I hang up all the dresses in there back on their respective hangers—I am extra careful with the one I like. I put my clothes on slowly and by the time I've walked out, Lada's hung up the other dresses on the metal thingy you hang your clothes on when you aren't gonna buy them so they can be put away properly.

"I was thinking," I say. "We could go look at the costumes. We might be able to find a cheap one that has a red cape in it."

"Oh, wow, that's a good idea—I was about to suggest we find a red towel and tie it around your neck of something." She looks at her phone for the time. "...It's five, we still have plenty of time."

I drape the dress we chose over my arm and carry the socks in that hand—I use my other to rifle through my purse, pull out my phone and check for texts, but I don't have any. Lada goes ahead and carries the shoes for me and we're just about to walk towards where we're pretty sure the Halloween costumes are when a woman stops us. "Were you just in there?" She asks.

She's white, blonde, tall. ...She has the Karen haircut. I know you should never judge a book by it's cover, but immediately, I feel like a conservative, republican boomer is gonna bother us.

"Yeah?" Lada says.

"You can't be in there," she scoffs. "It's for women."

I am a woman, I try to say. "I—" She cuts me off, but I don't think I was actually going to finish that sentence.

"Miss!" She shouts, waving over an employee. 

"Oh no," I say. I am audible—does this woman have nothing better to do than harass a pair of teenagers in a clothing store?

An employee with box braids and monolid eyes walks over. She has a small tattoo on her neck, a name—Ememm, in pretty, bold, cursive lettering. "What seems to be the problem?"

The woman points to me and despite the fact that I kind of want to burst in tears, I cross my arms and glare this woman down. "That boy was in the dressing room!"

The employee looks at me a short moment, holding a dress, with my shoulder length hair, uncomfortable expression and a bit of tinted chapstick. She frowns and asks. "Are you a girl?"

My legs are shaking—I don't think I do well with confrontation. This was a bad idea, this was a bad idea. But I nod, almost frantically. If Deming was here, he'd stick up for me, but Lada's still looking too shocked to do anything—but since I'm on the verge of tears, I don't think I can actually blame her for her frozen state.

"That is not a girl," the woman spits.

"If she says she is, she is," the employee says. She sighs. "It's perfectly legal, so long as she identifies as one."

"He shouldn't be allowed in the dressing rooms!" The woman shouts. Other customers are coming, drawn out by how loud this woman is being. Oh, fuck. "They're for women, not some shemale!"

I bristle.

"Ma'am, if you don't feel comfortable using the dressing room when it has...her in it, that's fine—but she's out now."

The woman shakes her head. "Pervert!" She shouts at me, like I'm a guy who tried to look up her skirt and not a teenager trying to shy away from this. "Sicko! What kind of—I'd like to speak to your manager and see what he has to say about this! What kind of a law allows boys in the women's dressing room!"

"I'm a girl," I say. "It's legal." I don't think I would have actually said anything if she hadn't said "shemale." I fucking hate it when people use that word.

All to quickly, the woman is in front of me and she forcefully pulls my arms apart. "Don't cross your arms, it makes you look aggressive."

Lada snaps out of her state and shoves the woman away from me. "Don't touch her, lady!" She shouts.

"Don't push me—I'm calling the police, that is assault!"

"Ma'am," the employee says, and she looks simultaneously pissed and exhausted, stepping in between me and the Karen. "I'm going to have to ask you to quit harassing these girls—for the love of God, they're children. And if you don't stop, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

That's set her off. "You should be asking them to leave!" She shouts. "That one's a pervert and the other just pushed me!"

"Security!"

I take a step back and a step closer to Lada, as if maybe she can shield me from this. Lada looks at me, while a man in a jacket that says security on it rushes over. "Does...this usually happen when you go out?"

I realize I don't go out enough to actually know—and I wonder if this is why.

After that fiasco, Lada and I morosely walk over to the Halloween costumes. We find a Red Riding Hood costume with a red hood, but it looks...weird. The hood is more pink than anything, the skirt looks like it could reach someone's ankles, and all in all, I wouldn't want to wear that cape, but we find a vampire costume that has a cape Lada thinks looks cool—but her excitement is pretty subdued, much more than usual, at least. The costume is being sold at a measly four dollars, so Lada grabs it. It doesn't look like it's of good quality, and there's a thousand in the section that look just like it, so I think the store is just desperate to get rid of them.

When we get to a cash register thirty minutes after all that, the woman with the Ememm tattoo is behind the counter. She grimaces when she sees us—the lady was kicked out of the store, but was screaming profanities and insults at everyone the entire time, saying she'd never shop here again. "I can offer you a twenty percent discount on your purchases," she says, and she looks sympathetic towards me and I can't stand to look at her.

This has just reminded me that I'm different—from Lada, and that woman, and this employee.

And it's not that being different is bad—I would never want to be a guy again, and I will never want to be a cis girl, even after experiences like this. ...But that doesn't mean that experiences like this don't make me feel bad, as if I've personally wronged people for my existence as a trans girl, but...I don't think I'm alone.

It's like Deming says, I suppose. Feelings are not reality—but I still feel pretty alone.

Lada's quiet as we head out to her car, shopping bags in tow. "...Sorry," she says. "About back there. That woman was really mean to you—I wish I did something."

"It's cool," I say.

"No," she says. "There was nothing cool about that—but for the record, I...I know you're a girl. And I know you aren't just a pervert who wants to get into dressing rooms and bathrooms to spy on some women. You're a girl, just like me. We're not that different."

I want to say that we are different—very different. Yes, we identify as the same gender, but that doesn't mean that we're the same or ever will be the same, and even if I was a cis girl with all the experiences you get from that, I know we still wouldn't be the same. But I'm not sure how to explain that—and I worry, if I did know how to explain that to Lada, I'd somehow offend Lada, and I don't want to do that. She's been nice to me.

We get in the car. "At least we got things for the costume," she says. "You'll look amazing, come Halloween."

"Thanks, Lada."

She smiles at me. "So, um..." She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "I know that was a total downer, and I get if that just made you want to go home, but...If you're up for it, we can go back to my house and hang out."

"'Hang out?'" I ask.

"Yeah," she says. "Do like, girl things and junk." I blink. "Like, we can watch a movie, paint our nails? Eat popcorn and drink root beer floats and hang out?"

A part of me says that is also a bad idea, and that I need to cut my losses and go home right now. ...And another says Lada's been so nice to me that I need to repay her by hanging out with me, and the part that spoke previously insists you shouldn't hang out with someone to 'repay' them for being nice to you, but I'm not sure if I should listen to that. ...And a part of me says, why not? It sounds like fun, and I only see two results happening of this—one being I have fun and gain a new friend, and the other being I somehow end up dying an unrealistic and horribly gruesome death. "Sure," I say. "Sounds like fun."

I think the popcorn bit won me over, if I'm being honest, but I guess it's at least worth a shot.

My phone vibrates—my mom's texted me, "r u hving fun?" She tries to text like a teenager, but she's horrible at it—she's also totally aware and when I laugh at her texts she always asks, Am I hip with the kids now?

I send a thumbs up back—it's a bit of a lie, but I'm hoping, that within thirty minutes, I will be.