Chapter 2: Days
The girl—Chloe, according to the name scrawled on a calculus textbook on the desk—didn’t move from the doorway. Water dripped from the ends of her towel-wrapped hair onto the worn linoleum. Her eyes, a sharp hazel, performed a quick, scathing inventory: the ill-fitting uniform, the terrible wig, the sheer, panicked stillness of him.
“Well?” she said. “Matron usually tells me when I’m getting a temporary. Which you obviously are. So. Who are you and what did you do?”
Ethan’s mind blanked. All the rehearsed lies evaporated. “Eva,” he managed, the name feeling like ash. “I… got lost.”
“Lost.” Chloe’s eyebrow arched. She stepped fully into the room, letting the door swing shut behind her with a soft, final click. The towel around her body was tucked securely. She had the comfortable, unconcerned ownership of someone in their own space. “You got lost on your way to the bus station, maybe. That’s the usual kind of lost around here.” She walked to her wardrobe, her back to him, and began rummaging for pajamas. “You reek of cheap adhesive and panic. And your wig is crooked.”
His hand flew to his head. She was right. It had shifted during the infirmary ordeal. He tried to subtly adjust it.
“Don’t bother,” she said, not turning around. She pulled on soft grey shorts and a faded t-shirt. “It’s a lost cause. You’re in Seven because they’re watching you. So just… do whatever pathetic thing you did, get your demerits, and get shuffled to permanent housing in a week. Try not to steal my stuff.” She finally turned, leaning against her desk. Her gaze was less hostile now, more weary. “You cry in your sleep?”
“What? No.”
“Good. Last one did. It was annoying.” She unwound the towel from her hair, ruffling her short, damp brown curls. “Lights out in ten. Thorne does corridor checks. If you’ve got contraband, hide it well. She has a nose for resentment.”
Ethan just stood there, a statue of unease. This was a person. A real, perceptive person he had to share a ten-by-twelve space with. The abstraction of “the girls” at St. Cecilia’s solidified into a freckled, cynical reality named Chloe.
“Which bed?” he whispered.
“The empty one. Obviously.” She climbed into her own bed, pulling the covers up. “Don’t snore.”
The lights went out at ten on a punishingly loud central switch, plunging the room into a deep, unfamiliar darkness. The only light came from the green digits of Chloe’s alarm clock and a faint sodium glow from a security lamp outside, slicing through the slats of the blinds. Ethan didn’t undress. He just lay on top of the stiff sheets, still in the uniform, the silicone breasts a hard, unyielding mound on his chest. Every rustle of sheets from the other bed, every sigh, felt like a seismic event. He waited for the predictable rhythm of sleep breathing.
It didn’t come.
“You’re not even trying to get comfortable,” Chloe’s voice came quietly through the dark. It was neutral, observational.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re lying there like a vampire in a coffin. It’s disturbing my vibe.”
Ethan said nothing. He stared at the ceiling, tracing the faint cracks in the plaster.
“Whatever you did,” Chloe said after a minute, her voice softer, almost lost in the dark. “It’s not the end of the world. This place just feels like it is. It’s not. You’ll get out. We all do.”
The unexpected, grudging kindness in her words was worse than her suspicion. It made a lump form in his throat. He couldn’t answer.
Sometime near three in the morning, he must have slept, because he was jolted awake by the violent, metallic shriek of a bell. It echoed through the hallways, a sound designed to exterminate peace. Chloe groaned, throwing an arm over her face.
“Welcome to Tuesday,” she mumbled into her pillow.
The next hour was a blur of terrifying intimacy. Chloe dressed without a shred of self-consciousness, pulling on her uniform with practiced, sleepy speed. Ethan turned his back, pretending to organize nothing in his empty wardrobe.
“You’re gonna wear yesterday’s uniform?” Chloe asked, lacing her shoes.
“I don’t have anything else.”
“Figures. You smell like bus exhaust. Here.” She yanked open a drawer and tossed a small, cellophane-wrapped rectangle at him. It hit his chest and fell to the floor. A deodorant wipe. “Matron gives them out after gym. Use it. And for God’s sake, fix your… everything.”
