Project Equality

Those Who Come After

Amilia

"Hi."

It was the first meeting of November, the meeting where we had everyone vote for the next generation of Club admins, and it was my job to open the meeting up that week. I didn't like speaking in front of such a large crowd, and I didn't like being in charge of anything, but I understood the symbolism. We were bracing ourselves to give away this thing that we had made together, and it started with me. So would this meeting.

"I'm Amilia, as most of you know, and today is the day of Club elections. I can't lie, I'm really nervous about the outcome. This was something that the seven of us built, something that I never imagined could become so big . . ." I drew in a shaky breath to stop from rambling, cleared my throat, and continued. "Six years ago, I didn't have any friends. I was always sort of lonely, though I talked to plenty of people. But then I saw a girl who never spoke to anyone, sitting by herself. She always sat by herself, but I decided to sit with her that day. I asked her to make a club with me, just for fun, just to pass the time. I asked her to be my best friend. Her name was Mayella.

"Then a week after that, there was a new girl at our school. She was really shy and awkward, and I thought maybe our little bubble could open up to someone else. I could tell she was meant to be our friend too. Her name was Lisa.

"The next school year, another new girl needed a group of friends so I made sure she had one, and her name was Lynn. She found a girl a month later who was too anxious to look anyone in the eye, trying to push her way through the halls unnoticed. Lynn decided she needed a group to call home too, and her name was Jenna. Then, after the fall play that year, we came across someone who had friends, who had been at the school a while, but she needed somewhere that people understood her. That was none other than Ely.

"Almost instantly, Club came together as something more. We started to understand more about ourselves - from gender to sexuality - and how we wanted to live. We started to meet weekly in May's house to talk about things, plan group things, have sleepovers, and help each other with our problems. For a year or so, that was all Club needed to be, so that was all it was.

"Then, someone came to us for help. A girl who was having a sexuality crisis and wanted our help to figure herself out. She wanted to know the answers to the usual things, you know? 'How did you know you liked girls' or 'how did you know you were ace' or 'what does demisexual/romantic mean', and we did our best to provide answers. She turned out to be gay, and you might know her as Lauren.

"We had a closed off little group, but occasionally, it was breached. Parties happened, so we let more people in for that. But then, one day, in the summer before high school, we ran into someone. A chance encounter with someone who'd just moved here from another country. Someone I'm proud to call my moirail. Hazel. Our little group was complete after that. We'd found the missing piece in our puzzle, and I thought Club was done.

"But in October of that year, on Halloween, one of the sweetest guys on the planet died. We didn't know it yet, but that was the first domino in a series of murders that would lead us here. In my depression, I turned to the internet for more support, and found a friend in a girl whose name you're sure to recognize: Rosemary. We became close to her and her girlfriend, and when they . . . committed suicide later that spring, we were introduced to a whole new group of people.

"Everyone from Novi who we met were so kind, so understanding, so loving. They welcomed us into their little world, so we welcomed them into ours. From Andrea and Sidney to Viktor to David and Seth, we suddenly had worlds that came together rather than two separate worlds. They stood by us during the murder trials, as we all awaited justice. Suddenly, we had more people coming to meetings. We knew it was time to grow.