Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything, page 9
I blink. “I think a puppet in your school show is a little different from a man who was actually killed.”
“Close enough. The whole plot of Little Shop of Horrors revolves around Seymour growing a man-eating plant that gets out of hand. How are we supposed to do the show without the plant puppet? They are trying to murder our production, but we have a plan. I’ll tell you more about the walkout when you aren’t dealing with your killer thing.”
I force a smile. “These situations are not even remotely the same.”
“Regardless, I’m proud of you.” She pats me on the shoulder. “And I sincerely hope you don’t die.”
With her kind-of heartwarming statement and the remaining evidence in hand, Kate and I walk back into the kitchen, and everyone looks over to us.
“Did we come to some sort of agreement?” Kate asks.
“I’m going to report this incident,” Mom starts.
“And no one is going inside that dead man’s place again,” Mrs. Coleman adds. “You got that?”
Her brown eyes look right into mine until I nod, and she does the same to Anderson, Kate, and Ronan, just in case.
Mr. Coleman nods. “And if anything happens, we better hear about it.”
“Got it,” I say.
Technically, no one said anything about not investigating. They said not to go back to Mr. Conspiracy’s place. Given that Anderson already has the diary, we should be able to keep looking into it but not be quite so obvious and put ourselves in danger.
Besides, these VQ people, the murderers, they already know where I live at this point. Who knows if staying out of it will actually help?
“Also, Bianca, I had an idea . . .” Anderson starts with a smile. “If you’re free tomorrow after school.”
I’m free and he knows it.
“Okay,” I say.
“Don’t worry,” Mr. Coleman says. “It’s a good idea.”
“A great one,” Anderson adds.
Fear #58.5: Anderson’s “Great Ideas”
Thirteen
A Rose by Any Other Gender Would Smell Just as Sweet
This time, on my way over to Anderson’s apartment, I look over my shoulder every three seconds. It’s so close to Mr. Conspiracy’s place—I don’t want to give the potential murderer-stalker the wrong idea.
After one more check down the hall both ways, I knock on Anderson’s door.
He opens it and looks me up and down. “What the hell are you wearing?”
I glance at my own jeans and oversize purple T-shirt. “This is what I always wear.”
“You need clothes you can move in,” he says.
What the hell does that mean? Did my mom pay him to trick me into one of her acting classes or something? “You never said what we’re doing.”
“Come on, we can see if Ronan has something.”
I don’t argue, because he’s the one who invited me, and I’m still the sheep. I follow him into his apartment and over to Ronan’s door without another word.
“Ronan? You have any workout clothes that might fit Bianca?” Anderson calls through the door.
“Workout clothes?” I ask.
Ronan opens the door. He has on a button-down shirt with a floral print and shorts. “Hey, Bianca. And yeah, sure.”
Ronan walks over to his dresser and pulls out a few things. He hands them to me. “Let me know if these don’t work.”
“Thanks,” I say.
Although I’m questioning what Anderson has planned and trying to come up with potential excuses to get out of it, I head into the bathroom and change into Ronan’s clothes. We’re fairly close in height, so the fit isn’t bad. I pull down the green shirt over the loose basketball shorts.
I was basically wearing the equivalent of a sports bra anyway, so I still look like I barely have boobs at all. But there’s something different about this look. It’s boyish, almost. I kind of like it. How masculine I look. I have a sharp jaw. I hold my hair back behind my shoulders, so it seems like I cut most of the brown strands off.
I smile. I’m not really used to liking my reflection. Even my normal brown eyes seem a little more sparkly, like I’m more myself than I’ve ever been.
I quickly tie my hair back and exit the bathroom, my clothes balled up in the crook of my arm.
“You look good,” Anderson says. “Ready?”
Absolutely not.
“Sure,” I say.
“We’ll be back,” Anderson calls to Ronan.
“Thanks for the clothes,” I add.
“No problem,” Ronan says. “Try not to get murdered.”
It’s actually kind of a valid concern.
Anderson throws a large gym bag around his shoulder and leads me back out of the apartment. We start down the sidewalk, heading down Victory Boulevard. He immediately starts to talk about anime, and about ten minutes pass before I’m actually able to interject the subject change.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask.
