Outfits (Jalex)

1. Pink

Blue is for boys, pink is for girls. That is a gender stereotype that's existed practically since the beginning of time. There was probably male cavemen that were scared to eat pink berries in case it damaged their precious fragile masculinity, no matter how goddamn good those berries tasted.

That was just one of the gender norms that Jack Barakat was proving wrong today.

Jack decided to wear a pink shirt today, along with a black skater skirt.

Don't worry, I can hear you all saying 'but boys can't wear skirts', We've all heard it. Well guess what? skirts are literally just pieces of fabric, they have no gender.

In Scotland, the manliest men wear cool tartan skirts along with hella awesome white socks that they use to store a knife while they toss giant logs, and if that's not stereotypically manly then I don't know what is.

Except Jack wasn't a strong Scottish man, he was a fifteen year old boy, scared to go to his new high school in the fear of bullies. Maybe he should take advice from the Scots and keep a knife in his sock.

"Jack, are you ready to go?" His older sister, May, asks.

May didn't expect to come into her brothers bedroom and see him standing in front of the mirror in a skirt. Honestly, she expected him to be jerking off, but maybe this was less shocking, definitely less mentally scarring.

"Are you wearing that to school today?" She asks, not in a mean or condescending tone, she honestly couldn't care less about what he wore, she just doesn't want to be late for her first day at a new school.

"Yeah," Jack replied quietly. "Yeah, yeah I am!" He added, more confidently.

"Okay, let's leave then," May gestures towards the door.
"Yes, let's." Jack grabs his bag and follows her out.

The drive to school was somewhat nerve-wracking for Jack. Maybe because May was such a bad driver he was unsure how she possibly managed to pass her test, but more because it's his first day at a new school, and that's fucking scary.

Jack's nervous as he walks with May up to the school building. He flattens out his skirt as the wind blows against his legs.
"May?" He asks, stopping suddenly. "I'm scared."

"It's okay to be scared," she smiles reassuringly. "High school is a scary place, man."

May is in her final year at high school, and thankfully she's been pretty well liked and hasn't personally experienced bullying, or anything to that extent. She's obviously had the odd passing comment, but she's managed to avoid direct bullying throughout her school years. Hopefully it'll stay the same at this new school.

"I don't say this enough, but you're a great sister, thanks." Jack smiles at his sister in admiration as they walk to the school office.

"This is your schedule" May hands a sheet of paper to her brother after getting everything she needs from the office lady.
"You have english first," she points to the text on the sheet of paper. "I'll walk you there, if you like."

So May walks Jack down the hallway to his english class, using the little school map she was given. She points out places of interest along the way. There are people passing who talk about Jack's skirt, but he can't hear them. He's in his own world, walking in awe at the size of the place, it's a lot bigger than his last schools.

Jack wasn't the first to arrive in class, but he wasn't the last. He's left with the horrifying choice of where to sit.
There's multiple empty seats from which to choose.
He could sit at the front, but that would make him noticeable, or a teachers pet. Yet if he choose to sit at the back he would be totally unnoticed, and he didn't exactly want that either.