1. Michaela
MICHAELA
Michaela smiled at the relief the Los Angeles heat brought to her skin after spending so much time in the harsh air conditioning of the library.
She quickly stuffed her latest reads, Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg and Gender Trouble by Judith Butler, into her bag.
The books were parting gifts from her favorite librarian, who had gone and bought her both.
Butler’s work was a bit dense but enlightening, and Feinberg’s book–well, Michaela was drawn into the portrait of someone else’s realization unfolding.
A few steps outside and her relief at the heat vanished.
Michaela was currently in a long sleeved shirt, and jeans, both of which would make this walk back to Brian’s unbearable by the end.
As if mocking her train of thought, Michaela passed by two women in strappy tank tops and shorts paired with sandals.
Envious, she found herself staring for a beat too long. One of the women gave her a sour look.
If only she knew why I’m looking.
Then, Michaela forced herself to look away, as she had been doing ever since she started going to the library, ever since she had stumbled upon Jay in a chat room one day after work.
She’d been trolling forums looking for potential roommates, having finally decided to take Berkeley up on their offer to allow her to study there for college.
Initially, she had deferred; it hadn’t been the right time.
Michaela hadn’t been in the right headspace.
She still wasn’t sure if she was. The anxiety of having to live anywhere she might get kicked out of, be somewhere where she was reminded of how she didn’t belong, threatened to suffocate her at all times.
But Jay was different. Michaela had found her post in a chat room, looking for a gay-friendly roommate.
Filtering out the hateful remarks and solicitations, Michaela had messaged her, asking if it mattered if the roommate was a gay male or female.
Jay had replied that it didn’t matter to her, but that she was a lesbian.
Michaela had written back that they were gay and currently had a boyfriend.
They kept chatting over the course of a few weeks, until Jay had revealed something that flipped Michaela’s world on its axis: I was technically born a boy, I hope that doesn’t bother you.
Michaela had stared at the words on the screen, trying to work out what Jay was saying. Jay has said she was a lesbian and liked women, but now was revealing that she technically had been born a different gender altogether.
Michaela hadn’t responded right away. She couldn’t. Not because she was scared or weirded out, but because Jay’s words had clicked something into place for Michaela, something she had never known was possible. It had never been an option to her. She had always just thought she was gay.
Michaela stopped walking for a moment to pull up her hair.
It was in two strand twists, because she was terrible at braids still, and while she loved the way it had grown out to the middle of her back, it was hot, and so she took the time to secure it in a ponytail in the middle of her head.
Thankfully, artists like Lenny Kravitz had started pulling up their long hair, and the strange looks still happened, but the assumption was that she was idealizing a rockstar.
The length would surely drive her parents nuts if they could see her now.
She had been in eighth grade playing basketball when the rest of the team said they weren’t going to cut their hair until after finals.
Michaela had told her parents and let it grow, secretly thrilled to finally have an excuse to do so.
Her father wouldn’t have let her otherwise—not in his house.
Not after the many times Michaela had been caught in her younger sister’s clothing or playing with her dolls when they’d both been younger.
Not after the way both her sister and mother were also punished for encouraging Michaela to be “the wrong kind of son.”
Picking up her pace again, she made a right and continued on her way toward the bus stop that would take her back to Brian’s.
She would tell him tonight. She knew he was going to be upset, but she had prepared for it.
Move-in was tomorrow. Her stuff, what little she had, was packed, and she already had her route north planned out.
She had found another student who would be driving up for the start of the semester, someone who had also been in the same chat room with Jay.
Calliope, that was her name. Michaela was surprised that some white girl hadn’t seemed to mind taking Michaela with her even when Michaela had revealed her whole identity to her.
They both were driving through the night to get to school on time by tomorrow morning.
Calliope seemed excited by that prospect because she wanted to stay at home a little longer.
Michaela had wondered what that feeling was like.
Brian’s reaction didn’t matter, she reminded herself.
Michaela was out of options either way. She couldn’t be with Brian anymore, she knew that.
She was grateful to him for taking her in when her parents had kicked her out at fourteen.
Brian had been at times a little violent, angry, and controlling.
But it had been his house, his bed, or the streets, and Michaela didn’t think she would have survived the latter.
She had known very well that if it wasn’t someone directly hurting or even killing her, AIDs was still out there and would likely get her in the end.
Something her parents were all too fond of reminding her.
A sin ends with punishment. Michaela shuddered at the thought of her mother’s last words to her.
She wasn’t small. She was just under five-foot-ten and had a slender but solid frame, broad shoulders and strong arms. But since she’d always felt somewhat foreign in her body, she’d never really gotten a handle on how to wield it like some of the boys she grew up with did, much to her father’s often verbalized dismay.
Everything had come to a head when she had been discovered dancing in her room with her mother’s lipstick and her sister’s scarf around her neck.
She had hoped the accessories were small enough for easy concealment, but she loved dancing.
She loved dancing in her room where she thought no one was watching.
But her sister had caught her, and pulled in their mother, who was followed by their father.
Michaela shivered thinking about it as if the bruises had never healed, and perhaps they hadn’t.
That had been the worst beating of her life that night, and she had been thrown out on the street with nowhere to go.
Her mother had even taken it upon herself to call all of her friends' parents to lament that she’d had to kick Michaela out for being a “sissy boy,” adding that if they were smart they wouldn’t let Michaela corrupt their own children.
Reaching the bus stop, Michaela stood off to the side, leaving the bench for any one else who needed it more than her. She could stand, especially since she was still and no longer walking.
Michaela had spent two weeks hungry, begging, and dirty on the streets until Brian showed up.
Brian hadn’t really taken pity on her; no, it had always been transactional.
Brian was fortunate enough to live with an uncle who was always out of the house, so he pretty much had his own place.
He was only a few years older than Michaela, and his family didn’t know he was gay.
He had approached her like one of the knights in the stories she read growing up, one of the knights there to rescue the princess she had always wanted to be in the story. And so she had taken Brian up on his offer. At fifteen and desperate, it had felt a lot like a fairytale.
It had felt like love.
But now, at nineteen, she knew it wasn’t.
Perhaps she had known for a while. Brian only sometimes let her wear what she wanted when they were alone, and even then, never complimented her.
He just took what he wanted. Happy to have a body where he knew he wasn’t at risk.
Yes, if she were being honest with herself, she had known it wasn’t love for a long time.
But the alternative, the truth, had always been more upsetting: she was unloved by everyone.
And she feared it would be like that forever.
She had to wonder what she was gaining from the relationship, and when she thought about that she felt pathetic.
She loved how much Brian wanted, seemed to need, her body.
How he was able to make her feel small and soft.
She felt desired. Brian chased after her, and that’s how she wanted to be treated.
Like every woman in a romance movie or show Michaela had seen from a young age.
She had made the mistake of telling her mother once, who promptly told her that would never happen because it was her job to chase a woman. Michaela never brought it up again.
Finally getting onto the bus, which was thank goodness, air-conditioned, she found a seat and tried to come up with a way to tell Brian that she was moving out to go to college, and that they were likely done. No, they were done.
Jay had said, “I was technically born a boy.” The words had wormed their way into Michaela.
Because she had also been born a boy, technically.
It was that word that had tripped Michaela up.
Because it technically meant there was a correction looming in the background.
Jay had introduced herself as a “she” and as a “lesbian”, which meant that she was a woman who liked other women but was technically born a boy.