I couldn’t go through with it.
I was too scared.
I wasn’t getting picked on for seeming (or being) queer. West Ashley was a big school, and people weren’t as honed in on that sort of thing as they were at my middle school. In fact, aside from Wesley and Solaria, I knew of a handful of openly queer people whom I deeply respected (and even envied). Still, I remembered what it felt like to be perceived as queer even before I came out. The name F*g-weed was still seared into my memory from the year prior, and it still made me wince to think about.
I thought it would be fine, regardless of the residual fear I had from 8th grade. I’d been dancing around coming out as bi for the better part of the school year. My friends already lumped me into the queer category and made jokes about my potential bi-ness. Wesley called me lesbian bait in the hallways and in APHG Brandilee, and Julien came to an agreement that I had a “bi vibe” (when I asked what that meant, they could not elaborate).
My identity was essentially already bi as far as the people around me were concerned, so logic told me that if I came out, nothing would change. My friends would all stay the same, and no one would care.
But when she talked about us holding hands and kissing and being a couple at school, a pit opened up in my stomach, and I realized I wasn’t there yet. I couldn’t handle being her girlfriend at school. I was ashamed.
I didn’t want to be the kind of person who has to hide. I didn’t want to force her to hide us. I’d seen enough queer media by then to know that wasn’t really a viable option. It wouldn’t work out. There was only one option I could see. I had to end things before they even started.
There was an awkward span of time between our “break-up” and spring break. Things were tense. We didn’t talk about what happened between us, but we argued about other, smaller, dumber things. We didn’t laugh at lunch; we just sat together and waited for lunch to be over. I wondered if things would go back to normal; she got a new boyfriend named Sid.
Sid was a butt-ugly motherfucker*. I felt that way from the day I met him. He was in Solaria’s gym class, and they would walk the mile together. He grossed me out with his blond hair, his unibrow, and his cystic acne. He was always trying to stick his fingers up Solaria’s nose; it was some kind of sick joke. I didn’t get it, and I didn’t want to.
*I thought he was a butt-ugly motherfucker at the time. I understand this is a rude thing to say about a person. Maybe it would help if I point out his spirit was butt ugly too. Genuinely all love to people with acne or unibrows, I am one with you.
Spring break was a relief, not just from the Solaria drama, but also from my home life. Since we moved houses to West Ashley, things had been heating up… and they were reaching a boiling point. Every night, my dad and Kendra would take turns screaming at Melissa. They would call her names like lazy (the woman who’d been my and then my sister’s primary care taker for almost a decade. The woman who’d been responsible for 90% of the cooking and cleaning in the house), ungrateful (the woman whose life was completely uprooted by her husband, only for him to start fucking another woman immediately after settling down), and a junkie (while she suffered an autoimmune disorder through it all).
My dad and Kendra would scream at Melissa all night. They would scream at each other every other evening. If anyone dared to point out how dysfunctional they were, then they would just turn their rage toward that target instead. I wanted to confront them. I did want to. I just wanted to stop the screaming. I wanted to yell in their faces What is wrong with you?? Don’t you know she’s sick?? Don’t you know she’s trying?? Don’t you know she’s the only one trying??? I couldn’t do that either. I felt like too much of a coward to do anything for myself. So, most nights I would just put on headphones and block out the screaming until everyone was asleep in bed. Some nights, I would even choose to be mad at Melissa, too.
I don’t remember much from that spring break, specifically aside from the pants I bought and the texts I got.
The Pants:
- 1 pair of gray cargos. They were far too big for me, but they had an adjustable waist that I could cinch to my size. They were zip-offs— they could turn into shorts.
- 2 pairs of (in retrospect, awfully appropriative) parachute pants with patterns inspired by Southeast Asian cultures.
I got a lot of use out of these pants; it’s best to imagine me wearing them for the remainder of 9th grade.
The texts:
More than halfway through the break, Julien sent me a message telling me I should speak to Freddie.
Julien and I were pals. We texted often, if not daily, but I only ever saw him at school. I didn’t know who he hung out with— for all I knew, he didn’t hang out with anyone— so I was surprised to find out he was friends with Freddie. It made sense; they were both gangly, odd guys with stringy long hair and brooding presentation, but still, I was surprised.
I asked Julien what Freddie could possibly want to talk about, but Julien said he couldn’t tell me. He just said it was important.
***
By the time I was back from break, Freddie had told me everything he wanted me to know, and I was in a new group chat with him and Julien. It was smart for Freddie to get Julien on his side when approaching me; I probably wouldn’t have listened to a word he said otherwise. Despite his past indiscretions, I trusted Julien. His family was all sorts of funky because both of his little siblings were on the spectrum. Even though it was different, I knew he knew something about complicated family lives, and he struck me (like Wesley) as another “wise beyond his years but prone to bad decisions” type. I didn’t believe in him to make good choices when it came to his personal well-being…But I did trust him not to get involved in any pettiness. As such, when he backed Freddie’s story about Solaria talking shit behind my back, I believed it, because I didn’t think of Julien as the type to engage with a rumor.
Allegedly, Solaria had been saying all sorts of heinous things about me for weeks. She was telling people that I was annoying and a know-it-all. She was telling people I was gullible and immature. Worst of all, she was telling people I was obsessed with her.
I couldn’t believe it. Obsessed? Maybe it was true… but really she didn’t have a leg to stand on. If anything, we were both obsessed. What pissed me off was that I couldn’t explain that to anyone.
We’d been talking like normal all break, but when Freddie told me all of this, and Julien confirmed that it was all true, I was too devastated to return any of her messages. I ignored her the whole weekend before we went back to school.
The day we came back from spring break, I wore my hair in a tight, high pony-tail. Solaria was already at school when I got off the bus. She was wearing a black tank top, and her too-large black hoodie was draped around her shoulders. Her hair was longer now, past her shoulders, and almost the same orangey color as mine. She came right up to me with a big grin.
“Hey!” she waved. As she got closer, she got a clearer view of my countenance; hers changed too. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Fighting back tears, I answered, “You’ve been talking about me…”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes went wide, and her hands went up.
I thought she looked guilty.
“Freddie and Julien told me everything,” I said.
“Freddie and who?” she squinted and looked off, trying to place the name, eventually giving up. “What did they say to you?”
“You already know! You’re the one who said it!” I answered.
“I really don’t,” she was starting to get angry, but she calmed herself down. Gently, she added, “Just tell me.”
I didn’t believe her, and I thought I really would cry if I said. I rolled my eyes and repeated what I’d been told anyway, “That I’m, like, dumb and annoying and a know-it-all—”
“How can you be dumb and a know-it-all?”
I waved my arms like a muppet, “I don’t know! You said it!” My voice was breaking. I went on, quieter, barely audible around the lump in my throat. “You said I’m obsessed with you?”
I blinked away the tears in my eyes. She was shaking her head and saying “no, no, no”, but I couldn’t hear her.
“Have fun with Sid,” I hissed.
I turned on my heels and walked away to nowhere in particular.
***
Thus, I entered the final era of 9th grade.
Everyone started eating lunch outside. It was always warm enough, and the sun was usually out. Solaria sat with Sid and a bunch of other punkers I didn’t know. I could usually see them from wherever I was, but I tried not to look. I couldn’t sit with most of the other 9th graders to start, because Jason was sitting with them, and we were still in the fresh stages of our break-up. I was resigned to sit alone, but Daisy from my Health and Wellness class wasn’t going to let that happen.
Daisy was an emo queen. One time, she let me watch her size up one of her gauges while we were sitting on the bleachers in the gym— her ear turned purple, but she did it. She had big, curly hair that was always changing color (as were her hands and the tops of her ears). She was all about Pierce the Viel and the DARE Program. Every day she drew black Straight-Edge Xs on the backs of her hands. She helped make things a little more bearable.
She used to play “I’m Not Okay,” by MCR for me from her phone and we would headbang and sing along. The other 9th graders, usually at the table over, would throw French fries at us, but we didn’t care. I certainly didn’t. Daisy wasn’t Solaria, but she was nice and cool and interesting. Letting myself be embarrassing with her was better than being alone by a long shot.