In the communal washroom, Ethan faced a new circle of hell. A dozen girls in various states of morning disarray crowded around sinks, mirrors clouded with steam. The air was thick with the smells of toothpaste, floral shampoo, and aerosol spray. He hovered at the edge, a ghost. He watched, learning. The quick, efficient way they brushed teeth and hair. The minimal makeup. The easy, jostling contact—a shoulder bump, a grab for a shared hair dryer. An alien culture.
He found a sliver of mirror in a corner. In the unforgiving fluorescent light, he looked horrific. The wig was a disaster, the eyeliner from yesterday smudged into bruised shadows. The blouse was wrinkled. Using the deodorant wipe under his arms and over his chest felt like a crude attempt at archaeology, digging through layers of sweat and fear. He tried to pat the wig into some semblance of order.
“New girl’s having a crisis,” a voice sing-songed nearby. A tall girl with perfect braids smirked at him in the mirror as she glossed her lips.
Ethan ducked his head, shoved the used wipe in the pocket of his skirt, and fled.
At seven-thirty, another bell. A stern prefect directed the flow of bodies toward the dining hall. Ethan moved with the current, a piece of driftwood in a stream of pleated skirts and murmured conversations. He kept his eyes on the back of Chloe’s head, fifteen feet ahead. She never looked back.
The dining hall was a cavern of noise and clattering trays. He took a tray, numb, and shuffled past steaming bins of scrambled eggs and sausages. The smell, normally welcome, turned his stomach. He took a banana and a carton of juice and stood lost in the middle of the roaring room.
“Smith!” Matron’s rasp cut through the din. She pointed a stern finger like a railroad conductor toward a small, isolated table near the kitchen doors. “You sit there. You do not socialize until further notice.”
He obeyed. The table was for one. An island of silence in the noisy sea. He peeled the banana, ate it without tasting it, and sipped the juice. He could feel hundreds of eyes flicking over him, assessing, dismissing. The weight of the prosthetics was a constant, nagging pressure. When he leaned forward, they compressed awkwardly against the edge of the table. When he sat back, they seemed to pull his whole spine forward. It was a dull, persistent wrongness in the center of his being.
At eight-fifteen, a different prefect found him. “Headmistress’s office. Now. Second floor, main administration corridor.”
This was it. The unraveling. Or the sentencing. He wasn’t sure which he preferred anymore.
The walk there was endless. The corridors in the administrative wing were quieter, carpeted in a drab grey that swallowed sound. The air was cooler, smelling of lemon polish and old paper. He found the door: a heavy, dark wood slab with a brass plate that read ‘Headmistress Plum.’
He knocked, the sound absurdly small.
“Enter.”
The voice was not Ms. Thorne’s. It was mellower, with a carefully modulated warmth. He pushed the door open.
The office was a study in faded authority. High ceilings, walls covered in a floral wallpaper that had once been elegant but was now just tired. A large mahogany desk, its surface polished to a painful shine, reflected the glare of harsh fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling. Bookshelves lined one wall, filled with identical, unread-looking volumes. And on the wall behind the desk, a large, ornate portrait of a severe-looking woman in old-fashioned dress—the founder—loomed, her painted eyes seeming to track him.
But Ethan’s gaze snagged on the doorframe to his left. Fixed to the wood at waist height was a small, polished brass hook. And hanging from that hook was a pair of standard police-issue handcuffs. They weren’t decorative. They looked functional, well-oiled, and entirely real. They gleamed under the lights.
“Eva, isn’t it?”
His attention snapped to the woman behind the desk. Beatrice Plum was younger than Thorne, perhaps early forties. She had a soft, round face, gentle brown eyes behind stylish glasses, and hair the colour of warm honey pulled into a loose, kind-looking bun. She wore a soft cardigan over her blouse. She gestured to the hard-backed chair facing the desk. “Please, sit. You look exhausted.”
It was the kindness that undid him. A treacherous heat pricked behind his eyes. He sat, perching on the edge of the chair, his hands clenched in his lap.
“Ms. Thorne filled me in on last night’s… adventure,” Plum began, lacing her fingers together on the blotter. Her voice was a soothing balm after Thorne’s iron and Matron’s vinegar. “I want you to know, first and foremost, that I am not here to punish you. I am here to understand you. Running away is always a symptom, Eva. A cry for help. I’d like to hear what you’re crying for.”
She waited. The silence stretched, filled only with the faint hum of the lights. Ethan’s mouth was desert-dry. He couldn’t meet her compassionate gaze. He looked at the handcuffs instead.
“It’s… it was a mistake,” he whispered.
“I’m sure it felt necessary at the time,” Plum nodded, her expression one of profound empathy. “St. Cecilia’s can feel oppressive. The rules, the structure, the expectation. It’s a lot for a young woman. Were you unhappy at home? Is that why you were sent to us?”
He gave a tiny, non-committal shrug. A part of his brain, detached and screaming, marveled at how seamlessly she was building a prison for him out of kindness and assumption.
“We have excellent counselors here,” she continued, leaning forward slightly. “Whatever you’re struggling with—identity, anxiety, family tensions—we can help. But we cannot help if you run. The world outside those gates…” She shook her head, a sad, maternal motion. “It’s not safe for a girl alone. What Ms. Thorne did last night, as upsetting as it may have felt, was an act of protection. Do you see that?”
He didn’t. He saw a chain of horrifying errors, each link forged by his own stupidity. He nodded anyway.
“Good.” She smiled, a warm, encouraging thing. “Now, for the practicalities. You are on social suspension. No common room privileges, no off-campus activities, your free periods will be spent in study hall under supervision. You will report to Matron after every meal. This is for your safety, Eva, and for the community’s. We need to rebuild trust.” She opened a file on her desk—a file with the name ‘Smith, E.’ already on the tab. "Also, you will be wearing stiletto high-heels for the rest of the week, as another form of punishment. Your first class is English Literature 12B." Plum handed him the stilettos.
The shoes were a violent shade of patent black, with heels that looked more like weapons than footwear. Ethan took them, the plastic cool and implausibly heavy in his hands. He couldn’t form a sentence.
“A reminder to watch your step, both literally and figuratively,” Plum said, her gentle smile never wavering. “You may go. First period starts in twelve minutes. I’ve alerted your teacher to your… modified circumstances.”
He stumbled out into the corridor, the door clicking shut behind him with a sound like a gavel falling. He leaned against the wall, the stilettos dangling from one numb hand. The portrait of the founder in the office seemed to have burned its judgmental stare into his retina. He looked down at the shoes. Wearing them wasn’t an option. It was a death sentence for this already-crippled charade.
A door opened further down the hall and the sharp click of practical heels approached. Thorne rounded the corner, a file in her arms. She stopped, her eyes doing their quick, analytical sweep. They landed on the shoes in his hand, then on his face. A flicker of something—not approval, but grim satisfaction—passed over her features.
“I see you’ve met the real headmistress,” she said, her voice low. “The soft glove. It fits over the same iron hand, Smith. Don’t be fooled by the stitching.” She stepped closer, and he caught a faint scent of starch and mint. “The heels are a classic. They make running rather difficult. They also make slouching, hiding, and blending in absolutely impossible. You will stand out. You will be seen. That is the point.”
He looked at the floor, the drab grey carpet stretching into infinity.
“Look at me when I am addressing you,” Thorne said, not raising her voice. The command in it was absolute.
He forced his head up. Her gaze was a physical pressure.
“You will put them on now,” she instructed. “You will walk to your class. If you are late, you will receive demerits. If you take them off, you will spend the night in the reflection room. Do you understand the reflection room?”
He didn’t. He shook his head, a tiny, terrified motion.
“It’s the space behind my office. The one with the handcuffs hooked to the doorframe. It’s for students who need uninterrupted time to contemplate their life choices.” She let that hang in the air between them. “The shoes, Smith. Now.”
There was no bench. He slid down the wall to sit on the hard floor, fumbling with his plain, school-issued flats. His fingers felt thick and stupid. He got the first one off, then rolled down the knee-high sock. His foot looked pale and vulnerable. He slid it into the stiletto. It was a size too small. His heel hung over the back, the hard plastic edge already digging in.
He stood up.
