chapter twenty-two Create a Better Future
chapter twenty-two
Create a Better Future
I make my way to the conference room. Everyone from Team Rainbow is already here, and there’s just one seat left, next to
Jasleen. She’s dressed prettily in pink, her makeup expertly applied, and she’s looking at me as if she knows exactly what
I was doing in my office. I find my way into my seat, plopping my loose notes haphazardly on the table and nearly tripping
on my own feet as I settle into my spot, a little flustered.
Everyone looks at me expectantly.
“Are we all ready, then?” Ebele asks, obviously referring only to me.
“I was born ready!” I say, still flushed from my encounter with Lex.
Ebele clicks to the first slide of her presentation, showing a headline that reads: Trans High School Student in Critical Condition After Bathroom Altercation.
I suck in a sharp breath, my misplaced jubilation cutting deep considering the intense turn into heartbreak this meeting’s taken.
Once again, everyone looks to me, as if I could have expected the seriousness of the topic.
I turn several shades of pink and try to keep my eyes focused on Ebele’s presentation rather than at the uncomfortable glances from my peers.
Ebele clicks to the next slide, showing the picture of a young white girl wearing jeans and a purple sweater, with braces
and long wavy hair. “Right here, folks. Surrey, BC. A student has been attacked at a summer camp for using the ‘incorrect’
bathroom, according to the group of young men who swarmed the restroom she was using. She’s currently in a coma, with no word
on her expected recovery date, or if there will be permanent injury.”
Ebele clicks to another photo, showing the girl in the hospital with tubes and wires and gauze and bruises. My stomach twists.
I look away. I have the privilege of looking away. That poor girl. Her poor parents. All because she had to pee. What the hell is going on in the world?
“It sounds like the young men were aided by a couple of girls, who are also being questioned. According to witnesses, the
girls told the victim it was safe to go in and that they’d watch out for her, only to then notify the boys who were on the
lookout for this disgusting plan of theirs.” Ebele clicks through a few more slides, but her voice becomes distant, the world
around me blurring.
“Girls can be so mean,” Jasleen tuts when Ebele pauses between slides.
We all nod, the others commenting that the girls who set the victim up are as much to blame as the boys who swung their fists.
Girls can be mean. Girls can cause so much damage in the world when they choose to make enemies instead of friends, when they throw one another under
the bus rather than watch out and protect them.
Girls can cause real harm with their words and the choices they make.
Memories of the past flood through me and my stomach squeezes, threatening.
Without saying anything I get up and walk as quickly as I can out of the boardroom and down the hall to the restroom.
The door shuts behind me, enclosing me in silence, save for the pounding of my heart, my ragged breathing, and the white noise roaring through my skull.
I hover between the sink and the toilet for a moment, closing my eyes and taking slow breaths, my skin prickling with sweat.
At the sink I run cold water over my hands, then splash it on my face, but I can do nothing to escape the vile memories as they resurface.
“Oh my god, what does he see in her?” McKinley scoffed, tossing her blond hair over her shoulder as we stood in the hallway
of our high school just moments after the bell had rung for lunch.
I looked over to see Chad pressing Courtney against the lockers down the hall, the two of them smiling and talking quietly
to each other. A hot jab of jealousy tore through me—not just because Courtney was dating the boy I’d had a crush on since
forever, but because she’d started spending all her free time with him instead of with me. Not that I’d been making much time
for her since I’d been let into the group of girls who were so popular and stylish and pretty and cool it made me feel like
a wet dishrag in comparison.
Sakura finished checking her braces in her palm mirror before snapping it shut and dropping it into her designer handbag.
“We all know why he’s with her.”
Chad leaned down and kissed Courtney against the lockers, like I’d always dreamt he’d do to me. I couldn’t look away.
“Gross,” Jasmine said, making a gagging sound before zipping her pink Abercrombie jacket up. “Leave it to her to be indecent
in public like that.”
The pair finally broke their kiss, with Chad walking away in the opposite direction, leaving Courtney leaning against the
lockers with a dreamy smile upon her face. Then she looked over and gave me an excited wave before bounding up.
“Hey, Aubs! Are we still going over our chem notes today at lunch? I am so not ready for the test on Monday,” Courtney said, either unaware or uncaring about the animosity from the other girls.
“I thought you already had plans,” Jasmine said with a coy tilt of her head. “In the boys’ change room.”
McKinley made a lewd blow-job gesture. The girls snickered as Courtney’s face turned pink.
Courtney looked over to me, eyes round and pleading, waiting for me to do something, say anything, to stick up for her. My
stomach sank, very aware of how precarious my standing within the clique was. One wrong word and I was back to eating lunch
in the hallway alone, or third-wheeling with Courtney and Chad.
Despite the sick feeling in my stomach, I tossed a braid over my shoulder, lifted my chin, then said, “You know he’s only
with you because he thinks he’ll get laid after the school dance, right? Because of your reputation.”
