41
Sasha
Cyprus flips the list around to see it after Lillian reads it out.
“Shame you got rid of all your gel pens last year.”
“When I was eight, Cyprus,”
Lillian says.
“You know you kept the black ones,”
says Cyprus.
“Did you try to hide research homework for us by putting it in the middle of the list as a subpoint?”
asks Quinn.
“Also, did you volunteer my house?”
“I would’ve volunteered Sasha’s place, but their parents hate young people,”
says Lillian, half a question.
“By the way, Sasha, you’re included in steps two through four. You’re emotionally in the band.”
I’m beyond pleased, but I try to downplay it.
“Thanks for incorporating me in your great methodology. Isn’t that basically what you’d do anyway?”
“But as a list!”
Lillian’s immensely proud of her organization.
Cyprus has taken out a bright highlighter and starte.
“improving”
the list decoration situation.
“And we couldn’t possibly have other plans?”
Quinn bumps her so she squiggles a line.
“Do you have other plans?”
“Not really. No. None. I’m not too sure about karaoke though.”
“We don’t even have to sing,”
says Lillian.
I immediately see what she’s doing.
Just generate the situation, get everyone there, and we’ll all get into it and wind up involved.
Not me.
No stages for Sasha.
People might figure me out and then I bring a huge media frenzy on this town and this school and Initialism and my friends and wind up back at the Channel and they’ll probably make a feature about it or something horrible.
The homework takes me to a lot of mediocre music and a bit of truly remarkable stuff.
Every time I think I find a new band, I text Quinn and he’s already heard of it.
So I go further down the rabbit hole and eventually get drawn into clickbait about Admirer.
I try to avoid this.
I mostly do.
Because when you’re famous and you start researching yourself, you never hit the bottom.
I become glazed over, obsessive, reading half an article and getting disgusted and moving to another and another and desperately trying to avoid logging into my accounts to see every post and comment.
I hold out on that one, but I do learn some things.
People hate me.
Not everyone.
Not even a tenth of our fans.
Some people, though.
They feel betrayed that I haven’t spoken up for Augustus.
Or betrayed that I haven’t spoken out against him.
Some people are pointing to when I fell into the drum kit as a sign that I’ve been needing rehab for a while now.
The trial drags on, and as much as I try to avoid it, there are moments where I can’t look away.
I read half an article about what’s unfolding before stopping myself.
Everywhere it’s Augustus and people defending him and despising him.
Legal technicalities and loopholes, rich men getting out of all sorts of trouble, and pictures of Augustus with Jasmine.
Whatever remnants of anonymity she had are done for.
The internet’s dredging up hints of their relationship and creating stories.
It seems like she’s supporting Augustus’s side against both the stat rape and assault charges.
I’ve never really met her, and I didn’t know much about their relationship until it all came crashing down, but I know that thirteen was too young to be with Augustus.
She shouldn’t have her life publicly ruined by this.
I start thinking about what the Channel could do to me for breaking contract and running.
How the nearer my friends are to me, the more they’re at risk.
The less they know about my life in Admirer, the safer we all are.
I have to stop researching.
I never do find a new band for everyone to listen to.
The protest march takes me off guard.
I didn’t give it much thought until I left school with Quinn, Lillian and Cyprus.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t expect to feel so much.
I’ve been to other protests.
I guess it was different now that no one recognized me and I was allowed to be simply one voice among many.
It’s for the rights of trans youth.
It’s against legislation that’s about erasing queer kids no matter how it harms them.
Kids younger than me.
Pretending it’s about anything else is where the lies start.
It’s not the worst right where we live, but it’s pressing all around us.
I don’t know if I feel more anger or hope.
I know when I get home, I go straight to bed in the afternoon and don’t get out for a long time.
The march shouldn’t have to happen.
These rights shouldn’t be up for debate.
I don’t want my existence, Quinn’s existence, to be a protest.
But there were people there.
Lillian with a cardboard sign and chants she knew.
She fucking cared.
For most of the people there, it wasn’t about protecting themselves.
That gave me hope.
And I remembered that getting onstage is one way of tearing these systems down and marching is one way and staking out space for yourself is one way.
Sometimes the only safe place to stake out that space is inside yourself, and sometimes it takes a long time to even be able to do that.
Every time, it’s a sledgehammer to something that should never have been built.
It shouldn’t have to be that way, but every hammer blow gives me hope.
It’s that hope that takes me to Initialism the next Wednesday, more or less recovered from both the research and the protest.
I believe in this place and feel safe with these people.
Listening to my friends sing karaoke can’t do anything but help.