#it’s been a while since I drew team zits

[cloud-iceshadow]

All together

[autisticmob]

HELLO everyone i am now ten days out from my tiddy surgery so i think while everything is still fresh-ish in my mind I should get a rough timeline of how things went for me, just so anyone having similar stuff done in the future can have it as reference?? 

so under the cut is how shit went down, warning we are gonna be tmi about it for Max Information Dissemination, i will be talking about IV placement, Needles, Bleeding, Bruising, Bathroom Stuff In General, etc. so like. Be Warned.

OKAY SO what did i have done and how did i get it:

- i got a bilateral breast reduction with a “T,” “keyhole,” or “anchor-shaped” incision. this procedure, unlike double-incision top surgery, does not detach your nipples at all, but it DOES leave a decent hunk of breast tissue behind to avoid the nip graft. this connecting tissue keeps your nip attached and supplied with enough blood to survive. that means with this one, theres basically a limit to how much they can take off, and it depends on how big you are to start off with. 

- i went with the T-incisions because as a NB person, I wanted to sidestep the “gender-confirming surgery” route with my insurance. technically, I believe it would have been covered if i had gone through the process of talking to a therapist and getting a note that the surgery WOULD help confirm my gender, but i suspect it would have taken much longer, and I was afraid that my doctor and community resources would not have ended up approving me FOR the surgery since I don’t exactly fit the typical trans narrative. and luckily for me i had Massive, Spine-Bending G Cup Tiddies to contend with. so every doc that took a look at me said “yeah, you need those taken care of for medical reasons.” so i thought hey, let’s see how far this will get me!

- i talked to my primary care doc about my back pain and mentioned i’d like to look into a breast reduction, and she referred me to a local surgeon who could do the procedure. at the time i was still entertaining the idea of double-incision, but as it turned out, this surgeon just didnt do that. but i knew for certain my insurance would cover him, his results were good, and he was local, so i said yes to the T-incisions, which he said would likely get me down from a G to at least a C. it wasnt my ideal scenario admittedly, but frankly the back pain was getting to be too much, and i needed it to be addressed sooner rather than later.

- i had a consultation with the surgeon in early december, and they took pictures and measurements to send to my insurance so they could confirm the tits WERE in fact Too Bomb To Live. Doc said that it varies between insurance companies, but most will have a minimum amount of tissue that needs to be taken off, in grams, from each breast. he was like, “your insurance needs at least 1000g total removed, which’ll leave you on the small side, is that cool?” and i was like “My Man, take AS MUCH as you possibly can, im sick of these” and he was like “cool, makes my job easy then.” 

- it took my insurance like 1.5 to 2 months to get back to me, but late january the surgery place called me and we set a date for february 5th, 2020!!

PRE-OP:

- before i went into surgery, the hospital made me go over my medical history with them over the phone, informed me of all the risks, and gave me a special scrub kit to shower with at home for the last 2 days before the surgery

- fun fact this soap will make your whole bathroom and body smell strongly and exactly like a hospital and it is gross as hell if you hate hospital smell

- i also had to go to my primary care doc to get the OK that i was healthy enough to go under general anesthesia, and also get some blood tests and a urinalysis done. i fucked up the urinalysis tho (which is a whole other story) so i had to redo that the morning of the surgery when i got to the hospital anyway. 

- when i scheduled my surgery they also gave me a list of things i had to NOT DO before i went in. this included stuff like avoiding herbal medications and non-prescription supplements and not drinking any alcohol for like 2 weeks prior to surgery, and not eating anything after midnight the night before surgery.

- then it was SURGERY DAY!!!

- i went in with uhhh a LOT of anxiety about what everything would entail, ngl. i knew i had to do it because staring down the barrel of life with tiddies forever was way scarier than surgery, but yknow whenever you go under general anesthesia they legally do have to let you know that you could die and thats just a lot to consider, PLUS the whole thing involves just, really mangling your torso so like. its a lot! its okay to be scared!

- both my parents went with me for moral support which i appreciated a lot, but i didnt actually see them much since they had to spend a lot of it in the waiting room.

- when i went back with the doc they had me Wash The Tiddy Off with some antiseptic and change into a gown. i got some grippy socks out of the deal which is probably not a universal experience, but this hospital did it so shoutout to them for the socks i guess

- then they asked me all my medical history stuff again and checked me for any like, rashes or open sores or anything. i had some Tit Zits but they did not seem to be worried about that.

- then the surgeon came in and drew lines on me for the incisions. bro when i saw how high up my nips were gonna be i was losing my damn mind. this is one of the really exciting parts, because you finally get to really visualize what your end size is gonna be!! 

- once he was satisfied with how everything looked, they started really Prepping Me For Surgery.

- they hooked me up to a blood pressure cuff, a heart monitor, and some compression leg thingies that would inflate and deflate intermittently around my calves to help me not get blood clots. this felt weird but tbh also like kind of a nice massage

- then the iv placement. bro im not lying when i tell you this is the worst part. the nurse numbed me with some lidocaine before placing the needle and let me tell you that shit HURTED. lidocaine Stings and Burns when it hits and this was arguably the most painful part. but the good news about that is it means nothing else after that is all that bad. and i got THREE lidocaine shots because these two nurses could NOT find my blood anywhere. they finally called in their ringer (an EMT named kirk, s/o to kirk) who got that sucker in my arm with NO numbing and NO pain in like, 2 fucking seconds. i pray you all have a kirk. kirk knows where your fucking blood is and hes not gonna fuck around getting to it because he JUST wrestled a drunk dude into an ambulance like an hour ago and compared to that this is nothing. kirk had sleeveless scrubs. im obsessed. anyway.

