I couldnt believe it. Three years really can change a person. I knew that saying to be true but this was crazy.
Truh was one of the few people at Jay Pierce high school that acknowledged me, said hello in the halls and bothered to recognize my existence. She was nice to me and in return I helped her study. It was as simple as that. Seeing her, well him, now was so weird. I mean, I didn't have a problem with it. In fact I thought it was amazing how brave she was to say that being a girls wasn't who she wanted to be, but there was still a very confused part of my brain that was curious.
"Scarlet, oh my god hi!" as I was getting ready to turn away I saw two arms coming at me like angry snakes who just had their homes destroyed. As I felt two arms in case my body I immediately tensed up.
I hadn't been hugged by anyone other than my brother since I stopped coming to school. But that was my brother! Not some guy who I had really only just met! "How are you?" Truh whispered in my ear. At that exact moment I tore out of the hug, ran out of the school gates and ran as far as my legs would take me.
I stopped at a coffee shop I recognized very well. I had worked there for a while before I left school. I decided to go inside, sit in a booth in the back corner. Out of nowhere the tears began to pour like a waterfall down my face.
Okay, so perhaps not the best way to start the day. Using the napkins casually layer out on the wooden table, I began to wipe away my tears and go back to the beginning and figure out what had gone wrong. I went all the way back to when I put on my clothes, then to breakfast, the less than enjoyable car ride to the Jay Pierce campus, Truh seeing me, getting hugged the running here to the cafe.
I already knew I wasn't transphobic otherwise my reaction would have been much worse, the hug itself was friendly enough, there was no sign of malice in that. So why am I one kilometre away from school, in a shitty little coffee shop, balling my eyes out?!
"It must have been the last straw" I whispered to myself. That was it. My day had already been stressful enough, the cherry on the cake was when I received a surprise hug out of nowhere.
I began to calm down once I had come to terms with what happened, I grabbed my bag, slung it over my shoulder and slowly made my way out of the cafe doors.
Part way there I realized the problem I might have going back. I had run away from the campus probably minutes before the first bell went. All the gates wouldn't be locked and if they were I knew how to get in and out real easy, but I couldn't just rock up to my first class half way through and expect my teacher (whoever it was) to be okay with that.
My last year at school was bad enough. I would frequently skip class to avoid certain teachers, I would lie about my homework and forge signatures from my parents to get me out of gym. I was classified as an all round bad girl, little did they know I had a reason for all of it. I would avoid certain teachers because they told me off for crying, even after my dad had just died, I wouldn't do my homework because I was to busy caring for my family and I didn't do gym because I would spend that time trying to look after myself, shopping for food etcetera. They knew the title but not the story.
I guess that's why I stopped going. It started off as having one or two days off per week. Then I would only go to school on Monday (only for history class, my favourite) then I wrote school an email saying my withdrawal in grade 10.
It was too late. I was far to deep in my thoughts to remember the giant crack in the footpath that had been there for the past 3 years. I did realize if was there though. Once I was on the ground with a huge graze on my knee. The rip in my jeans was in the exact place I fell. Just as I was studying the damage, I saw the blurry outline of something that was reaching out to me. I peered up to see who the owner of the hand was. I was incredibly startled to see who the hand belonged to.
