Who Is Lucas Ryker O'Riley?

8. THINGS WERE CHANGING

By the time we got out of school for summer vacation, I was wrapping my chest with ace bandages all the time, to hold my budding breasts back, and keep them from being noticable. I also hoped it would slow their growth.

By that last day of school, I could have almost, maybe even completely, filled an A cup bra.

Swimming as an activity with Mandy was out of the question now. Heck, swimming around anyone was totally out of the question for this summer. I came up with the excuse that my skin had become too sensitive and irritated whenever I went in chlorinated pool water or spent too much time in the sun.

As for concealing my latest developments, in addition to wrapping my chest in ace bandages to flatten anything that would be considered irregular for a guy in that area, I had to buy a bunch of new over-sized t shirts made from the thickest cotton weave possible.

Despite coming up with what I thought were good excuses to avoid exposing my budding breasts to Mandy, we still managed to have a relatively normal and fun summer.

I had even managed to hide my changes from my teammates all the way through last fall's football season. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep this secret from my own brother.

As careful as I was, the first day of sumner, he bumped into me in the hallway before I could properly wrap my chest. His eyes bugged out as he could hardly believe how far my shirt tented out.

Our parents had long ago vaguely explained to Dave that there was something different about me, but it was no big deal.

I was in a morning half-awake stupor when we collided, but that collision woke me up. After he bumped into me, I wanted to yell at him to watch where he was going, but it was already too late. The damage was done. By then it had already struck Dave just how different I was, my brother was now in on my secret.

I think he was just as embarrassed as I was the moment he stumbled onto this new revelation. After that, he knew but it appeared he wasn't going to say anything unless I did and that was fine by me.

Like I said, my breasts had already grown to almost A cups and it was getting increasingly difficult to bind them as flat as I'd like.

Over the summer, in order to help avoid exposing myself to too many potentially embarrassing situations, I got a full time job at a local pizza restaurant/arcade, as a costumed character.

All the time I spent inside a costume was time I didn't have to worry about people seeing me and discovering my secret. The fact that I had a 40+ hour a week job meant I was always working or "too tired" and could avoid a lot of invites to activities that had the potential to expose me.

By the time next fall's football season was over, more changes had manifested of the physical variety and another kind of change would be coming soon, the kind that affected our entire family.

Towards the end of football season, I began noticing how my uniform pants were tighter as I labored pulling them all the way up. It was especially tight when I got them to my hips and derrière. I knew that I wasn't getting fat since I was only becoming fitter and more toned from all the football practices and games.

The Friday before spring break, my parents informed my brother and I that my father's company needed him to move closer to the home office, by the beginning of summer for an important long term company project that he was in charge of.

My world was already in chaos and now this.

Mandy took the news hard, as did I, until I'd had the week of spring break to really think about it.

In a way, I began to feel a little relieved by the coming change of venue. It would give me a chance to keep my secret from the people at school who knew me growing up these past six, seven years.

I assured Mandy that we'd keep in touch by phone, social media, and messaging, but that was little consolation to her. I thought I knew how she felt, the same as me. I was heartbroken that we wouldn't be best friends, joined at the hip any more. But as things were turning out, I told myself our feelings wouldn't matter because of the way things were changing in my life.

As if I didn't have enough going on, Sunday morning, the last day of spring break, I woke up screaming in bed. I was having bad abdominal pains. Pains so intense and different from anything I'd ever felt, they woke me up.

It was about five in the morning when I cried out and sat up, bent forward, my arms tightly across my abdomen.

My appendix had burst. That was my first thought. Tears filled my eyes as I doubled over in agony.

A few moments later I suddenly realized that the bedsheet beneath me was damp, almost soaked.

What the heck, I thought. Did I pee myself. I knew I couldn't have as I had never peed the bed before in my life.  Not that I knew of. At least not since I was a toddler.

I slid backwards and threw back the top sheet to find the bottom sheet was stained dark red in one area. It looked as though I had been bleeding from a wound.

I jumped up and yelled for my mom. By the time she got to my room, I noticed that there was a slight trail of blood coming from the bottom of my boxer shorts and down my leg, onto the floor.

Panic didn't even begin to describe how I felt that morning. If it wasn't for mom, I'd have been a total permanent wreck.

She knew what to do and told me to get in the shower.

"Don't we need to get to the emergency room," I asked, in a panic.

"No, sweetheart, we don't. Calm down. Get in the shower and clean up. I'll be right back."

When I got out of the shower. Mom knocked on the door.

"Can I come in?'

I quickly made sure the towel covered my entire front and then responded, "Yeah, I guess."

She laughed as she entered. "I've seen you naked."

"What's that," I asked, refering to the thing she was holding.

"Well, it's a pad. Sweetie, I'm gonna need you to stay calm and try to digest what I'm about to tell you. You are experiencing what all girls around your age go through . .  You uh, Aunt Flo has come to visit."

"Huh?"

'You're menstruating."

"Wait, what?!? No, no, no, that can't, no, that can't be right. I - um, a period?" I screamed. "Breasts, and now, now I gotta deal with that too?"

"Looks that way," she responded in a calm voice.

She then explained how to wear the pad, gave me a Midol to take, and told me where to find her secret stash of chocolate.

"Chocolate? Why?"

"Just trust me, it'll help."

First thing Monday morning, mom called the doctor to let him know about my latest 'development'.

He had me come in and after an extensive examination he announced that everything was internally normal and I was beginning what he said would be a normal monthly menstrual period.

The doctor could see the panic on my face. He smiled and began to explain that there was something they could do about it to help me out. He said it may not stop the flow 100%, but it could and any bleeding I had would be minimal.

He then wrote me a prescription for birth control pills.