- then they put a plastic, inflatable, heated blanket over me? it was between two regular blankets so it wasnt as uncomfortable as you might imagine, but it was strange. warm tho so that was nice.

- THEN they wheeled my bed down to surgery. i was having so much anxiety at this point it was like... dreamlike. getting wheeled into the OR was just surreal. i was like, no thoughts head empty, just taking everything in.

- once i got there the surgical team was very cool about keeping me calm tho. they were playing their like, pump-up music and one of the guys was like “hey fyi about halfway thru the surgery we will be turning the lights off and having a rave, just in the interest of full disclosure. promise not to leave any glowsticks in there tho” and i was like what no i would LOVE glowstick tiddies

- i had to kinda roll from my bed onto the operating table, which was significantly harder and smaller. that kinda made things feel real, so i got a little more anxious at that point.

- to help me calm down they had me breathe in some straightup oxygen thru a mask while they hooked my iv to the fluids and such, and the guy was like “WHOA you got some lungs on you dude” and i was like yeah thanks im recovering from hyperventilating

- then they let the anesthesia into the iv, letting me know the whole time what was happening, talking to me until i was just OUT, which was not a lot of conversation time because i was out in like 5 seconds or less. they didnt make me count down or anything, but i promise you it was nigh instantaneous.

POST OP

- it really was instantaneous. i know everyone says that but it really is the truth, it feels like the whole thing takes seconds. like one moment youre laying there in the OR feeling the drugs Hit, and the next youre waking up in the little wake-up room feelin kinda groggy with a nurse talking to you, and youre still druggy so youre just rambling to her about how fucked your voice sounds right now and as soon as shes contented that youre basically lucid they start wheeling you to your room where youll ACTUALLY stay while you recover.

- THE THING I WAS THE LEAST PREPARED FOR WAS MY THROAT

- your throat will Hurt afterwards, but even more than that, you will be producing So Much Mucus. my surgery took about 2 hours and during that time, all my muscles were paralyzed by the anesthesia, including my lungs, so i was on a breathing tube. my throat, understandably, hated this, and started producing Gallons Of Fucking Mucus to protect itself. it then continued to do this for the next two days or so. the nurses were encouraging me to breathe deep and cough Hard to combat this, and avoid getting pneumonia, so i did. but THAT hurt the tiddies. it was really a vicious cycle. but its necessary because god if i had to have pneumonia on top of all the other recovery shit?? god. 0/10 wouldnt recommend. so it might hurt but dont worry your tiddies wont bust open or anything.

- i spent basically the rest of the day still hooked up to all the machines i listed earlier, PLUS a thing that would beep at me if my heart rate went too high, which it did a lot because i have anxiety, but luckily the nurses didnt seem too concerned. it really kept my breathing on track though because if i didnt breathe deep enough my heart would shoot up super fast and it’d beep and god that was just annoying and im pretty sure that was The Point. you kinda have to get used to breathing again, and the beeping trained me.

- they gave me like a bunch of crackers and a huge mug of water to work on at my leisure. i actually had lunch pretty quick after waking up? i know a lot of people have nausea issues from anesthesia but i didnt experience any of that. i DID move like a fucking sloth while i was eating tho. the pain meds and general grogginess of recovery slowed my whole body down sooooo much. my mom was actually like “are you okay??? like neurologically??????” and i was, totally, i was just. on slo-mo.

- anyway i didnt have to get catheterized for this procedure thankfully but they DID make me measure my pee every time i went to the bathroom. like i had to pee in a little bucket attached to the toilet and the nurse had to come check it every time and i felt really weird about that. so idk just be prepared for that i guess lmao

- also idk if it was the pain meds or the anesthesia itself but post-op, i couldnt shit for like a week. the constipation is real so get u some fucking laxatives asap when you get home, this is not a joke lmao

- they also had me put on a belt every time i got up so the nurse could hold onto me in case i decided to fucking biff it. they got me up a couple times throughout the day/night to walk up and down the hallway outside and get my body used to being upright again

- oh speaking of i never got to lie down completely flat, they had my bed locked at like a 30 degree angle minimum to help with... something. im not quite sure what, but im not gonna question it

- when i got up the next morning they had a couple nurses come in and help me un-bandage so i could shower and finally look at what the tiddies looked like for the first time!! and it was exciting but i didnt cry like i expected lmao i think i was too drained and too distracted by the bleeding

- the bleeding wasnt too bad actually, just little beads kinda coming out of parts of the incisions between the stitches. but once i got in the shower obviously stuff started getting diluted in the water and it looked like a lot more than there actually was, so dont be alarmed by that! 

