afterwards.”
Soda must’ve been around 7 years old at the time. He was snooping around in his mom’s purse, looking for candy, but he found her makeup instead. He recognized the object he had found, her lipstick. She usually went with neutral colours in her day to day look, pinks, soft reds, but on special occasions she preferred bolder colours like a dark purple. His mother was a really elegant woman, carrying herself with dignity and leaving a strong impression wherever she went. When he thought of his mother, he thought of warmth, and comfort. The lipstick looked a lot like the crayons he used to draw, but softer and also oilier. It didn’t feel much different on his lips than chapstick, or when he would eat very saucy spaghetti and he’d have sauce all over his face. “What on earth are you doing?” He remembers feeling terrified and so ashamed of himself when his dad found him. “Makeup is for girls, not boys. Now go wash that thing off your face.” Back then, he thought his father was angry at him, but he thinks now that he must’ve been worried or confused.
“I don’t know... You promise not to take any pictures, right?” He hated saying no to his girlfriend, but he was feeling so unsure about this.
“I promise. Besides, Evie puts makeup on her boyfriend all the time, it’s alright.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she does.” Soda snickered. He was intimately aware of the things Steve and Evelyn did together, and he knew for a fact sometimes makeup would get everywhere. Sandy would’ve rolled her eyes, but she still looked at him with puppy eyes.
“Fine, fine! But nothing too much, okay?” He tried saying but Sandy was already reaching in her overnight bag to pull out the makeup case she was carrying with her. Soda sat upright and watched her get closer to him, like a lion ready to jump on its prey.
It wasn’t a terrible experience. Sandy gave him a large, towel-like headband to keep his hair out of his face and she started prepping his face with different creams and sprays and stuff. Most of the stuff smelled nice, and it was a routine he was used to see her do on herself, or sometimes he’d see videos of people putting on makeup as he scrolls on his phone, so this wasn’t all too alien to him. He really hated the feeling of the brushes on his skin, it was tickling him and made him sneeze a couple of times. He also had to stay still for a long time, much longer than he thought he was capable of, as Sandy grabbed his head and stuck brushes in his face. At least she had the decency of putting on a podcast in the background for them to listen to. By the end, his nose was really itchy and it felt like he had sunscreen and flour on top of his face.
“Done!” Sandy exclaimed, a cocksure grin on her face, way too proud of herself. She handed him a mirror.
He barely recognized himself. It was his face, his hair, his mouth, but the reflection was a stranger to him. He looked like a girl, a really pretty girl, he thought. She had given him brownish red smokey eyeshadow that gave him a dangerous and mysterious look and even made him look sorta mean. His face was also contoured to give him a longer and rounder face with shimmery highlights but he kept looking back at the lipstick. Sandy wore a lot of nude colours, sometimes only lipgloss, but she had given him a darker pink colour, almost like a well-done steak, and it was glossy.
“So? Not so bad?” He realized she was awaiting some sort of feedback.
“It’s, uh, pretty good. You’re really good at that.” Noises came out of her mouth as she was putting away her makeup stuff but Soda didn’t understand any of it. He was still looking at himself in the mirror.
He looked an awful lot like his mother. He knew it, he’s always known it, but all painted up like that, the resemblance was striking.
He also didn’t hate how he looked, or how it made him feel. He felt nice. There was a weird feeling he felt that he knew he felt before but couldn’t quite place.
“When are you gonna cut his hair?”
“He hasn’t asked me to yet.” His mother and grandmother were in the kitchen, prepping the dinner and having a chat. They probably hadn’t realized that Soda could hear them from the living room.
“It’s getting pretty long. He doesn’t look like his brothers.” It was true. Darry kept his hair pretty short most of their childhood, he didn’t want to be bothered by it, and Pony kept it in between, while Soda’s hair had gotten so long he could tie it in a ponytail, which he loved doing.
“Soda isn’t like his brothers, ma.”
“I’m saying that he looks like a girl. It’s your responsibility to raise your boys right.” He ended up getting his hair cut not too long after, his father took him to the barber. They nearly gave him a buzzcut, and Soda came out with tears in his eyes. Any time he’d try to grow out his hair afterwards, his family would call him Rapunzel and make fun of him until he cut it.
“Alright, that’s enough, let’s take this off-” Soda felt his chest tighten and his eyes water up. He needed to get this off of him as soon as possible.
“What? Soda? What’s going on?”
“This was a mistake, Sandy.” he got off his bed but froze just before turning the door handle. What if Pony or Darry saw him like that? “You have wipes or something?”
“Yeah, hold on a second.” She sounded really disappointed as she reached into her bag. “I didn’t know you’d hate it so much. Sorry.”
He quickly scrubbed his face with the wipe Sandy gave him and he watched as the pure white turned all sorts of shades of beige, pink, brown, red and black. He felt his skin breathe again, but there was an oily residue left.
Sandy had gone back to lay on the bed, looking at her phone and occasionally back at Soda, but there was frustration on her face, amongst other things.
“What now?” he asked her.
“Well, I do your makeup and you act like I poured acid on your face or something!”
Oh, that explains it. He hadn’t thought that Sandy might’ve taken it that way.
“It’s not because of you, you’re really good with makeup,” He scooted closer to her, placing a hand on her thigh, “I just really hated how it felt on my face.” It wasn’t an entire lie.
“Like, the foundation and stuff?”
“Yeah, that.”
Her brows were still furrowed and Soda was really hoping she’d believe him.
“I just wanted to be able to do the type of boyfriend and girlfriend things I see other people do. I never had a sister to practice my makeup on, unlike Evie or Sylv.”
That’s the kind of thing Soda will never experienced. The only woman in his life was his own mother, and it’s not like she’d do girly things with her son. He grew up with brothers, he grew up in dirt and bruises and toy cars and dinosaurs and firemen, but Soda always envied the girls in his class who had barbie dolls and toy horses and pink dresses and bows in their hair. There was one little girl, he remembers, she had red hair and wore braces in middle school but she always wore a pink bow in her hair and Soda stole it from her a couple of times. He got scolded by his mother each time he did it, she’d tell him it’s not the proper way to tell a girl he likes her, but that wasn’t why he stole her bows. He didn’t like the girl, he didn’t really care about her, it was the bow he was after.
“I’m fine with the masks and those things.” He said, hunching his shoulders, trying to offer a middle ground. He had upset her, and he wanted to make it up.
“I guess that’s fine.” She thought it over. It wasn’t the answer to fix all her troubles, but it was a good offer.
She went back on her phone and got engrossed in some drama surrounding a bakery and a gender reveal party, and Soda went to the bathroom the wash his face one last time, to get rid off all the residue. Who would expect mascara to stick so much?
The splash of water felt nice on his skin, the droplets trailing down his face, down his Adam’s apple and onto the neck of his shirt. He leaned over the sink, his shoulders hunched, staring at his face. He could see a lit stubble on his skin despite shaving every single day. The thought of having a moustache or a beard made him sick to his stomach, a fear so intrusive he hunches over the bathroom mirror for hours on end plucking any hair he sees on his chin, upper lip, cheeks. He has some trouble identifying the face staring back at him. It’s his reflection, but he wouldn’t call it himself. The imagine of himself he has in his head is more... is... well...
He fought so long to keep those feelings away, thinking he’d outgrow them, but each time he was just pushing the goal post away, and he started to think they’d never disappear.
Slowly opening his fist, Soda looked at Sandy’s lipstick, his heart beating quickly in his chest.