Be a girl

I met up with Claire during homeroom the next day. No new announcements for the class from her today, so she was sitting in her usual seat, right next to mine. She smiled and waved me over. I smiled back and slid into the seat beside her.

The exuberance that she had typically emitted before I had transformed her had disappeared, replaced by a quiet contentment. Like a switch had been flipped, and she no longer felt the need to overcompensate. It was similar to the mood she had on our walks home, but different. Less moody and more satisfied with life. The smile on her face seemed more genuine than ever. Almost as though she felt more comfortable going ‘mask off’ as she put it. No longer performing for the sake of others, or trying to convince herself that everything was fine when it wasn’t. It was a pleasant change of pace – the puppy-like excitedness she had previously exhibited was just a little much for me at times – though I had to wonder the source.

“Good morning, Ben,” she said, “How are you today?”

“Alright,” I lied automatically. Now that the pleasantries were out of the way, I got straight to business. “So, did you formulate a plan to convince Oscar and Rachel of your identity?”

Claire nodded. “Mhmm. But we’ll have to wait til lunchtime.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What exactly is your plan anyway?”

She smirked and tapped her nose a couple of times cheekily. “It’s a secret,” she said.

I rolled my eyes at that. What could she have planned that she wanted to keep secret? I doubted it was anything elaborate coming from her. No, she likely just wanted to be suspenseful for some reason and surprise me somehow.

“Alright then, I won’t pry.” It wasn’t worth trying to get her to reveal her plan early. I wasn’t too interested anyway, but I couldn’t tell her that. It would break her heart. She probably worked very hard coming up with this; I didn’t want to ruin this for her.

Our homeroom teacher promptly told the class to quiet down for the start of homeroom. A standard affair, with nothing out of the ordinary. Before long, homeroom had concluded, and we all began making our way to our first class for the day. For Claire and me, that happened to be the mathematics class which we shared.

As we made our way to our lockers, one of the boys who sat behind us in homeroom barged his way between Claire and me. He rushed past us, but not before sneering and saying a word with which I was all too familiar. One of the ones Jesse and his goon squad used to call me. A word which began with ‘F’ and rhymed with ‘maggot’.

Excellent. I’d managed to avoid that word my entire time at this school, but it seemed that the other kids had finally caught on to my unusual mannerisms and could no longer keep their contempt to themselves. It was only a matter of time before this happened, so I just sighed, and did my best to ignore that student’s rude comment.

Claire, however, seemed far less accustomed to the word. She frowned, but otherwise didn’t respond to the boy. She did grumble something unintelligible to herself though. I continued walking towards our lockers, refusing to acknowledge what had been said by that dreadful boy. I’d heard it so much at this point that it barely even fazed me anymore. Though it was still quite a rude shock to hear it again after such a long time.

We each grabbed our supplies for our maths class and headed to the classroom without a word. Students of all ages bustled about amongst us, but none of them paid us any mind. Better than having slurs hurled at us at least.

Once we arrived at class however, I noticed the guy from homeroom sitting on the other side of the room sniggering with his mate and pointing at us. I rolled my eyes and sat down next to my friend, pushing those two to the back of my mind. They didn’t deserve the time of day, and I wasn’t going to give it to them.

It wasn’t long before our maths teacher began the roll call. A standard affair for the most part, until he reached Claire’s name on the sheet. Instead of calling out her new name, he instead called her ‘Jaxon’.

Her hand instantly shot upwards. She didn’t wait for the teacher to notice before she spoke. “Excuse me,” she said confidently, “But my name is Claire now, not Jaxon.”

All eyes were on us now, and anxiety began to creep in. How Claire was able to immediately correct someone in such a manner was beyond me. I couldn’t imagine having such confidence. If I were in her position, I would likely just grumble a barely audible “here” and move on, not wanting to make a nuisance of myself. And yet here she was sticking up for herself. I did have to commend her for that.

The teacher peered over his glasses at Claire, examining her curiously. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“I used to be Jaxon,” she said with a frown, “I’m a girl now and I go by Claire. You should have received a notification about this.”

The teacher looked back over at his roll sheet, scanning it quickly with his eyes, then turned his attention over to his computer. A quiet muttering, and even a few snickers, permeated the classroom as he slowly scrolled through his computer.