- SHOWERING: its a little complicated. youre not supposed to soak the incisions, and youre not supposed to apply direct water pressure or actually touch them at this point. so what i had to do was get a washcloth wet and soapy (with antibacterial soap, i think it was hand soap honestly. hand soap’s what ive been using at home so........) and then just kinda. squeeze it at your collarbone and let it drip down over everything kinda minimally. its kind of a process but it works fine. washing your hair and like, tbh literally everything else is gonna be hard. reaching over your head is hard and scary at this point. i will admit my hair care Suffered the first week. 

- then i got bandaged back up and they got me back into my own clothes and ready to go home! they also put a bra on me over the bandages in my new size. i was only there for about 24 hours total, since i didnt really have any complications. 

- on the ride home i had to make sure the cross-chest part of the seat belt was NOT touching me. if whoevers driving you hits a pothole, your soul WILL exit your body tits-first for a moment. im sorry if you live somewhere like here in nebraska where the roads are garbage but its not gonna be fun.

ONCE YOU’RE HOME!!

- i live at home with my mom and sister and if you live alone, id try to have a friend basically move in for the first week. you will need Help with things. basic things. you’ll mostly want to sleep because of the pain meds but those made me pretty dizzy so it was cool having my mom around in case i like. fell on the way to the bathroom and died or anything like that.

- changing bandages is really kind of a 2-person affair too, and youll have to do it at least once a day post-shower, so keep that in mind. 

- the bleeding is like, not that bad after that first day honestly. i never had to change the bandages more than just the once per day. 

- basically from here the procedure is just to take it easy, get up every few hours and walk around a little to keep the blood clots at bay, and enjoy yr new silhouette basically

- worst thing about recovery honestly? im a stomach/side sleeper, and i cant manage anything other than laying flat on my back with my arms at my sides right now, and thats just like.... idk i really cant sleep like that. its not comfy. ive had to set up kind of a pillow fort around me to keep me from rolling over in my sleep bc im afraid i might hurt myself accidentally like that, but idk how well-founded that fear is.

- i will say as someone who did have back problems before this, the difference is IMMEDIATE. i literally had better posture like Day 1. im still a little hunched over because the stitches create a bit of tension in your chest, but like literally it was instantaneous. god. once i got healed to a point that i could like, kinda relax and not be so fucking tense all the time? back pain has basically just been GONE. 

- other fun things to notice: i had some pretty significant stretch marks before, and now they are running in a completely different direction. i crossed my arms over my chest the other day and they actually touched my torso for the first time in like, well over a decade. if i close my eyes and try to grab my tiddy from muscle memory, i stop like a full 3 inches from where my tit actually starts now. the size i am now, just like, freeballing it? this is how i looked when i wore a binder before. if i wore a binder now i imagine id be completely flat, and honestly if i layer up at this point you cant really tell that i have anything more than the average chubby dude’s moobs, which as a kinda chubby person is totally fine. 

its a trip relearning what i look like and what im supposed to feel like but its just. such a fucking improvement over where i was. absolutely no regrets, regardless of how hard recovery has felt at times. anyway i hope this information is at least interesting and maybe helpful to anybody considering anything similar!!

[born-in-the-wrong-multiverse]

Literal Baby Blues

Title: Literal Baby Blues

Square: De-aging for @clintbartonbingo

Warning: Language

Pairing: None

Summary: When Clint ‘volunteers’ for an experimental procedure to make himself sixteen again for the sake of a mission, no one could have predicted how horribly wrong it could all go.

"You absolutely promise this won't be permanent?"  "I swear it. Forty eight hours, max. It'll wear off gradually over the last couple of hours but until then, you'll be sixteen again."  "Greattttt. Because that's every grown man's greatest fantasy, to be pimply with a squeaky voice right before he's even had his growth spurt all over again." Clint was understandably a little unhappy about the whole situation. He'd drawn the short straw, though, and now he had no choice but to follow through, no matter how hard he might try to talk his way out of it. "How do you even know this will work in the first place? I'm guessing you didn't exactly use yourself as a guinea pig, Banner." Looking up briefly from the monitor he was observing as he calculated the dosage based on Clint's weight and height and current age, Bruce nudged his glasses up a little higher on his nose, delaying the need to answer. "Well...I mean...the mice responded well." Clint damn near shrieked at him. "Mice?! You mean you've only tested it on rodents?!" "Well," Bruce muttered, "Every scientific theory has to start somewhere." "And now you're back to calling it a theory!" Clint's eyes bugged out of his skull, backing away from the workbench hastily. "You're joking, right? About this whole stupid idea?" When Bruce shook his head, eyes full of sympathy, Clint slumped dejectedly, reluctantly resigning himself to his fate. Whatever it might be. "Fine," he grumbled, "Just make it quick so I can get this mission over with and go back to being a full grown man with all his short and curlies again." Scrunching his face up as he pinched the bridge of his nose, Bruce just nodded, doing his best to bleach that image from his brain as he instructed Clint to sit down and lay back in the chair. "You'll likely experience a little disorientation, your balance will be a little compromised to begin with until you adjust, but your mind will be your own. You'll have all your memories, all your personality and...quirks...will be intact." "Oh, I suppose you and Pym just asked your little mice subjects to clarify all that for you in a handy little questionnaire, huh?" Ignoring Clint's little outburst, Bruce drew back on the syringe as it filled with the serum that would revert him back to his teenage body. "Okay? Ready?" "Do I look ready?" Clint muttered, his eyes wide with trepidation and displeasure. Bruce shrugged. "Not really."

