Chapter 8: Cottonless and Confused
I didn't know when I became a walking punchline.
It started small — a smirk from my coworker Lisa in the break room, a "You still into that vintage stuff?" from Marcus at the printer. But soon it turned into full-blown jokes during meetings. Someone even left a printed photo of me holding up those pink polka dot panties on my desk with a sticky note that said, "Still got your armor on today?"
I laughed.
I always laughed.
But inside, I was dying — piece by piece, like my soul was unraveling with every joke about cotton and lace.
That morning, I stood in front of my mirror, hand hovering over my drawer.
Empty.
Because for the first time in my life… I didn't wear granny panties.
I reached for something plain. Something boring. Something no one would ever write an article about or mock me for. Just white, seamless, modern — invisible, like me.
And as I walked into the office, I felt naked in a way that had nothing to do with clothes.
I smiled through the day like everything was fine. Laughed when someone made another joke. Nodded along like I belonged in the silence they forced me into.
But all I could think about was how much I missed the weight of lace against my skin. The comfort of knowing that underneath my nurse's uniform, there was still a little bit of me . A little rebellion stitched into cotton.
Instead, I felt stripped down.
Like I'd handed away the last part of myself that couldn't be taken.
By lunchtime, I was sitting in the stairwell, knees pulled to my chest, tears burning behind my eyes. My phone buzzed again — a message from Simone. She'd seen the latest comments online. Said she never meant for this to happen. That maybe we could talk. That maybe I needed a detox .
A detox.
As if loving who I am was some kind of addiction.
I wanted to scream. Or sleep. Or both.
I thought about asking Grandma if there was such a thing as a "granny panty rehab." If you could somehow unlove what once saved you. If you could mourn a part of yourself while still wearing its ghost on your skin.
But then I remembered her voice, soft but firm, the night after Simone's betrayal:
"You don't have to burn your truth just because someone tried to sell it."
So why did it feel like I already had?
That night, I sat on my bed staring at my drawer — empty except for one pair. The black cotton ones with the tiny hole near the seam. I held them in my hands like a secret I wasn't ready to let go of yet.
Maybe I wasn't betraying myself by taking them off.
Maybe I was just learning how to choose when and where to wear my heart again.
But damn, it hurt.
And I didn't know if healing was supposed to feel this lonely.