The world tilted. It wasn’t just height; it was a fundamental reorganization of physics. All his weight pitched forward onto the balls of his feet, his ankles wobbling like reeds in a wind made of pure uncertainty. The silicone breasts, already a cumbersome front-load, now felt like they were pulling him into a forward fall. He grabbed the wall.
Thorne watched, unmoved. “Posture. Shoulders back. Imagine a string pulling you up from the crown of your head.” She said it like reciting a manual. “You’ll learn. Or you’ll fall. Your geography classroom is in the west wing. You have eight minutes.”
She walked away, her own heels punching efficient, confident holes in the silence.
The walk was a public spectacle in slow motion. Every step was a calculated risk of ligament and pride. The click-clack of the stilettos on the linoleum echoed ahead of him, a herald announcing his humiliating approach. Girls flowed around him in the hallway, a stream parting around a bizarre, faltering rock. He heard the whispers, the stifled laughs.
“What’s with the heels, new girl? Auditioning for something?”
“Look at her walk. My grandma has more balance.”
“Thorne’s special project, obviously.”
He kept his eyes on the strip of floor three feet ahead, focusing on the impossible task of placing one tortured foot in front of the other. The arch of his foot screamed. A hot, sharp pain began to drill into the base of his big toe. The unfamiliar muscles in his calves twitched and burned.
He found the geography room door just as a final bell rang—a different, shriller sound than the wake-up siren. He hesitated, his hand on the cold metal handle. Behind this door were thirty more pairs of eyes. He pushed it open.
The conversation died instantly. Thirty heads turned. The teacher, a young man with a tired expression and a mismatched blazer, glanced up from his desk. His eyes flicked to the shoes, then to Ethan’s pleading face. He checked a note on his desk.
“Ah. You must be Eva Smith. The headmistress called. Your seat is there, in the front row. Let’s not make a further disruption.”
The walk to the front-row seat was ten miles long. He focused on not falling, each click a hammer blow to his composure. He slid into the hard plastic chair, his legs trembling with the relief of being off them. He shoved his feet under the chair, trying to hide the undeniable, gleaming evidence of his punishment.
The teacher began droning about sedimentary rock layers. Ethan heard none of it. The pain in his feet was a loud, insistent throb. The constriction of the breast forms made it hard to take a full breath. He was a collection of aching, unnatural parts. He watched a girl two rows over casually twirl a pen between her fingers, her own flat, sensible shoes planted firmly on the floor. A wave of such profound, homesick envy washed over him it felt like nausea.
The hour bled by. When the bell rang, the process began again. Standing was agony. Walking was worse. He was the last one out of the classroom, a clumsy ghost clinging to the doorframe.
Chloe was waiting in the hall, leaning against a locker. She looked him up and down, her expression unreadable. “So, the heels. She went with the heels.” She fell into step beside him, walking slowly, her own sneakers silent. “You pissed off Plum, then. Thorne just yells. Plum gives you gifts that keep on giving.”
“They hurt,” Ethan muttered, the words escaping before he could stop them.
“No shit,” Chloe said. She didn’t offer sympathy. It was just an observation. “You get used to it. Or you don’t. Your foot is bleeding, by the way.”
He looked down. A dark red stain was blooming through the nylon sock on his left heel, right where the plastic dug in.
“Great,” he breathed.
“Here,” Chloe said, stopping at a junction of corridors. She nodded toward the bathrooms. “Go in a stall, take them off for a second. Wipe it with toilet paper. I’ll watch for Matron. You’ve got about ninety seconds before the next class bell.”
It was the first truly kind thing anyone had done for him. It was tactical, unsentimental, and it almost broke him. He just nodded, too overwhelmed to speak, and hobbled toward the sanctuary of the stall.
He just nodded, too overwhelmed to speak, and hobbled toward the sanctuary of the stall.
The brief respite was a pathetic relief. Sitting on the closed toilet lid, he peeled the shoe off. The nylon sock was tacky with blood, fused to the raw blister. He dabbed it with rough toilet paper, hissing through his teeth. The pain was clean and specific, unlike the diffuse, drowning ache of everything else. He had sixty seconds. He counted them in the throbs from his heel.
