Adventures in Queerness

Coming Out

You're walking down a dark hallway. You're scared, your steps are uncertain and your breaths are coming out in a ragged rhythm. You've been in here for a while, maybe months. You run your shaking hand along the wall as you walk, and suddenly feel something you think is a door. Do you take the risk of opening it? It could be worse than this hallway. It could be the most awful thing you've ever exposed yourself to. But it could also be beautiful. It could be the bliss of the light from the sun upon your face, a grace from heaven after staying in this haunting hallway for so so long.

Now take that feeling, and apply them to this situation. There's a young person, 14 years old to be exact. They're about to tell one of the people who means the world to them something very important. They don't know if he'll take it okay. It's like the door from earlier.

I'm sitting on a chair while my two friends share the couch, Ash almost looks like he's in physical pain, but I know he's only thinking. "Hey, Jon? I um, have something to tell you." Jon turns his head away from the movie (mean girls of course) and looks at his friend. The room is dark and Jon's blue eyes can barely be seen. "What is it buddy?" he asks, a playful tone in his voice. "Can you pause the movie? it's kind of important..." so Jon pauses the movie and then looks back again, adjusting so his whole body is facing his friend. he waits, looking interested. "I, um, I'm genderfluid," Ash spits out, "I know you might not know what that means, but basically I'm a girl and a boy. and I have a girl and a boy name. Ash and Amber. today's an Amber day though." They say quickly, not looking at Jon. Amber feels a warm hand on their own, which wasn't what they were expecting. They had thought Jon might just get up and leave, or put the movie back on and pretend he hadn't heard Amber. I was expecting him to do this too. He didn't like when we talked about anything "queer". It's not like he's homophobic, just adamantly trying to convince himself that he's straight. "It's okay Ash-I mean Amber. Kay has told me about this kind of stuff before. I might take a little while to get used to it, but I'll try my best okay?" Amber nods with tears in their eyes, and looks at Jon. "no no, please don't cry. stop stop," Jon moves his hand off of Amber's and goes in for a hug, Amber rests their head on Jon's shoulder. "shhhh, shh it's okay. I promise." Jon says, and whispers more sweet nothings into Amber's ear. They fall asleep together that night, with Jon's arm wrapped around Amber's warm waist.