In Geometry class, Jason started sitting with the preppy kids. He would spend all the time he could talking loudly about what girls he found attractive and what girls he didn’t. For some reason, girls with my features were always unattractive. And yet, he would still come to me when ever he didn’t know how to solve a problem. And I would still gumpily tell him is was because he was ignoring his order of operations or doing sin when he should have been doing cosin.
Mostly, I stuck around Jamie and Zachary. They didn’t need my help with their work, so the three of us usually got done with everything early. I liked that, and I liked that Zachary was competitive academically; it made getting every test back a little more interesting. When we weren’t doing math, they were cracking violent and horrific jokes, trying to get me to crack and call them disgusting (which I usually would). When Jason came around they would make faces and pretend to gag, which was nice of them.
Jason and I were at war emotionally. He was landing most of the blows, but I was certainly doing my part as well. After a while of being broken up, we became friends in a twisted sort of way. For a while, we were just saying all the things we wanted to say to each other but couldn’t while we were dating.
We would walk to lunch together, and we would walk to Geometry together. He would remind me that I was just odd, and he would make sure I knew other people thought that too, not just him. He told me I was desperate and that I had the look of a lost puppy in my eye. He told me I smelled like Halloween decorations. I told him he was disingenuous and a poser. I told him he lived on attention. I told him he was a misogynist with no critical thinking skills.
We couldn’t get enough of each other.
He started dating another girl in our grade, Burnette Orange. She was in our lunch period, and I knew some of her friends from class. She was shorter than me, maybe not even five feet tall. She had big eyes, a heart-shaped face, and long straight hair. I thought they were a pretty good couple— I might have been jealous, but I don’t think I missed Jason enough for the thought to even cross my mind. Jason would make out with her right in front of me and try to catch me watching (which, clearly, I was, but just out of the adolescent interest of seeing people make out at school). When they weren’t making out, his arm was locked around her waist.
A couple of weeks into their relationship, Jason confessed that he still had feelings for me over text. I screenshotted the messages, and I sent them to one of Burnette’s friends. Jason called me a psycho bitch after that. He and Burnette broke up.
We were back at it the next week.
He started dating another girl later on, Meena, from my English class. Something about Meena did spark jealousy within me. I think it was something about how she was always so pleasant and so happy all the time. Meena was in 10th grade (I was in 10th-grade English). Meena wanted to graduate early, so she was planning to take courses over the summer to get ahead (She wouldn’t have to do that if she were a year ahead in Math and English). She was also very pretty. She had strawberry blonde hair and she wais always wearing floral pink blouses. I think Jason could tell she drove me a little crazy.
One time, I needed my APHG book for a weekend study session. It had been living in Jason’s locker since January. I told him the Friday before that I needed the book. Instead of giving it to me himself at lunch or in Geometry or literally any time, he gave it to Meena to give to me in class.
She slid it onto my desk and beamed, “Jason said you needed this?”
“Thanks!” I remember saying through gritted teeth.
***
This was the way of things through April and into May: Studying for an exam I wasn’t interested in and didn’t understand, actively feuding with my ex-boyfriend, an ongoing cold war with my ex-best friend, coming home at the end of every long day to my nuclear family.
That’s how it was until the day of my AP exam.
Our school didn’t have the budget or the space to do AP testing on site, so they bused us all out to some random church to take the test. There were only about 20 kids in both classes total. We weren’t allowed to talk on the way there or the way back. We weren’t allowed to talk in the building during the test. Maximum security stuff. We got to go home afterwards, which made it all worth it.
Melissa picked me up after. It was about noon. She asked what I wanted for lunch. I crossed my fingers and asked for Chipotle— being 20 minutes away, it was a long shot.
She smiled and said, “Sure.”
On the way there, she asked me how the test went, and I told her it went fine, even though I was pretty sure it went badly. She told me she was really proud of me for taking my first AP exam as a freshman; she said it was a scary thing to do.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I said.
“It is a big deal!” She said.
We sat driving in silence for a couple of minutes before she broke it again. She said:
“I’m leaving your father tonight.”
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