“I see,” he said, looking up from his computer and towards Claire, “Well, Jaxon, it seems the principal has asked the staff to call you ‘Claire’ from now on, as you say. Now, I don’t agree with allowing such nonsense, but I’d like to keep my job for now, so I’ll try my best to call you by that name. Do understand that this is a big adjustment for everyone, so don’t get mad if someone accidentally calls you by your old name.”

That… sounded like complete bullshit. Didn’t agree? Didn’t agree with what? That she was a girl now? Did he not have eyes? And how exactly was this a ‘big adjustment for everyone’ as he put it? Claire was the one who had to deal with the big adjustment, not him! Was it really so difficult to call someone by the name they ask of you? I didn’t think so. I didn’t have any trouble.

“Um, ok,” Claire replied, somewhat sheepishly, her earlier confidence having vanished. The look on her face suggested her thinking was along similar lines to mine. She refrained from speaking further on the matter with the teacher.

Throughout the lesson, the teacher would occasionally call upon Claire to answer a question, with a frequency far greater than normal, and far more than any of the other students. Not only did he single her out, but he also called her ‘Jaxon’ every single time before correcting himself. If I didn’t know any better, I would say he was doing this on purpose. Purposely putting the spotlight on her and calling her by the wrong name specifically to make her uncomfortable. Of course, I had no concrete evidence that that was the case, but my hunch was strong.

If that was indeed his strategy, then it certainly worked. Her smile from earlier had disappeared, replaced by a slight frown of frustration. I wished I could have stood up for her, but I simply couldn’t. I felt useless; if our situations were swapped, she likely would have spoken up for me. But what would it even achieve anyway? I was all too familiar with a situation like this: teachers didn’t care in the slightest.

Claire breathed a heavy sigh of relief the moment she stepped out of the classroom after the lesson had concluded.

“Are you ok?” I asked softly.

She hugged her books closely to her chest, before slowly releasing the tension with a heavy exhale. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I didn’t say anything in dispute.

We both headed back to our lockers, depositing our books and grabbing our snacks for recess. We met up with Izzy at our usual spot for recess, noting that both Oscar and Rachel were absent. Izzy gave the two of us a warm greeting.

“So, second day of school as a girl, huh,” she said, “How are you holding up?”

“Could be better,” Claire replied dejectedly, concerning Isabel somewhat.

“Our maths teacher kept calling her by her old name, despite it clearly distressing her,” I clarified, knowing full well that Izzy would want more details.

“That’s awful!” Izzy gasped, placing her hand over her mouth in shock.

“It’s fine, really,” Claire said. Her attempt at dismissing Izzy’s concern was abysmal.

Izzy pursed her lips, clearly not convinced. “Do you need a hug?” she asked, spreading her arms wide. Claire nodded and let herself be embraced by the much shorter girl. They remained in each other’s arms for several seconds, leaving me standing awkwardly off to the side. I didn’t say anything and let them have their little moment together.

When they finally broke apart, Claire smiled down at Izzy warmly, who smiled back up at her tall friend. “Thanks,” Claire said softly.

“Better?”

“Yeah.”

“So,” Izzy said, changing the topic, “did you have a plan for convincing Oscar and Rachel of who you are?”

Here we go again. Claire smirked and tapped her nose just like she had back in homeroom. “It’s a secret.”

“Aww, but I wanna know now!” Isabel pouted. That only made Claire’s cheeky grin wider.

“Patience my dear Isabel, all will be revealed at lunchtime.”

“Fine, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what your plan is. It better not be stupid.”

Claire shook her head. “Not to worry,” she said, placing her hands confidently on her hips, her smirk shifting into a cocky grin. “I’ve got this all under control. You and Ben just need to be moral support.”

“Ok…” Izzy replied tentatively, “I trust you.” She didn’t sound convinced in the slightest.

Claire beamed at her friend, still holding that ridiculous pose. She eventually relaxed her arms, dropping them to her side, and the group fell into an awkward silence. The previous conversation was over, nothing more to be said. We wouldn’t begin speaking again until someone could spark up a new topic of conversation.

“Wait,” Izzy said suddenly, breaking the silence, “you mentioned last night that you just know people’s orientations just by looking at them, right?”

“Yep, that’s right,” Claire nodded.

“Then that means…” Isabel said, trailing off before finishing her thought.

“I know that you’re a lesbian? Yep,” Claire replied with a smile.