Chloe’s voice came under the stall door, low and urgent. “Matron’s on the east stair. Move.”
He jammed his foot back into the prison, a fresh bolt of pain shooting up his leg. He flushed the wad of bloody paper for no reason and lurched out. Chloe was already walking, not waiting. He caught up, his gait a broken stutter.
“You’re a slow learner,” she observed, not looking at him. “The trick is to walk like you mean it. Even if you’re falling apart. This place smells fear. And blood, apparently.”
“Thanks for the tip,” he gritted out.
“Don’t thank me. You’re drawing attention to our room. I like my anonymity.”
They survived the next two periods—History and a brutal, humiliating French class where the teacher made him introduce himself to the entire room. His voice, a low, unconvincing murmur, earned snickers. He kept his eyes on the textbook, on the dizzying swirl of feminine pronouns he was now supposed to inhabit.
GYM CAME NEXT, THE ONLY TIME WHEN HE WAS ALLOWED TO SWAP HIS HEELS FOR SNEAKERS.
The directive was a cold mercy from the gym teacher, a muscular woman with a whistle permanently lodged in her fist. In the locker room, surrounded by the echo of slamming metal and the scent of clean sweat, he was given a standard-issue navy shorts and t-shirt set. He changed in a shower stall, his back to the room, his hands trembling as he unclipped the harness securing the silicone. The weight falling away was so profound he almost gasped. For a moment, just a moment, he felt his own body again—slight, familiar. He looked down at the flat front of the gym shirt. It felt like freedom. It felt like suicide.
He pulled the sports bra he’d been provided over his head. It was tight, compressive. Then he began the laborious process of putting the prosthetics back on, this time against his skin under the gym clothes, using the special adhesive strips he snagged from somewhere. The sticky grip on his chest felt alien and unpleasant. He pulled the t-shirt down. The shapes were still there, obvious and round under the thin cotton. Different, but not gone.
The sneakers were a revelation. He tied the laces with something close to reverence. Standing on the cushioned soles was like stepping onto a cloud. He took a few experimental steps. He could stride. He could almost imagine running.
The gym class was circuit training. The teacher barked stations: jump rope, medicine ball slams, burpees, a lap around the perimeter of the court between each set.
HOWEVER, HE QUICKLY REALIZED HOW THE HEAVY, BOUNCING BREASTS TIRED HIM OUT QUICKLY WHILE RUNNING.
The first lap started fine. The sneakers slapped the polished wood with a satisfying rhythm. Then the bounce began. A deep, punishing jolt with each footfall, a resonant thud against his sternum. It wasn’t just weight; it was a destabilizing, rhythmic hammering that scrambled his breath. By the first turn, his lungs were burning. The other girls flowed past him, some chatting, their own bodies moving with efficient, integrated grace. His were separate, enemy combatants strapped to his torso.
By the third lap, a stitch like a hot knife gouged his side. His breaths came in ragged, wet pulls. He slowed to a jog, then a walk, one hand pressed to the aching lump under his shirt.
“Smith! No walking!” the coach’s voice cut across the gym, bouncing off the high rafters.
He forced himself back into a shuffling run. The adhesive strips began to itch ferociously, then burn. Sweat pooled underneath the silicone, a hot, slippery lake. Every jolt sent a fresh wave of nausea through him. He finished the lap last, staggering to the jump rope station. His arms felt like wet sand. The rope caught on his ankles, on his knees. He was a puppet with its strings tangled.
Chloe was at the medicine ball wall next to him. She slammed her ball with a solid, grunting thwump. She didn’t look at him, but spoke between heaving breaths. “You’re gonna have to… explain the asthma… or something. You look like you’re dying.”
“I might,” he panted, fumbling with the rope again.
“Don’t. The paperwork’s a nightmare.”
After gym class, he found a storage room filled with feminine items. In the back, he saw a silicone breastplate. Even though the breasts were the same size and weight, it was definitely more secure than the ones he had on. He swapped the forms with the breastplate, lathering the edges with adhesive and then put his uniform back over. The weight and jiggle was still a problem, however he knew he had to deal with it or risk the embarrassment of getting caught.
However, he felt relieved at making a friend.