Over the course of the forty seven minutes following the injection which flooded Clint's veins with the highly experimental solution, the Avenger's body shrank, in both height and muscle mass. The battle-weary creases at the corners of his eyes smoothed until they were no longer a visible reminder of the seven layers of hell he'd survived. The scruff on his jaw and chin retreated, leaving only the faintest hint of fluff on his top lip, while his voice lost its tenor. Almost disconcertingly, however, his nose still heralded the crooked memories of every time it had been broken in a fight, and the reminders of innumerable gunshots, stab wounds and other miscellaneous injuries still scarred his skin. "Aw futz," Clint croaked as he tested out his resurrected, under-developed vocal cords. Looking at himself in the mirror, he cringed, resisting the urge to reach up to squeeze the zit that itched next to his left nostril. "Forty eight hours, right?" For a moment, Bruce didn't respond. He was gawking awestruck, foremost at the serum's success, but also at the sight of sixteen year old Clint in all his gangly glory; he hadn't grown into his limbs, yet, and the years of hard work put into his physique hadn't yet passed. He hadn't expected the scars to remain, either; he had, foolishly he now realised, assumed that the formula would have somewhat regenerative properties. "Banner! Don't stand there staring at me like I'm your Frankenstein's monster success story; answer me! Forty eight hours and I can go back to normal, right?" "Right!" Bruce snapped out of his reverie, nodding emphatically at the teenaged Hawkeye. "So, better make them count. Unless you want to have to go through this whole thing again." Eyes wide, Clint squawked a curse. "Not a futzin' chance." 

It started slowly at first, so gradually it was imperceptible to the naked eye. The crackling pop of his maturing voice started to shift up an octave instead of dropping one. The shoes that had fit perfectly that morning started to slip off his feet with every step. The fuzz on his lip receded one hair at a time without him so much as lifting a razor. It wasn't until his gums painfully swallowed his wisdom teeth forty two hours in that Clint realised something was horribly wrong.  "Fix this!" Clint shrilled at Bruce as he stormed into the lab with all the fury his now twelve year old self could exude. "I'm supposed to be getting older, not younger!" Bruce's eyes expanded in perfect synchronicity with his jaw dropping. "I...none of the test subjects experienced anything like this. I'm not even sure what...I mean...I can't fix what I don't understand, Clint." "Then understand it! Figure out what's happening and fix it!" the younger version of Clint Barton snapped, his voice no longer squeaking with the effort of pushing words past vocal cords that were still figuring out their role in this world. “An hour ago my balls were still right where I’d left them and now they’re back up somewhere between my bladder and my spleen along with the pitch of my voice! Fix it so they drop back down where they belong or so help me God, Banner...” Squashing down the absurd instinct to deliver an unnecessary anatomy lesson, Bruce exhaled slowly. Bracing himself for another outburst, he held his hands up, palms out so as to placate the already irate archer. “Give me time. I just...I need some time to run tests and figure this out, but I promise, I can fix this." He paused. "I think." "It's the 'I think' part that worries me," Clint groaned. He was almost certain that in the five minutes since he'd walked into the lab, he'd shrunk another inch, and the pre-pubescent blemishes had faded from his now perfectly smooth skin. "I swear I'm losing two years every couple of minutes now. If you don't fix this before I'm back in diapers, I will sink my milk teeth into you!" "Six hours," Bruce pleaded, "And that's if I take a lot of shortcuts. But I'm going to need at least six hours to run tests. I'll need blood, hair and a cheek swab. To begin with, at least." Gritting his teeth, Clint scrunched his now nine year old face up in contempt. "I'd even jerk off into a cup if it would help but I'm not sure I'm even capable of that any more." Pinching the bridge of his nose, Bruce rubbed his eyes with the pads of his thumb and forefinger, his glasses resting on his knuckles as he sighed. Admitting he needed at least six hours to even run the tests was one thing, but trying to tell Clint that he would need adult supervision for the duration of those six hours was going to be another thing entirely. 

