The Good Hair Family Sitcom

S3 E11.3: Driving Force

Hazel's POV

The open windows of my car let a breeze through while Cara sits in the passenger seat, cross-legged and facing me with her marshmallow sundae dripping white on white. She spoons a clump into her mouth then pokes at it with her spoon while I slowly but surely eat my own cherry sundae. Her eyes are still, focused on the ice cream, but I don't think she's even really looking at it, but rather looking through it at her own mindscape instead.

"Is it good?" I ask.

She nods as she digs a spiral line into the ice cream.

"I used to get that kind a lot when I was little," I tell her, "but now I don't eat gelatine anymore."

Cara remains quiet for a second, leading me to think she wasn't listening to me, and then I realize she definitely wasn't, because she asks a question that's so far off-topic, but makes me so insanely curious.

"Hazel, people thought you were a boy when you were little, right?"

She's literally never asked me about this. She's never even brought up that I'm trans, nor have I brought it up with her, so her asking about it is unexpected.

"Uh, yeah," I reply.

"How did you tell them you weren't?"

She looks at me as I struggle to find my response, but she doesn't let my hesitation sway her plain and pure fascination and desire to know.

"To be honest, I don't remember. My moms said I told them when I was about four that I was a girl, and they just started using she and stuff, so yeah."

"What about with kids at school?" Cara wonders.

"Most of them didn't realize I wasn't the same as them, because, I mean, when you're four, you can't really tell the sexes apart, but when I got older, occasionally I just had to tell people I was a girl," I explain. "Elementary school wasn't too hard, because they were all the same people I grew up with. Sometimes adults would get it wrong—"

"What did you do then?" she cuts in.

I shrug. "Just moved on."

"What if they kept being wrong?"

She seems so intertwined in this, and I think I'm starting to have an idea why. I could be wrong, though, but nobody has ever asked me questions like this before. They've asked me these questions, yes, but not like this—not with the desperation that Cara has now.

"You know, I was mad at first," I say, "but after enough times, I just kinda got used to the fact that lots of people won't accept me, and that's okay, because I'm not living for them. I'm living for me."

"You're brave," Cara says. Then she looks down at her ice cream, which is becoming a puddle at this point. "I wish I could be like you."

"You're brave too," I say with a smile.

"I want to be braver."

"Well, what's stopping you?"

She shrugs.

"Are you scared?"

"Maybe," she admits.

"That's okay. Everyone gets scared."

"Being scared is stupid."

"Not necessarily."

"It's stupid."

"Okay, it's stupid," I agree.

There's a dead moment of just her spoon swishing her not-so-ice cream around in its bowl.