Sweet Dreams-59

Chapter 59

*Before…

I look around the caf and it’s just a sort of morbid kind of curious look and I’m looking not at the kids around me in the whole popular side of things but over to what would have been me…you ‘know the loners and the geeks and the sort of like unpopular kids that don’t really fit the popular and semi popular high school tribes and I’m kind of looking for.
Yeah…it’s there.
I see them and they see me and some of them sort of do the don’t look right at it thing with me but some of them are doing the glare and don’t like me because I’m one of “Them” looks.
Sigh…fuck.
I knew it was bound to happen and yeah if I was a shitty person and all self-absorbed and shit I’d trot out the they’re just jealous crap but I’ve been there and they’re coming at this from places of being likely treated like dogshit by some of these popular people and stuff.
So…I’m going to need to change that.

*And Now…

And I mean it too. I’ve never been one of the popular kids heck back in my old school I went as punk and gothy and queer looking as I could so as to just be that kind of freaky kid that was enough of a loser that people kind of ignored.

And that’s how I liked it.

And this, getting this sort of label going on where I’m one on the “In” people and stuff just sort of leaves this bad taste in my mouth. I mean it’s not like I’m going to go around and whine and stuff that people don’t get me.

I’m not a special little snowflake and really the hell I’ve survived is my business really. And I’d rather pee glass than trade off my damage for pity-popularity.

No, I’ll find another way to do this and maybe even change some of the stuff around here too.

I take another big sighing breath and I head off to class and Alex walks me there and that’s actually really nice. I mean he doesn’t have to and he doesn’t carry my books or anything but he still does it and at least with the whole morning registration thing we have some time to do that kind of thing and it’s actually not as bad as the cliché.

It is definitely still the cliché though the girl getting walked to class but it’s not either. That stuff’s kinda halfway dead with all the things have changed and stuff between guys and girls.

Okay now I’m not really one of those feminists but at the same time I do think that there is a sort of my arms are broke thing. It’s just to me there’s a whole lot of people I knew growing up that actually used their girlhood in messed up ways but at the same time I’ve lived in shitty places where being a girl is like a prison sentence too, where it’s all that bitches and hoes and honey’s and even old ladies in that whole ganger to biker to hip hop gangsta stuff.

I hate both sides of it.

Women and girls are just people and just as messed up and good and bad and stuff…I just would like to see like someone actually respect girls for being girls and for girls themselves to respect being girls and not use it in this whole shitty stereotype way.

That’s what’s grating on me.

I don’t want to be the stereotype.

I’m Hunter, not Alex’s girlfriend.

Or whatever else I’m going to get labeled in.

So…how do I get to that point?

Which I actually have to think about because I’ve spent the bulk of my life trying not to be noticed.

So this is kind of on my mind through history and math class and when it hit’s first break I just sort of walk around taking the lazy way to meet up with Alex and actually pay attention this time to the stuff going on. What people are saying and what they’re talking about even if it’s just a song or something on TV it doesn’t matter I just try and take some of it all in by the time I get to the cafeteria and Alex is getting me a coffee.

I smile and I thank him and give him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks.”

“No problem, you okay?”

“Yeah I was just sort of walking around and taking it all in.”

“All in?”

“The other students, the school. I mean I’ve kinda still been trying to keep my head down and everything.”

“Okay, is this for the homecoming thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Already?”

“Yeah well the others aren’t going to do things half assed in their own way.”

I take a drink and I sort of look purposefully over at some of the others nominated and they’re already doing that whole talking to their circles of people and others even.

One of the one’s that’s in that whole popular because they’re just popular group is already talking to people that she didn’t seem to know that well and her boyfriend is pressing flesh with the handshakes and that pretty boy model kind of looks and she looks like she was here first and has bought all of the cookies that the caf-staff had made to sell and she’s passing them out for free.

I mean it’s totally transparent and I don’t think even the ones that know she’s being fake cares because well like free food.

Ding!

I grin and take a drink of my coffee and walk over and take Alex’s hand.

“Where are we going?”

“Okay why?”

“I want a cookie and she’s giving them out.”

I grin a little more as I actually hear Alex snerk.

That just completely made my morning.

I head over to her and she’s giving me the stinky eyed stare and I give her this great big smile. “You’re Kathy right? Free cookies?”

“Not for you.”

“Why not?”

“They’re for the other kids the ones that vote.”

“I can vote? Are you saying I’m not good enough to have a cookie?”

I hold my hand out and she’s looking at me with this whole thing in her eyes of…no, no you don’t deserve a cookie… but she reaches into her basket and she passes me a cookie even though I can tell it’s like I’m a dentist pulling out one of her teeth as she’s doing it.

“Thank yoooou.” I say really cheerfully.

“Well it’s like the rules even though there should be rules about new people like you coming in and doing stuff like this.”

I stop and look at her. I know I’m just as blonde and white and all of that as she is but I’m not from the same place as she is.

“So…one rule for those that have been here and nothing for the newcomers?”

“Yeah like respect your seniors.”

“Oh I thought that you were like talking about people and votes and stuff like with immigrants.”