"Gimme the goddamn drink! I'm teething and have nappy rash that itches worse than a case of the clap because someone -" the piercing pair of literal baby blues shot daggers in Bucky's direction, "- forgot to powder my ass!" At two years old, it was disconcerting hearing that sort of language spouting from Clint's tiny, but not yet completely toothless mouth. The team that wasn't hunting for answers in the lab was officially stuck on babysitting duties. While Clint retained his memories and his ability to speak, his fine motor skills were on the decline, resulting in the need for a little more help getting around. Pym had suggested it was possibly only a matter of time until even his vocal cords reverted back to being unable to form sophisticated sounds, too. Clint hadn't liked that, and was in the middle of a particularly foul mouthed tantrum as though to make the most of what time he had left to do so. "Well next time tell one of us you need to crap yourself and we'll take you to the bathroom so you can do it in the big boy's potty instead," Bucky smirked, clearly still not over the trauma of changing his teammate's dirty diaper, and still cursing Tony for suggesting that they draw straws for it, too; especially when he was positive Tony had somehow cheated. Just because he looked like a toddler didn't mean it was any less Clint. "Besides, you can't metabolize alcohol any more. So, suck it up. Have a binky instead." The look of pure rage blazing in Clint's eyes when Bucky tossed a pacifier in his direction was enough to force Steve's hand, as he stepped in and lifted Clint into his arms. "Okay, that's enough out of you. I think you need a nap." "No I do not need a nap!" Clint protested, but even as he did so, he yawned, snuggling into the crook of Steve's neck and shoulder. "I am a grown ass man. Grown men don't use binkies or take naps or...or..." "Shit in diapers?" Bucky teased, eliciting a tempestuous shriek of indignant wrath from the two foot tall, blond haired boy with eyes bluer and colder than icicles as he tried to fling himself from Steve's arms in an effort to sink his sharp little fingernails into Bucky's face. “Okay,” Steve laughed, drawing the word out slowly as he wrangled Clint in his arms, “Enough. Just because you look like a baby doesn’t mean you need to act like one.” Watching with an eyebrow raised in bemusement, Nat piped with an affectionate taunt in her voice, “This is Clint we’re talking about. Acting like a baby is sort of what he does best.” Clint shot a furious look in her direction, but with his plump infantile features, the scrunched up button nose and pouty lips only served to remind Nat of a Cabbage Patch doll, making her own face contort with the effort of holding back her laughter. Sucking in a breath to try and calm herself, Nat looked at Clint sympathetically, walking over to take him from Steve’s arms and cradled him close to her chest to try and comfort him. “Just hang in there a little longer. Banner, Pym and Stark are all working on a way to reverse this, but you gotta be patient. They can either do it fast, or they can do it right. Which would you prefer?” “Both,” Clint muttered. “Can’t we just get Strange to do his magic wizard thing and take me back to before I agreed to this nonsense? So I can use my brain for once and refuse to do it at all?” Glances were exchanged between the group; the idea had been floated briefly, but was quickly rejected. The mission itself had been a triumph, and a diplomat’s sixteen year old son had been saved from a politically fuelled abduction attempt. Any effort to distort the prose of history could undo all that hard work, and none of them were willing to take that risk. “You know why we can’t do that,” Steve sighed softly, “Just...be patient, like Nat said.” Tears welled in Clint’s eyes, and for a moment, it was easy to forget that there was a man in his mid-thirties trapped inside that baby’s body. His bottom lip trembled, and his eyes screwed shut, sniffing loudly as he tried to force the sob of despair back down his throat before it could escape. Fat, lazy tears of pure frustration slipped down his cheeks as he looked around the room at each of his teammates, silently pleading with them to help him. He knew they were doing all they could, but he was losing hope. When he opened his mouth to speak again, all that came out was a few babbled, incoherent syllables. “Oh no...” Nat’s hand flew to her mouth as it dropped open in horror. None of them knew what would happen if Clint continued to shed months of his life in mere minutes, and it was clear now that he didn’t have many months left to lose. “We’re going to get you back to normal, Clint. Until we do, we’re going to look after you. You’re going to be okay.” 

Moments after the now four month old baby Barton fell asleep in Natasha’s arms, Bruce summoned Steve to the lab. The sombre look on his face wasn’t promising. “He’s stopped growing younger,” Banner frowned, cleaning his glasses on the hem of his shirt, “But...we still can’t figure out how to reverse it. Barton’s antibodies should have kicked in and essentially started eating at the serum as it attached itself to his cells, but, the serum was too strong. We could try giving his immune system a boost, but if his white blood cell count raises too high, then...that in itself won’t be good, either.” Looking Steve in the eye, Tony folded his arms across his chest, and shrugged. “The alternatives are to either let him grow up all over again,” he quirked an eyebrow at the look of disbelief on Captain Roger’s face and held his hands up, demanding patience before he continued, “Or we keep looking. The solution is here,” he tapped his temple and shrugged again, “We just need to dig around in the grey matter to find it. Until then, I guess we all just signed up for Parenting 101.” 

[krissysbookshelf]

Enjoy An Exclusive Sneek Peek of: Gem & Dixie by Sara Zarr!

Gem has never known an adult she can rely on, the one constant in her life has been her sister, Dixie. Gem grew up taking care of her sister when no one else could. Even as Gem and Dixie have grown apart, they've always had each other. When their dad returns home for the first time in years, Gem finds herself with an unexpected opportunity: three days with Dixie—on their own in Seattle and beyond. But this short trip soon becomes something more, as Gem discovers that that to save herself, she may have to sever the one bond she's tried so hard to keep.  

LEARN MORE

  WHERE ARE we going? Dixie would ask.

The forest, I’d say. Or, Space.

She never questioned me.

We need to pack survival rations, I’d tell her.

What’s that?

Food and water and gum and stuff.

She’d help me make butter-and-jelly sandwiches on soft, white bread. If we had chocolate chips, we’d sprinkle those in, too, and mash the bread down hard so they wouldn’t fall out. I’d lift her to the kitchen sink so she could fill a bottle with water, and I’d roll up a beach towel; then we’d put it all into the picnic basket that was really just a paper grocery bag on which I’d drawn a basket weave pattern with a green marker—badly, crookedly.

We would put on our jackets and shoes, and I’d make her close her eyes and I’d lead her around the apartment and spin her in circles and then say:

We’re here. Open your eyes.