Her totally false reputation. Courtney was a virgin; she’d never even seen a real penis before. But that didn’t matter—the
truth never did, not in high school, when the rumour mill was far more interesting than facts.
Courtney looked at me as if she’d been slapped. Here I was—the girl who’d been her project partner every art class since grade
three, who’d joined the Librarian Club with her in grade five and skipped every recess to shelve books, who’d journaled about
our lives and futures late into the night at all those sleepless slumber parties—joining in with the others, bullying her,
belittling her, calling her a slut.
Tears welled in her eyes and Courtney shoved past me and escaped down the hall. The other girls laughed, and I tried my best
to smile through the pain of knowing what I’d just done.
“That was a good one!” McKinley had said, tugging on one of my braids.
“You are totally coming to the sleepover tonight,” Jasmine stated.
“Yes! You have to come,” Sakura added.
My soured stomach from throwing Courtney under the bus momentarily subsided at being invited to the coveted sleepover that I’d been excluded from my entire life. I managed to smile and nod. “I’ll be there!”
“Do you think you can sneak us some booze?” McKinley asked.
“Uh . . . yeah, I’m sure my mom won’t notice if I take some out of the pantry,” I said. If there was anything my mom was good
for, it was having an abundance of liquor lying around.
“Perfect! We can go over our plan to break up Chad and Courtney.” McKinley smiled.
I tilted my head. “Break them up?”
“Yeah,” Jasmine tutted. “We can’t let a guy like him take a girl like her to the dance. She’s such a weirdo.”
“He needs to take one of us,” Sakura agreed.
“Which is why we need you to get one more thing,” McKinley added, looking over at me.
“Sure,” I said. “Anything.”
The girls looked at each other, then back to me with mischievous smiles. “You need to get a strand of her hair.”
And I did. It was easy enough, since she’d left a sweater at my house weeks ago. We used that hair to cast a spell on her
to make her awkward and weird so Chad would break up with her, trying to ruin her life in the process.
I was a bad friend and a mean girl and a bully. No wonder the curse backfired. I got everything I deserved.
The bathroom door opens and Ebele walks in, startling me from my reverie. “Aubrey? You’re white as a ghost. Well, whiter than
normal.”
Despite myself, I laugh, the contrast of her deep ebony and my pasty paleness especially stark in the bright light of the
bathroom. “Sorry. I just needed a minute.”
Ebele places a hand on my back and meets my gaze through the mirror, her brown eyes full of understanding. “Events like this can be deeply triggering, and I’m sorry I didn’t give enough of a warning.”
I try to shrug.
“I’m sure you have trauma in your past, as we all do, that makes things like this difficult. The fact that kids experience
this at all reminds me how important our jobs are. We can help. The media is in a frenzy over this. People are looking for
answers. The government will be more open to granting funding for school programs to reduce bullying for LGBTQIA youth. We
need to move quickly and get our projects together. Do you understand?”
I nod.
“This is our opportunity, our chance, to use the pain of our past to create a better future for everyone.” Goosebumps rise
on my arms as the deep timbre of her voice resonates through the small room.
“Make the world a better place,” I murmur.
“Exactly.”
Ebele is right. This poor girl didn’t have to get hurt. She didn’t have to go through any of this. I can’t go back in time
to fix what happened in her past, nor mine, but maybe I can make the future better. That’s why I wanted to work here in the
first place.
“Why don’t you take the rest of the day,” Ebele offers. “Go home, recover, and gather your wits about you. Tomorrow you can
present what you’ve been working on and we’ll choose the best plan to bring forward to the government. I want to have something
drafted and on the premier’s desk by end of day Friday. Okay?”
I nod. Ebele gives me one last tight-lipped smile through the mirror before leaving me alone.
I dry my hands on a paper towel, still feeling shaky, before exiting the bathroom and walking to my office.
What the hell am I going to do? I’ve been so busy with Lex going on dates that I’ve been on autopilot at my job.
I don’t have anything close to what we would need to present to the government for funding at the scale we’re hoping to get.
I grab my things and pass by the other empty offices, everyone still in the meeting. I walk past Jasleen’s open door, then
stop and take a slow step back. Peeking inside, I spot an open notebook on her desk, filled with writing just as perfect and
bubbly as her personality. I look over my shoulder. The hallway is still empty. Taking a slow step inside, I read the first
few lines. My gut sinks. It’s good. Fuck, it’s really good. Why the hell didn’t I think of anything near as good as this?
Oh, right, because Jasleen has a degree in psychology and gender studies and I’m here with a fucking bachelor’s in business.
I don’t belong in the same room as these people. I’m sure Linda and Samantha will also have fabulous ideas, and I’ll be sitting
there with my thumb up my ass. Ebele doesn’t even need me. I won’t be any help at all.
My phone dings and I jump in surprise. My face warming, I step out of Jasleen’s office and hurry out the door into the overcast
afternoon, tiny spitting raindrops cooling my flushed skin. Once outside I check my phone to find an ominous message from
Lex.
Hi. Hope your meeting went well. We need to talk. Call me.