Blushing furiously, Izzy hastily covered her face with both her hands. “Oh my god!” she whined, stretching out the final syllable. Claire broke out into a fit of giggles. I really wasn’t sure what was so funny, but she seemed to think it was hilarious. All while poor Isabel was dying from embarrassment. After a couple moments, both girls managed to compose themselves.

“You know, in a funny way, I’m kinda glad you already knew that I’m gay,” Isabel sighed, somewhat relieved. “Saves me having to worry how you’ll react about my coming out.”

That caused Claire to burst into a full on chortle. “Izzy, none of us are straight,” she chuckled.

“Well now I feel silly,” Izzy giggled.

I frowned. “Um, I’m straight?” I interjected.

She looked at me with worried eyes and shook her head. “Oh Ben, no.” Her tone was soft, like a mother correcting her child after a misunderstanding. It was frankly patronising.

I blushed furiously. This was now the second time she’d talked about my sexuality with other people around. Except this time, she was flat out wrong! So much for her psychic ability.

As flustered as I was, I squeaked out a necessary rebuttal, “But I am! I’m attracted to girls!” I looked away from her in embarrassment. I felt so small, defending myself like this. But it was necessary! She forced me into this situation. I couldn’t back away lest her perception of me remain incorrect.

She sighed and shook her head again. “No, you really aren’t.”

Izzy looked on in bafflement, while I continued to become more and more flustered. Claire had pushed me into a corner, and I was struggling to see an escape. My thoughts frantic, I began formulating a counterargument.

“But you said it yourself that I’m not gay!” A flawless rebuttal! I couldn’t be not gay and not straight at the same time! That was a contradiction.

“Right, because you aren’t gay,” she stated simply.

Huh? She was sticking with that? That didn’t? Make sense? What was she trying to say? That I was neither gay nor straight? Was that even possible? I shook my head. “But… you just said…”

She sighed again. “Ben, you say you’re attracted to girls, but ask yourself, are there any you want to have sex with?”

 “I…” I began but was instantly interrupted by Claire.

“Don’t answer that, just think about it.”

Huh? I’d never really thought about it. Was there any reason for me to? I found girls pretty, wasn’t that enough? What else could it mean to be attracted to girls? Just because I never thought about sex didn’t mean I wasn’t attracted to girls, right? I mean, if I found the right girl, I’d surely do the deed. It would be expected of me after all. But finding that girl sounded hard, and it seemed easier to let her find me instead. Why bother looking? Eventually some girl would take an interest in me and then we’d go out and all that and everything would work out. Besides, it wasn’t like I could legally have sex with a girl right now. I was still a minor under the law, and it simply wasn’t worth taking that risk. I’d think about it during university. Yeah.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the bell signalling the end of recess. Claire told Izzy and me to prepare for lunchtime, giving us both a cheeky wink. Whatever she had planned had better be worth the suspense she was building.

Thoughts of Claire’s plan couldn’t have been further from my mind during the lessons between recess and lunch, however. Our earlier conversation about my orientation was really getting to me. How dare Claire presume to know my own orientation better than me! Of course I was straight! I had to be! Girls were pretty. That was surely enough. So why did she disagree? It was her stupid ability of course. Because she was convinced that it couldn’t be wrong. But what made her assume that? Why couldn’t it be wrong? Sure, it was literal magic, but that didn’t mean it didn’t have limitations. Could she even prove that it was always right? Doubtful.

And besides, what the hell did she mean that I was neither gay nor straight but also not attracted to girls. I knew that I most definitely wasn’t attracted to boys, so clearly that meant I needed to be into girls. That was how it worked. Everyone was attracted to a gender, and even if it didn’t match society’s heteronormative expectations like in Aunty Miranda’s and apparently Isabel’s case. But she was implying that I wasn’t attracted to either gender. But I was? This was all too confusing.

By the lesson before lunch, I tried my best to brush all these thoughts from my mind. They were aggravating and unhelpful. I was thinking myself in circles and I was getting nowhere. I needed to concentrate on the class and not get hung up on this. Claire was wrong, and if she ever brought it up again, then I would kindly remind her of that fact. Her psychic power was imperfect, obviously. Her insistence that it was always right (despite it admittedly being right a lot of the time) was foolish and shortsighted. The one counterexample – me – proved that it was sometimes wrong.

Eventually, class ended, and lunch began. It was time to find out what Claire had cooked up that she was sure would convince Oscar and Rachel of her identity, and that required her to keep it a secret from both Izzy and me. I was only a little worried.