I knew, and she knew, we weren’t in space or the forest or Narnia or anywhere other than our shitty apartment. Still, when she opened her eyes, they’d go big and bright. She was good at make-believe. My favorite thing was how she always skipped into whatever fantasy place we’d gone to. As soon as her eyes were open, she’d start skipping all around the living room and up and down the hall.

We’re in space, I might say. You can’t skip in space.

I can.

Okay, but you can only skip really slow in space because there’s no gravity.

Mid-skip she’d switch to slow motion and try to make her arms and legs more floaty. Then she’d get tired of it and get hot in her jacket and say it was time to go home.

No, we’re not going home. We’re never going home. I don’t remember when I started saying that part.

She’d stop squirming. What about Mom? And Daddy?

We’ll leave a note.

Then we’d spread the beach towel on the living room floor and if I forgot to bring crayons or markers to space I’d run into our room and get them, and we’d draw a good-bye note, our stick figures flying up to the moon and holding hands as we waved good-bye forever to our parents. Dixie liked to draw stars behind our heads like halos.

She used to play along. She used to believe everything I told her, and do anything I said.

She used to need me to take care of her, and I liked doing it. I liked doing it because, then, I thought I was the one who could. Even though nobody was taking care of me.

1.

NINE QUARTERS.

They were the last of what had been left in the jar of laundry money that Dixie and I kept in our room, the jar that had never quite lost the smell of pickle relish. I counted and recounted the quarters in my pocket with my fingertips as the lunch line moved forward, as I’d counted and recounted them through English, physiology, and government. I counted because things in my life had a way of disappearing on me, and I’d learned not to trust what I thought was there.

What was there wasn’t enough—three quarters short of the cost of lunch—but I stayed in the line anyway as it moved me toward the food. Lunch roulette. Luca, the cafeteria worker on the register, might find seventy-five cents for me in his pocket. Or someone else in line might cover it, out of impatience or pity, which were just as good as kindness on a day that hungry. I hadn’t eaten more than a candy bar since the potluck in my fourth-period Spanish class the day before.

Denny Miller and Adam Johnson—freshmen—stood right in front of me in the line; Tremaine Alvarado and Katy Plant, juniors like me, stood behind. Tremaine was on my PE volleyball team. She’d stare through me on the court, or jostle me while we rotated to the serve, without saying sorry or excuse me or anything else that showed she thought of me as an actual person with a name. Katy Plant thought it was funny to call me “Jim” and got other people to do it, too. I don’t know what’s worse—people acting like you don’t have a name, or them saying it wrong on purpose. The point is I wouldn’t be asking Katy or Tremaine for a handout.

Not that I wanted to ask anyone for a handout. But being hungry—I mean really hungry—had a way of erasing a lot of the embarrassment. And Denny and Adam were easy, being the kind of undersized freshmen who still looked more like seventh graders.

“Denny,” I said.

Both Denny and Adam turned around. I could see them wondering how I knew his name. I knew it because they were both listed on a program from the last band concert, and it was posted in one of the display cases outside the counseling office, under a picture of the band. I spent a lot of time there. I knew not only their names, but that Adam played clarinet and Denny played trumpet and had a solo in “Stars and Stripes Forever.” They both had floppy hair and bad skin. Adam was taller, which helped me tell them apart.

“Can I borrow seventy-five cents?” I asked quietly.

“Me?” Denny pointed to himself.

“Either of you.”

The line moved and the smell of ravioli and garlic bread got stronger. My stomach seemed to fold in on itself.

“I use a lunch card,” Denny said.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Me too.”

They turned their backs to me. Just because their parents loaded up cafeteria cards with money didn’t mean they didn’t also have some cash. I checked on Katy and Tremaine behind me; Katy was busy showing Tremaine something on her phone. I leaned closer to Denny. “But maybe you have some change or something?”

He drew back and shook his head. I wondered whether I’d tell Mr. Bergstrom about this in our appointment later and if I did, how I would describe it in a way that made me not look too bad.

I tried Adam. “Do you know Dixie True?”

That got his attention. “Um, yeah.”

“She’s in our social studies class,” Denny added, facing me again. “And English.”

“That’s my sister.” Maybe if they knew that, I would seem more interesting than weird.

They exchanged a glance.

“Really?” Denny’s voice cracked on the end of the word. Adam laughed through his nose.

“Ask her next time you see her.”

They wouldn’t, not boys like this, zit-faced and probably still playing with action figures in secret. They might sneak looks at Dixie but they wouldn’t dare say a word to her.

Denny pulled a wrinkled dollar bill from his pocket. “You can pay me back tomorrow, though, right?”

“I’ll look for you,” I promised, taking the money.

A couple of minutes later I had my tray of ravioli and garlic bread, a sad iceberg salad with two croutons, and a carton of milk. When I got to Luca at the register, he shook his head. “I saw that.”

I handed him the bill plus eight of the quarters. He shifted on his stool, the sleeves of his green school jacket swishing against his sides while he rang me up. “If you don’t have money,” he said, “you should get your parents to fill out the form online so you can get free lunch. How many times I gotta tell you?”

I stared at the peeling yellow school logo over his heart. Half of a lion’s mane, a third of its face. “Okay.”

“‘Okay,’” he said, imitating me. “You say ‘okay,’ then you’ll be back here hustling quarters in line tomorrow, these poor little freshmen.” He wasn’t talking loud but not quiet, either, and I imagined Katy hearing every word.

