Chapter 4: Part 4 — Tuesday

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Part 4: Tuesday

When I was turning 8 years old, I asked my parents if I could have a pirate party for my birthday. They agreed and asked me which pirate I wanted to come as. I think they were expecting me to say one of the famous ones, like Long John Silver or Jack Sparrow, or Blackbeard even. But no. I wanted to be Mary Read.

Mary Read was a pirate in the Golden Age of piracy. She dressed as a boy and had been a soldier before she became a pirate, so maybe the clues were there for my parents all along. She was my idol. She was someone who didn’t belong in her world, so she forged a new one. My dad was initially reluctant back then, but my mom convinced him it was just dress-up and it was my party, so what the hey?

In a few days’ time, it’ll be my 15th birthday, and I figured I’d dress up again. I didn’t really have any friends from either of my old schools, so I decided I’d invite the few people I’d met at my new one: Brookfield High. And maybe, hopefully, even make a few new friends.

Fifteen was probably a little old for pirates — and since the only people I’d really met were on the soccer team — I’d already decided it was going to be a Soccer Idols party before I even approached my parents. I figured there’d be the usual collection of Messis and Ronaldos, and even a few Megan Rapinoes. But I didn’t want to go as any of those. I wanted to go as Lily Parr, complete in her long-sleeved shirt and knitted hat.

“Who’s that, dear?” Mom asked, when I explained my costume choice to her.

“She’s only the greatest female soccer player who ever lived,” I replied. “She played professionally when she was only 14 years old,” I explained. “She even played against men’s teams. And won!”

I’d chosen Tuesday morning to approach my parents. Right before the school run. I waited for Dad to get back in from checking the mail for about the millionth time. He was still half asleep at that time and would agree to just about anything, I was sure. Mom was a little more questioning, but she was run so ragged trying to get all four of us ready for school and work that morning that I figured I had a good chance of getting what I wanted.

“She sounds like a real trailblazer this Lily Parn,” my mom mispronounced.

“Lily Parr,” I corrected. “And she really was.”

Lily Parr was a real hero of mine. She lived as an openly gay woman in a time when that was still illegal. Plus she’s the only woman in the English Soccer Hall of Fame. She was a modern day Mary Read. Well, modern-ish. She also didn’t fit into her world. She also made a new one. I had to be her. I had to.

“You might struggle to get a costume together by Saturday,” my dad chimed, sweeping in behind his first coffee of the morning. “But, I guess we can put up some balloons and maybe set up some goal nets in the hall.”

His suggestion stopped me in my tracks.

“Here?!” I asked, suddenly shrinking down very small.

My eyes flitted to the dozen or so family photos on the walls. Photos of me. In boys’ clothes. Doing boys’ things. Old elementary school photos that identified me as Errol Stevenson.

“Dad, we can’t do it here,” I pleaded, my eyes shifting around the walls nervously.

“Oh, Ella, we can cover some of this stuff up,” my mom reassured, picking up on my gaze. “No one will even notice it, I’m sure.”

But I wasn’t.

Someone always notices things. Someone always snoops or has an ax to grind. Someone is always a Leierna Scott.

“Ella, we can’t afford to hire a place out,” Dad explained. “We don’t have enough money after —” he stopped there. I knew what he wanted to say. ‘After the money we spend on your puberty blockers.’

“Mooooooom!” I called out, panic rising with the sharpness of my tone.

“We’ll work something out, honey,” she replied.

I already knew what that meant. It meant we were going to do things dad’s way. Mary Read and Lily Parr would be so ashamed of me right then, I’m sure.

The ride to school was quiet. My sister Anna was dropped off first, then my dad, with my mom driving me all the way out to a school that suddenly felt very far from anyone and anything that I knew. I knew the girls who went to soccer practice. And Jessie, of course. I figured if I invited her first and she said yes, the other girls were bound to come too. I felt sure that Jessie was one of those people that other people organize around. A nexus. At the center of everything. The rest of us were all just spokes on her wheel. And I was okay with that.

But when I got to school, Jessie wasn’t there. I asked everyone. Natalie and Sara, Erica and Jasmine and all the girls on the team. All I got were a few funny looks and a ‘She’s late sometimes,’ as an answer.

Eventually, I saw her running through the school gates just a few minutes before they closed them. I caught up with her at her locker.

“The party is where?” Jessie asked, taking her books for the day out of her locker. She was distracted. Still red and flustered from running for school. Maybe she overslept or something. I made a mental note to ask her about why she was late later on. Right now, she was still breathing hard and her forehead was studded with sweat.

“I think we’re doing it at my house,” I replied, shrinking a little into the neck of my blazer.

“Yeah, that’ll be nice,” she replied, pulling down a science textbook.

It was then that I saw them. I wished I hadn’t, but I did. I knew better than to ask about them right away, but I was pretty sure I knew what they were even without asking.

“Come on,” Jessie said, passing me her heavy science textbook. She was still breathing quite heavily, but she forced a smile into her face. “We’ll be late for class,” she said, and strode off ahead of me.

I hugged the book to my chest and trudged after her. I still didn’t know what to do or say about what I had seen.

“Looking fine, Jessie,” this boy called out as she strode down the hallway. His name was Bobby Brandon. I didn’t know much about him, but a few of the girls said that he was the biggest player in our year. I didn’t think they were talking about soccer.

“You really think so?” she asked as she strutted past him and flicked her hair a little, playfully. She was putting it on a little, I’m sure. Or maybe there was something else going on there.

“Hey Bobby,” she said, stopping for a second. Then she gestured towards me. “This is Ella.”

I thought I’d die of cringe.

Bobby Brandon sidled up to me. There was a cheeky expression on his face.

“Ella, huh?” he asked, looking me up and down like he might consume me. Then his look changed. Something fired behind his eyes and his look transformed.

Omigod!

That look. I’d seen it before. On the face of Leierna Scott. On the faces of a dozen other kids in my other schools.

He can see my bag of rocks, my bag of secrets!!

A wide smile spread across his face.

“Haha,” he vocalized.

Then he said nothing more.

He just walked past the two of us and coolly rounded the corner.

“I think he likes you,” Jessie whispered to me the moment he was gone.

I didn’t think that.

I didn’t think that at all.

Submitted: January 01, 2025

Young Adult teen drama ya lgbtq trans