“Yeah well that too if you’re not here long enough to know stuff than you shouldn’t vote either.”

I don’t say anything but I just look at her with this…oh really look…and I take a bite of my cookie.

See we might be in the middle of whitebread central and everything but at the same time we are in Detroit. And even here there are people that don’t fit the whole white centric world view, there’s a lot of Asian kids and Indian kids and even some Hispanic and black kids from families that can afford to live in this district.

The thing is though even if they’re doing okay with their families the whole axis of privilege between whites and non-whites is still there, there is a thing and there is a whole part of these kids’ lives that’s affected by attitudes like hers.

And yeah I baited her.

Dress them up however you want to but I can smell a racist white person a mile away after all my time with the Aryan’s and the Stepshit.

Besides she wasn’t giving cookies to anyone that wasn’t white, it was really easy to see and really easy to overlook all of that in a place like this.

Unless you’re not a white kid.

She’s not a total dumbass and she squawks out after she catches herself. “No! No, no, no that’s not what I meant at all1 I meant that people should like pay their way! Pay their dues and stuff!”

I start walking away and towards Jen and Cindy and some of the LGBTQIA+ kids that are sort of loosely gathering there at the table that they’re at and I say.

“Funny, you ever think the journey to get here might be paying those dues?”

I’m not trying for a race debate with her, I’ve lived with racists and extremists and frankly she doesn’t have the spoons to come at me on this.

“No! Stop putting words in my mouth!”

I do an ironic valley girl. “Like…what..evar…”

She storms off really mad to another part of the cafeteria and I go over to Jen who opens her arms and we hug and then I hug Cindy and there’s a few looks from these kids and one of the Lesbians gives me a head tilt.

“That’s a new look what happened to the punker look?”

“I had a makeover with Alex’s step mom; I never really got to do that sort of stuff before so I thought that I’d give it a try. That and I’ve dyed my hair so much I was forgetting what my original hair looked like.”

“Oh I thought you were trying to like fit in or something lame like that.”

“I am a little bit, I dressed the way I did back home and when I first got here for camouflage as much as anything else. I’m kind of tired of the getting started at bit.”

“You shouldn’t care what people think.”

“Where I come from caring what people think is one of the ways you kept from getting beat up.”

She looks at me and I look at her and there’s some looks going around the group and there’s a few nods from the LGBTQIA+ kids. Yeah when you’re in Cis-het land you tend to get it even here the bullying is nasty, maybe worse…I dunno.

And while I care I’m not really wanting to find out first hand being part of the I and most of the T. Not to mention the shit that it would cause for Alex and his family.

But it doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore it.

“So what do you all do for pride events here?”

The girl I’m talking to shakes her head. “Nothing, we really don’t have enough people to do much other than have like meetings and stuff.”

“We should.”

“How?” Jen asks actually interested looking and sounding getting her some looks from the crowd here. I can imagine that not too long ago Jen might have easily been considered one of the people that most alt-gender/sexuality kids would have had good sense to be afraid of.

Hey she’s my friend but she was a bullying ass.

I sort of shrug. “The other schools around here can’t have that big of a student out body either so maybe we should talk to them and hold a mixed school queer dance and if it like works we could like do a few of them in like a taking turns kind of way.”

They are all looking at me and at each other and one of the guys asks. “Why do you care I mean you come across kinda Cis-het to me?”

Cis-het is net slang for cisgender and heterosexual it’s not a bad thing but at the same time it’s kind of looked down on in a lot of LGBTQAI+ circles.

“Well that’s the thing about looks you can never tell.”

“So what are you?”

Jen speaks up. “She Hunter and the rest really isn’t other people’s business.”

I smile and lean on her and look at them and the kids are staring at me. So I shrug… “I’m bi, and non-binary.”

I’m getting some looks and there are a few nods. See I’m skinny enough to look like a girl that was trying to look like a guy or sort of like a guy. There’s a few other expressions as LGBTQIA+ stuff has a lot of micro stuff going on in it depending on who you’re like dealing with and stuff.

The girl we were talking to nods though and looks at Jen and I. “That could work so what’s the deal? I mean I can sort of see Jen trying and you trying with the whole homecoming thing to smooze but you two look like you’re working like together.”

Jen actually beats me too it and says. “Why does having something cool like this have to be a competition? I think the more people the better when we want to do something cool.”

I hold my palm out and Jen slaps it in a sort of low five and stuff.

I look over to Kathy and she’s giving us both the stink eye as are some of her friends who are just kind of looking at Queer Corner with all that snobby better than you disdain that I’m kind of used to seeing a lot of the time.

And Alex wraps his arms around me really purposefully and like he’s sort of showing off to them that “He’s” with me and he says. “Count me in, I’ll talk the guys on the team around and stuff.”

And there’s some surprised looks at that and just as icing on the anti-bigot cake Jen and Cindy have a public cheerleader on cheerleader kiss that lasts just long enough to get a few looks and then the end of break bell goes off and we head to our classes shaking hands and sharing a few light hugs as we do.