“Those are my sister’s friends,” I said, and decided that’s what I’d tell Mr. Bergstrom if it came up. “I’m going to pay him back.”

 “You always had money in the fall. What happened?”

 “I saved from my job last summer. That’s all gone.”

Since January.

His hands hovered around the register drawer for a second. Then he said, “Here’s your change.”

“But—” I was sure I’d given him three dollars exactly.

“Here’s your change, Gem,” he said again, putting four quarters in my palm.

“Thank you.”

He waved me away, and I took my ravioli to a quiet corner to eat.

“Is that supposed to be me?”

Mr. Bergstrom had gotten a new whiteboard. He’d drawn a stick figure, falling. I knew it was falling from the way the stick arms and stick legs pointed slightly upward, like gravity was pulling on its stick middle.

“I’m not a great artist but, yes, it’s meant to represent you. Here . . .” Bergstrom added some strands of hair that flew up, then capped his dry-erase marker and sat back down. “Is it at least close? Is this how you feel?”

“I don’t know.” In the way that she was alone, maybe, but even falling she looked more free than I felt. I got up and held my hand out for the marker. I drew a box around the falling girl. That didn’t look right, either. “This is dumb.” I picked up the eraser and wiped it all away.

“Maybe.” He smiled. He had a good smile and a good face, and a way of looking right at me without making me feel like I was being studied in some lab. He was way better than old Mr. Skaarsgard, the school psychologist he’d replaced at the beginning of the school year. Skaarsgard would always furrow his white eyebrows at me and make me feel like nothing I said made sense. Maybe it didn’t, but at least Mr. Bergstrom tried.

Normally I saw him a couple of times a week, not always on the same days, sometimes after school and sometimes during it, depending what was going on. I know it was a lot. Some kids at school could go a whole semester, even all of high school, without seeing him once. But right at the beginning of freshman year I sort of had this incident in pre-algebra, and my teacher referred me and then I was on the permanent rotation, first with Skaarsgard, now Bergstrom.

“What’s the box?” he asked. “That’s what it was, right?”

I shrugged.

“You feel . . .” He trailed off and I knew I was supposed to complete the sentence.

“I mean, you can’t put me on there with nothing else,” I said, pointing at the blank whiteboard. “You have to draw Dixie and my mom, and our apartment and school.”

“Earlier, you said you felt alone.”

“I do.” My hands curled up on my knees, my nails pressed into my palms. This office was always hot and small. I shook my head, not knowing how to explain feeling alone but also trapped in the middle of people and places that didn’t let me move or breathe.

Mr. Bergstrom had plain brown eyes, a little bit small for his face, but I could almost always see sympathy in them, like now. “It’s okay, Gem,” he said. “I know it’s hard to put into words.”

I opened my hands and took a breath.

“Do you want to update me on things with your mom?” he asked.

“They’re fine.”

“Fine? Last time we talked you seemed pretty worried about her. And Dixie.”

Sometimes, at our appointments, I’d tell him a lot, and it felt good in the moment, finally saying the things I’d had stuck in my head all that week. But then I’d be in bed those nights, and a smothering kind of panic would settle on me that I’d said too much. Like I’d given away something I needed and couldn’t get back.

“You said not to worry, so I stopped.”

“Well. I think I said it wasn’t your job to worry about your mom, it’s her job to worry about you. But I know it’s not that simple. Especially with Dixie.” He smiled again. “And I know you didn’t just stop worrying, Gem.”

I looked at the clock. “I have to go to detention. My bus was late this morning.”

He nodded. “Okay.” He wheeled his chair back. “We’re not scheduled again until next week, but come say hi anytime.” That’s how he always ended our meetings. Come say hi anytime. I liked knowing I could.

By the time I got home, it was twilight. Detention had made me miss my bus connection, so I’d walked, the chill and damp of Seattle a force I pressed against with every step. It was March, and things would get better and lighter soon, just not yet. Having to walk meant I missed my afternoon cigarette, too, on my bench in my park. The smoking time, which no one but me knew about, was when I didn’t feel the cage or the box or whatever it was. It made space for me and my thoughts. Without it I felt like part of me was left behind, trying to catch up.

The security gate at the front of our apartment building stood ajar despite the signs all over the entryway reminding residents in capital letters to MAKE SURE the gate stayed LOCKED SECURELY because there had been CRIMINAL INCIDENTS. The dark corridor between the gate and our stairwell always scared me, especially when the gate was left open.

I pulled it closed behind me, then checked the lock. Then I checked the lock again and told myself I could stop checking. But halfway down the corridor I went back to check it again. Then, grasping the pepper spray on my key chain, I went up the three flights of stairs—past all the handwriten notes old Mrs. Wu left everywhere about noise, garbage, pets, smoking—and into our apartment.

Dixie was home. She had the TV on and a sandwich in one hand, her phone in the other, homework all over the floor where she sat. She’d changed clothes since I’d seen her at school that morning—from jeans and a hoodie to shorts over tights and a green V-neck T-shirt that showed a lot. I had on baggy jeans and a plain blue sweater that would have hidden everything if there’d been anything to hide. As usual, she looked like the older sister.

She looked up. “I heard you stole money from some freshman today.”

