Loving Him(?)

Chemistry Homework

            I was walking down the halls. I would be too easy to say I was invisible. Invisible meant you yourself had to be aware that you were in fact present. I wasn't aware that I was present. I was walking to get somewhere, that's all. The destination was at the end of the hall, the auditorium. I perceived it to be a decent walk. Since I only got walked into twice. Although both times it was a bump without even looking who they bumped into, without even a mumbled sorry.

            My whole life I'd been a pudgier guy with moppy brown hair and kickass green eyes. I wore a sweater and long pants (not jeans, gross) and couldn't grow facial hair. I was now a junior at the worst high school in the country. I played no sports unless you count the horrid basketball player in last year's rendition of High School Musical. I had been Chad, but I looked nothing like the actor who played Chad in the movies.   

            Now we were working on our version of Into the Woods; hoping to have more people come to this showing. Since the popularized movie version with Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine most people actually knew what the musical was about. I was the husband who needed the cloak as red as blood, cow as white as milk, etc. On the stage seemed to be the only time I could shine. Everything was centered on me. Everyone cared about me. My voice was the one that broke through.

            After theatre class was chemistry. It would be a worse class if my lab partner wasn't the smartest chemist in the entire grade. So I just let him do most of the labs and the work in the class. Daniel wasn't an average kid either. He was captain of the boys' soccer team and also their best forward. But that wasn't his most interesting quality. That day in chem class just happened to shine on that exact quality as he quietly asked me, "Dude, I know all you theatre kids carry around stuff to help each other." I nodded slowly in reply refusing to look at him. "So I was wondering if you happened to carry around any tampons." Again I nodded slowly but this time I looked at him. He was beat red in the face, well as beat red as a black guy could get. He started to open his mouth again but I just shook my head no and reached into my backpack. I rummaged around until I felt a tampon and then I slipped it to him. He sighed in relief and asked the teacher to go to the bathroom. While the teacher was fine with him leaving my eyes grew wider as I knew what this meant. I hoped Daniel would come back before the bell rang signaling class was starting.

            Maybe I should explain this a little better. Daniel wasn't your typical black captain of the soccer team super star. He was also born female. How he is like now genital wise is none of your concern. But he was pre-T which meant his physical structure, like muscles and such, was that of a girl's still. Rumor had it that in about a month he is going to be going on T or testosterone. Mostly he was already considered a guy. See we live in Seattle which is probably one of the most liberal areas in the USA. He got to play on the guy's team and everyone used he/him pronouns and called him by his preferred name, Daniel. Truth was the people who didn't like who he was kept their mouths shut. There was this one guy on the soccer team last year who openly expressed hate and not only did he try and fail to beat up Daniel, but he tried to kill him. Daniel was holding his own until dude got him into a choke hold. Luckily the rest of the team came in from practice and saved him. That was the end of that dude.

            "Sebastian, are you with us today?" my chemistry teacher asked.

            "Yes, sorry."

            "Good, I was just telling the class how everyone should get out their notes." He said just addressing me. Turning back to the class he said, "and today we will be learning how to balance equations." The entire class groaned. The teacher blabbed on as I grabbed my notes and went off into dream land. "Maybe, Sebastian can give us the answer to this one." My head looked up at the board and sighed. I tried to do the math but felt like I was off. The whole class started laughing at me. It was only when I saw my teacher raise his water glass to his mouth that I realized why. The chemical formula for water was on the board, it was literally 1 H and 2 O's.