“I mean honestly, who goes looking for this sort of trouble?”

~~~~~

She was clearly not a boy, despite what she said, I’ve known a looot of people, and there is a spectrum of mannerisms, and she was right at the girly girliest end. Don’t look at me like that, you both know what I’m getting at. Like her best attempts at acting boyish came off like a parody. I should have dropped it right then, I really should, but I’m guessing you’ve seen at least some of my records, enough to know that that really isn’t my style.

That I pissed off a potential friend in the first 15 minutes after meeting them on the other hand is definitely my style, you get what I mean by a new school being a minefield of socio-political triggers now? It’s been a while since I’ve done it with the most popular kid in the school and or year group or pathway or whatever. Don’t give me that look, you wanted to know why I did it and why, I know it was stupid and I was stupid, I don’t need pinkie and perky looking down on me for it too.

She was quiet and standoffish for the rest of the ‘tour’, only speaking to point out classes I was in, no more of the useful tip ones, and just fobbed me straight off on the teacher when we got to our first lesson. Maybe I shouldn’t have stared at her so much, but I just couldn’t figure her out, everyone was talking too and about her like she was a boy, but acting like she’s a girl, so yeah, more than a little confusing.

Look it is important, you turn up as soon as the docs say I can talk normally and as a stupidly open-ended question, so I’m going to give you everything that struck me as important, you can figure out what matters to you when I’m done. So yeah, I was watching her and everyone around her, it wasn’t a stalker thing, it’s just she was interesting. I wasn’t trying to be subtle or anything so I guess people would obviously notice me doing it.

It’s as good a reason as any for why the really weird alliance of peeps would corner me in the yard at break...