Dixie had ways of knowing nearly everything that happened to me at school.

“Borrowed money,” I clarified.

“Why’d you have to tell them I was your sister?”

“You are my sister.”

“Thanks for embarrassing me.”

“You’re welcome.”

In our bedroom I put my backpack on my pillow with the straps toward the wall. My keys went on top of the cardboard box on its side that I used as a sort of nightstand. My shoes went inside the box, laces hanging out. I hung my jacket on the closet doorknob and put on the thick socks I always wore around our apartment. Whenever Dixie saw me doing this stuff, or checking the gate lock more than twice, she’d tease me and say I had OCD. But Mr. Bergstrom asked me a bunch of questions about it and said I didn’t fit the diagnosis, that it was more like I had a few rituals that helped me feel in control, and they didn’t interfere with my life, and it wasn’t the same thing. “Plus, from what you’ve told me about where you live,” he’d said, “checking the gate lock sounds like plain common sense.”

I confirmed one more thing—that my stash of cigarettes was still under the bed—then went back to the living room. The onion smell of Dixie’s sandwich made me salivate.

“Did you get that from Napoleon?” I asked.

She chewed and stared at me like, Obviously. Napoleon was the older guy who worked at the deli down the block and had a crush on Dixie—like a hundred other guys.

“Can I have some?” The ravioli from lunch seemed forever ago.

“No,” she said, but held it out anyway. I sat on the floor next to her and took a bite. Then another. Roast beef. Avocado. Cheddar cheese. Thin-sliced red onion and a hard sourdough roll. It was perfect, as if all of Napoleon’s craving for Dixie had been slathered onto that sandwich. I swallowed huge pieces of it, half chewed and sharp with mustard.

Dixie watched me eat. “You can finish that if you’ll go down and get the laundry from the dryer.”

“You did laundry? With what money?”

“Money I had.”

“I’m not going down there at night,” I said.

“It’s not night.”

She tried to take the sandwich away from me; I held it out of her reach. “It’s dark, though.”

“I washed some of your clothes, too, Gem. Do you want them to get stolen?” She lunged again for the sandwich.

“O-kay,” I said. I finished it and went the five steps to the kitchenette to throw away the white paper it had been wrapped in.

“Did you see your shrink today?”

“He’s not a shrink. He’s just a school psychologist.” I opened the fridge. There were a few stale corn tortillas, an opened bag of green beans, ketchup, and a white plastic butter dish with maybe a teaspoon of butter left, crumbs stuck all over it. Same as that morning.

“You should get him to send you to a real shrink. Say you need Adderall. You could sell it at school and then you’d have some money.” I’d heard that Dixie helped some seniors sell their prescriptions at school. I didn’t want to know. “I can tell you what symptoms to have,” she said.

“No thanks.”

I imagined going down to the laundry room. The lights could have burned out again. Sometimes there were noises that might be a zipper clanging against the dryer door, or might be rats or a creepy neighbor.

“Let’s go get the laundry together,” I said to Dixie.

She looked up from her homework. “You always do that.”

“What?”

“‘What?’” she repeated, in a bad imitation of my voice. “I already took my shoes off.”

“So did I. Put them back on.”

I went to the bedroom to get mine. When I came out, Dixie stood by the door forcing her flip-flops over her tights.

“You’re going to fall down the stairs and die,” I said as she shuffle-walked to me.

She shrugged.

I knelt to tie my laces. “Where’s Mom?”

“Out.”

“I know. Out where?”

“Work, I guess?”

I straightened up and we faced each other.

“Do you think Napoleon would give me a sandwich?”

She laughed. “Well, you might have to flash your boobs.”

“Is that what you do?”

“No! I’m joking, Gem, obviously. Do you really—” She shook her head. “You never get my jokes.”

It didn’t matter. I knew exactly why Dixie got sandwiches and why I wouldn’t.

Dixie is pretty. No one in our family is beautiful the way movie stars are beautiful, but she’s the type of girl who gets second, third, fourth looks—as many looks as people can get away with before she stares them down. She’s soft in the sense of being curvy, and hard in the sense of not taking any shit. She’s cute—her hair, her clothes, the faces she makes when she’s surprised or mad or thinks something is funny. And intimidating. She exudes a sexuality, but in a way where it’s like it’s for her, not for anyone else. It started in junior high, and by the time she got to high school, people couldn’t spend five minutes with Dixie before they wanted to give her things, feed her, touch her, get her to smile, be her friend, be her boyfriend. She got sandwiches, she got her cell phone bill paid, she got attention when she wanted and deflected it when she didn’t.

Whereas I still hadn’t figured out how to make and keep a friend.

I stared, she stared back. For her it was a game. She thought I was trying to get her to look away first. But really it was me trying to see who I was through Dixie’s eyes, me wondering if she evaluated me and my face and clothes and body, the ways I made it through the world, like I evaluated hers.

Did she look for herself in me, the way I looked for myself in her?

Finally she broke, and laughed. “You’re such a weirdo, Gem,” she said. “You probably scared that freshman with your creepy eyes.”

I didn’t want her to see I couldn’t take a joke, so I bugged my eyes at her to make them even creepier.

“Ew,” she said with an exaggerated shudder. “Let’s go downstairs before the rats come out.”

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