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Something Jax never admitted that day on the baseball field was how he truly felt in that dress.
That… maid dress. A mockery. Something they threw on him like it was nothing, like his identity was nothing but a cruel joke. They put him in it to laugh at him, to twist him into something “funny,” to make femininity itself into a joke at his expense.
They thought him looking like a girl was funny. They thought it was hilarious, really, like a punchline that would never stop landing.
And it did land. At least for them.
In the end, it was something they did to embarrass him.
Admittedly, he was embarrassed. Extremely embarrassed, in fact, though not for the reason he always claims.
Not because it makes him less masculine. Not because it’s “kinky,” or ironic, or whatever excuse he’s thrown out when people push too close to the truth.
Those were just lies he’d woven, easy answers. Ways to shut conversations down before they could turn into something real, though not completely untrue.
Because the real reason sat somewhere quieter, and somewhere much worse.
In all honesty, he was embarrassed because it was confirmation of something he hadn’t agreed to acknowledge yet.
Confirmation that if he were to put on a dress, not as a joke, not as a trick, not as humiliation, if he were simply to exist like that… they would still laugh.
They’d laugh at him.
They’d laugh at her.
Like she was still the same joke, just finally told out loud.
They would find her attempts… pathetic.
Not even dangerous. Not even interesting.
Just pathetic.
And that was the part that stuck.
Not the dress.
Not the crowd.
Not even the laughter.
But the possibility that, even in a world where he could be anything, that anything might still be something to laugh at.
Even if that anything was her.
And even now, as he continues to insist upon the lie he’s built so carefully around himself, that his masculinity is fragile, that it’s all just a joke he’s in on, what she knows to be true keeps gnawing at the edges of him like something alive, something that refuses to settle, refuses to be ignored.
The truth sat behind her, while he handed them something prettier, something easier to swallow. Something that wouldn’t make them pause. Something that wouldn’t make them look too closely at the shape of what was really there.
And every time he does it, it doesn’t feel like convincing them anymore.
It feels like turning away from her just long enough for them not to notice she’s there.
It’s for the best, besides, she’s a joke to them, and to him.