Chapter 6: Part 6 — Wednesday

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Part 6: Wednesday

I managed to avoid Bobby for the whole day at school. I was surprised by that. Maybe I’d been wrong about what I’d seen in his look. Normally, teenage boys can’t wait to blab your secrets all around the school. I’d worked myself up about it the previous night so much that I barely slept. But I didn’t mind that he hadn’t come for me yet. It gave me more time to think about Jessie and those lines and bruises I’d seen.

I still hadn’t figured out how to broach the topic with her. I was aware I’d been really quiet around her all day, and I’m pretty sure she was getting suspicious. I didn’t even know how to begin asking her about that stuff. Turns out, it wasn’t Jessie I needed to worry about.

She caught me at the end of soccer practice after school.

Not Jessie. Ms Pike!

The girls all called her Ms Dyke, cos apparently every woman who does sports is gay and they have no imaginations…

“Ella Stevenson,” she said, “I need to talk with you in my office.”

The other girls all stared in silence as Ms Pike led me off; Jessie actually mouthed to me ‘Good luck!’

Ms Pike sat across from me and folded her hands together like she was praying. I’d never been inside her sports office before. There were trophies and medals and old newspaper articles on the wall. Most of them were about her. There were pictures of her when she was younger. She was a lot thinner back then (Ms Pike had kind of a fuller figure).

“I’ll come right out with it, Stevenson,” she said. I wondered why she had avoided using my first name.

“I’m thinking about pulling you from the girls’ soccer team,” she said.

The words felled me.

“B-but you haven’t even seen me play,” I stammered. It was true. The soccer team was run by Miss Rawlins. I thought about how the only friends I’d made at this school were through soccer. How I’d lose them all. How I’d never be able to help Jessie.

“I can do better,” I pleaded, “I know I can. Just tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do it!”

“It’s not anything you’ve done…” she said. She left enough time at the end of that sentence for me to step in and finish it for her. I think she was hoping I would. Or that I’d just tuck tail and run without saying anything. But I’d found something I loved. And I wasn’t about to give it up without a fight.

“It’s more about who you are…” she went on, drawing out the last word.

Words can have such power over people. And people listen to the words teachers use more than most. Or the words they choose not to use. This wasn’t about who I was. This was about what I wasn’t. In her eyes at least.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I knew what she meant, but — damn her for the way she’d done this — I’d make her say it!

She looked me up and down. I could tell what she was looking for. Measuring every curve, every proportion. Looking to see if my body bulged in places girls’ bodies weren’t supposed to. Or didn’t where it should.

“It’s to do with your situation,” she finally said.

“My situation is that I want to play soccer with the other girls, Ms Pike,” I replied, trying to be as respectful as I could.

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” she replied through a smile that felt as phony as it looked.

“Why not?” I asked, my voice breaking a little. “I’m a girl. It says on the register I’m a girl!”

“Your gender is listed as female,” Ms Pike replied with the cold tone of a bureaucrat. “But your birth-sex is male, isn’t it? You do a good job, the hair, the dress, the mannerisms. But it’s an act, isn’t it? And — more to the point — you have male hormones in your body, don’t you? You’re going through puberty as a male. It would give you an unfair advantage,” she added. She seemed to be the authority on unfair.

“Actually, I’m on puberty blockers,” I replied, spitefully. I was puffed up, full of fight. My dad was a lawyer and I was pretty sure he could make things difficult for the school if he wanted to.

Ms Pike smiled. The way a spider smiles when a particularly juicy fly flies into its web.

“And why is that?” she asked, leaning forward as if to share the triumph of her smile with me.

“Why do you need to be on puberty blockers if you’re a real girl?”

I started to cry. I couldn’t believe the cruelty of the woman. My mouth started to open and close. God, I must have looked like a goldfish, gasping for air. I managed somehow to form words.

“I am a real girl!”

But it came out as a squeak. Like a mouse’s squeak.

I looked around the room. At the pictures of Ms Pike when she had been younger. What had happened to that woman, I wondered? Why did she keep them up? The fuller woman stood up and grinned. Thin smiles reflected off thin smiles in the photos. They were smiles unaccustomed to losing.

“Can I still train with the team?” I asked, smally. She could give me that much, at least?

“We’ll see,” she replied, her non-committal response sending me out of the office.

I didn’t bother to change after soccer practice; didn’t bother to go straight home. I couldn’t face telling my mom she was right. That she’d seen it. Another battle successfully failed. I decided to take Anna up on her offer. I went to her school instead.

I used to be a student at Anna’s school, Pearl Grove, so it was kind of weird going back. I didn’t go in through the front way; didn’t risk running into all those kids who’d been mean to me. I couldn’t take it. There was a gap in the fence around the back. Everyone knew about it. The kids who didn’t like running in gym used to hide the other side of it when the coach made them do laps. It led to the main field.

Anna was practicing with the other cheerleaders. When she saw me she came over at once. She could tell something was wrong.

“Hey sis,” she opened. She’d started greeting me that way when I told her about transitioning. It used to make me feel pride. But not today. Anna didn’t even get as far as ‘what’s wrong’ before I burst into tears on her shoulder.

Hugging her felt kind of right, but it also made me feel so sad. Like this was what hugging a girl’s body was supposed to be like — soft and squishy and comforting — and that everyone who hugged me was just pretending that’s what they were feeling. I told her about what had happened in Ms Pike’s office. About how sad and small it had made me feel.

Anna asked me if I wanted to make a formal complaint. I didn’t. Asked me if I wanted to get mom involved. Or dad, even. I said no.

“Well, what do you want, Ella?” she asked, a little frustrated with me.

“I just want people to see me the way I see myself,” I replied.

A broad smile formed on Anna’s face. A warm, and inviting smile. All chubby and huggy and nothing like the thin lie that had slithered across Ms Pike’s face.

“I know just the thing!” my sister proclaimed. “Tomorrow, you’re gonna knock ‘em dead!!”

Submitted: January 01, 2025

Young Adult teen drama ya lgbtq trans