CHAPTER FIVE: NEVER ANNA I left Cassi alone at lunch, it's true, but that was because my gender had shifted and I didn’t feel like a girl or a boy anymore. Mathew was being weird, so I decided to do some snooping and possibly come out to him. I sat down at a table near him and ate my garlic bread. “Ava, I’m so sorry, what are your pronouns again?” I looked over at the boy who had spoken. It looked like he was talking to…Mathew?! I blinked for a second. Mathew/Ava hadn’t noticed me and replied to the boy “She/Them” I blinked again, and made the split second decision to come out to him-them while simultaneously supporting hi-them. I stood up, walked over and sat down at their table. “Anna what are you-” “Hi, I’m Anna currently they/them, and sibling of Ava” I smiled at Ava. She was clearly in awe of me. During the remainder of lunch, I endured the comments and questions such as: “What do you mean ‘currently’ they/them?” I simply gave the explanation of genderfluid and moved on. “Anna, why did you-” “Choose to sit with you? Well, that girl, Andromeda made me a deal. Move tables so that she could talk to Cassi, also I was curious why you moved tables.” It was a long reason, but Ava deserved an explanation, no matter if it was a small thing, especially since she had accidentally outed themself to me. For the rest of lunch, me and Ava bonded more, and laughed at how red Cassi’s face was as she talked to Andromeda at the end of lunch. A few kids tried to flirt with me, but it made me uncomfortable, so I just ignored them. Me and Ava caught up on what was actually going on in our lives and I learned that she had googled what their gender was on a school computer, incredibly risky, but necessary. We had our next class, English, together so we talked as we walked after the bell rang. “Hi, pronouns and name?” the teacher said as we walked into the classroom. “Ava, she/them” “Anna, currently they/them” “Nice to meet you.” The teacher smiled at us a lot as we sat down, and then proceeded to welcome the other students walking in. “That was weird” I whispered to Ava. “What do you mean?” “They didn’t introduce themself when they asked for our pronouns.” I frowned. “They’ll probably introduce themself soon.” I had a bad feeling, but I waited quietly. “Hello class, I’m mrs. Taylor, your English teacher. I use she/her pronouns” Something was off. Very off. “Today we’ll be learning about…” There was a pause before she finished “DRAMA!” She said it so loudly, the kids just coming in jumped. Mrs. Taylor moved to a speaker on her desk, and pressed a button. Suddenly, I felt the bad feeling leave. Eerie music that I hadn’t noticed stopped. Mrs. Taylor smiled and said: “I would guess that many of you had a bad feeling about me, and some of you ignored it. I love teaching my class later in the day because most of the time, many students get lulled into a false sense of security with the routine of giving their names and pronouns, and so when I don’t give mine it furthers the bad feeling that comes from the rhythm that I play on this speaker.” She explained this, a few students nodded, class began. Next: First: Previous:
this took me like months bc I have school and gymnastics.
