Misalignment | ✔

chemistry

First period for me
is chemistry,
which is, hands down,
one of my favorite subjects
to study.
I've always been good
at science and math classes.
English is
uninteresting to me,
though,
and history is trickier
because it's usually boring
and full of useless facts
that take too long
to memorize
and seem pretty insignificant
in my opinion.

Math, on the other hand,
has a reason behind it,
and science is made up
of cold, hard,
reasonable facts.
History, in my experience,
is rather opinionated,
and too easy to twist
and too easy to get wrong -
just like
the opinions
that everyone has
of me.

I find a desk
near the back
to sit at
and the girl next to me
immediately moves away,
pretending that she knows
someone across the room
and just has to
sit beside them.
I'm used to it by now,
so I don't care.
At least she had the tact
not to insult me directly
before she left,
other than the weird look
she shot my way
as I sat down
that she probably couldn't help.
I've already had enough of
bigots today -
and this is only
first period.

The teacher takes attendance
as the bell rings,
and we raise our hands
when she calls our names.

"Julian?"
"Here."
"Wesley?"
"Here."
"Annabeth?"
"I'm here."

From experience, I know
that my name will be
near the end
because I was enrolled
at last minute,
and while everyone else is in
alphabetical order,
I was a
last minute addition.
It was too late
to reorganize the members
of my classes
so they just tacked me on
at the end,
like always.
While I know that it happens
more than I would think
because of last-minute transfers
like me,
and I really shouldn't complain,
I can't help but feel slightly
bitter
about it all,
because no one really
seems to think much of me,
anyway.

As expected, my name
is the very last.
"Cam?"

I take a moment then
to thank whatever god there is
in heaven above
that my mother had enrolled me
in this school
using my preferred name.
Last year, she had forgotten
and had used my birth name
(which, I should say
doesn't suit me
in the slightest -
and my mother claims it was
chosen by my father).
Everyone had turned to stare
and I hadn't been able
to say a single word
for a moment or two.
Even after class
had resumed at its normal pace,
I hadn't quite been able
to rid myself of
the lingering embarrassment
that my unsuitable birth name
never fails to bring me.

When I reply
to the teacher
in the affirmative,
she shuts her ledger
with a muffled thud
and starts to introduce us
to the code of conduct
we are to follow
within her classroom.

To my left, a girl
whispers to her friend:
"Oh, so that's his name,"
and inwardly,
I scream a correction
at her
because this place
isn't kind enough
for me to tone down
my irritation
and attempt any form of
politeness,
even if she probably
didn't mean badly.

But outwardly,
I just grit my teeth
and sit back
and sigh
and try to think of chemistry -
only chemistry.

×

I really hope I'm portraying Cam right, because I, personally, am not agender - that's what they are, officially, just as an FYI I guess - and I've never met anyone who is agender, so other than what I've heard and read, I don't have much of a basis for them. If anyone spots any glaring inconsistencies or mistakes, please let me know so I can fix them and hopefully learn from it!

If you guys liked this chapter, please feel free to vote and leave some feedback, I'd really love to hear from you guys! c: