#GirlsShitToo

"Girls don't do that..."

My topic remained nonexistent for the rest of the week, until something serendipitous happened in chemistry. It was the middle of lab, when I said, without thinking, "Ugh, I have to shit."

I don't know what compelled me to say it; it was something I would say in front of my close regular friends, but unfortunately, none of my cool friends took chemistry with me. Benny didn't like "hard science," and Alex had taken it the year before, and my friend Dylan had it sixth period.

At the beginning of the school year in chemistry, we got to choose our own seating assignments, and I'd decided to sit with Valerie, Trish, and Reba. When I'd sat down next to them, they'd all looked at each other, and it was like they were talking to each other telepathically, wondering which one of them I was into. I could have told them I wasn't into any of them, and that it was stupid to assume, just because I was a lesbian, that any time I wanted to spark a friendship or a chemistry lab partnership with a girl it must've meant I was into her.

Or I could have just told them the truth about my dysfunctional crush on Valerie, but that would've ruined the exciting secrecy of the crush. And who knows how Valerie would have reacted. I never liked it when guys would hit on me, so maybe Valerie would be completely put off by the knowledge that I liked her. Besides, my stupid crush bothered me almost as much as it excited me. She was the opposite of what I considered to be my type, and I didn't really like her as a person. She was one of those girls who expected you to hold the door open for her and then wouldn't always say thank you when you did, or maybe that was just when I did it. I'd gotten stuck holding the door open for her multiple times, and right before break I even shouted, 'you're welcome!' and she pretended not to hear. But in spite of me not liking her, I still liked her. Crushes were weird like that.

Maybe it was because, deep down, Valerie really was a good person, better than most. Yeah, she said ridiculous and misguided things sometimes, like when she said that thing about me wearing the same shirt twice in one week. And yeah, she did rude things sometimes, like when she didn't say thank you when I held the door open for her and when she whispered mean comments about Adree's ever-changing hair. But I had seen her helping a freshman boy to pick up his books after Dennis Hepler knocked them out of his hand, not once but twice. And she was the reason that Molly, who had severe autism, was on the dance squad. And though selfies dominated her social media feeds, she would occasionally post pictures of the kittens she was fostering from the Crystal Shore Humane Society to try to get people to adopt them. I had a deep suspicion that Valerie was much sweeter on the inside than her sometimes-rude exterior let on.

Also, if I'm being honest, there was no denying that her sometimes rude-exterior was really pretty. Scratch that: she was gorgeous. Sure, she dyed her hair way too blonde (we did live in Cali), but it always looked perfect and she had big brown eyes and her lips were naturally this pretty shade of coral. And she had that flawless and glowing skin that made most girls ache with jealousy, wondering why the universe favored her like that and not them, but it just made me want to touch her face.

But it looked like she probably spent hours getting ready each morning. Shouldn't her mind suffer at the expense of her looks? In the name of fairness, I wanted it to—but it didn't. Valerie was also really smart. Unlike Trish and Reba, Valerie got chemistry. And she got physics and biology, too. And I knew she was in calculus and that she got that, too. Even though her project for English seemed to be aiming for the stars, I knew she was probably going to reach them. Surely she'd wind up going to some great college and carving out a great career for herself. It didn't seem fair, but whatever.

Anyways, Valerie and I usually got stuck doing all the work in chemistry and attempting to explain the answers to Trish and Reba, but that day I couldn't concentrate enough to do any of that. Feeling over-caffeinated and open, I said it: "Ugh, I have to shit."

That's when Trish and Reba laughed, and Reba said, "Gross, Dallas, you act like such a boy!"

"And what's wrong with that?"

"Well, if any girl can act that way, it's Dallas," Trish said.

"But everyone shits. Big deal."

And right after, Valerie said, "I don't." And she said it coldly, and without any laughter.

I just sort of stared at her, and then she stared right back with that...that smare.

"I'm a girl. Girls don't do that. Maybe you should act like one. Unless you are going to be one of those lesbians. You should really chop your hair off, though, and maybe stop wearing tight girl jeans and mascara, so we can tell."

This was the not-nice Valerie. This was the Valerie that said rude and misguided things. This was the Valerie that I really didn't like, the Valerie I wished I didn't have a crush on. And the only response I could come up with was, "Whatever." Maybe I should have said something more back, to defend myself, but for a moment I felt a twinge of embarrassment, which I let turn into anger, and that's when I realized that what she said and how she said it and how she smared just didn't sit right with me. We barely talked for the rest of lab, and I let her explain the mole concept to Trish and Reba by herself.

It continued to not sit right with me for the whole school day, probably because I never did end up going to the bathroom because I felt weird about it, and I just kept thinking: girls like Valerie tried so hard to be feminine that they would deny one of their body's fundamental biological functions. Girls don't do that. It didn't make any sense to me. Why was her femininity so important to her that she would lie to herself and the world?