“You asked about getting some muscle, right?” Anderson taps his gym bag. “What better way to do that than also showing you how to punch creeps in the face?”
He points ahead to an MMA gym.
“What.” I look at him. “You were serious about this?”
Anderson smiles and walks me inside. It’s bigger than it looked from the outside. There’s a huge floor of mats to the right, where people are grappling in tight clothes. I watch UFC fights with my dad when the neighbors aren’t home for me to watch instead, but just because I’ve seen people fight doesn’t mean I know how they do it.
In the back, there’s a full-ass octagon, and over to the right, a whole array of punching bags.
And while I’ve never really thought about it much before:
Fear #59: Getting My Ass Kicked
Fear #60: Also . . . Ringworm
“I don’t know about this . . .” I start.
“I’m not going to throw you in the ring with someone,” Anderson says. “I’ll only show you a few things.”
I really doubt Anderson is going to actually punch me, so I guess being shown a few things can’t hurt.
“Okay,” I say, although it doesn’t sound that sure.
Before we step in, I have to sign two waivers I really should read through but don’t.
“We don’t mess around,” Anderson says.
“Fair,” I say. After signing the waivers, I squeeze hand sanitizer from the bottle at the front desk. The idea of injuries are bad enough, but getting sick might be even worse.
Fear #4: Pandemics
It used to be #41, but that changed. Everything else shifted and now
Fear #41: Rabbits
Once both Anderson and I are cleared to enter, he leads me over to the punching bags where there aren’t many other people. He starts taking things out of his bag. “I have an old pair of gloves for you, because rental gloves are gross as hell. Also, these wraps are unopened, so don’t worry about that.”
“Okay,” I say.
“I’m assuming you don’t know how to wrap your hands.” Anderson holds up the pack of two black rolls.
“Good assumption.”
“Hold your hands out and spread your fingers.”
I follow his instructions. He unravels one of the wraps and puts the loop around my thumb. Then he keeps winding around my knuckles, my wrist, and between my fingers in some order I can’t follow, until the Velcro closes around my forearm.
“This looks badass,” I say, squeezing and opening my fist.
“Right?”
Imagine. Me, a lesbian sheep, looking badass. Wild.
Anderson wraps my other hand and both of his before turning to me. “Before we even put the gloves on, let’s work on your stance. How do you think you’d stand if you’re about to fight?”
I put my hands up like they do in Megalobox because that’s really all I got.
“Jesus,” Anderson says. “Is it okay if I touch you?”
“Sure.”
“You right- or left-handed?”
“Left.”
Anderson grins. “Nice, a southpaw.”
He adjusts my legs so they are more spread out, my left foot in the back. Then squares up my torso and lifts my hands higher. “You want to defend your face, so keep your hands up.” He moves into a fighting position. “I learned more of a Muay Thai stance, so my front heel is off the ground.”
I copy Anderson well enough, and he shows me the difference between a jab, cross, hook, and uppercut.
“It’s in the hips,” he adds after a few attempts. “That’s where the power is, even if you aren’t huge.”
We keep going through the motions until my stance is good enough, and then I get the gloves on and practice with the heavy bag. Anderson calls out combinations for me to follow and starts to go into some of the head movements to avoid punches.
We continue on until Ronan’s shirt is sticking to me.
“Nice work,” Anderson says. “You’re a natural.”
“Shut up,” I say, but I feel super flattered anyway.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I’m almost unrecognizable. No one would mistake me for a lesbian sheep looking like this.
I won’t ever be a lion, like queen Amanda Nunes, but maybe I’m on my way to a little kitten.
A tiny weak kitten practically straight from the womb and scared of everything, but one with claws, nonetheless.
It’s also kind of weird because I feel . . . hot. A little masculine and tough. I like it. I want to live in it.
As we take off our wraps and reroll them, Anderson keeps watching me.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says. “I never saw you smile like you are right now.”
I didn’t even realize it, really. Once the words sink in, it’s like my cheeks practically hurt. I guess I enjoyed that more than I thought I would.
“You should come back with me,” Anderson says.
“Yeah,” I say.
And it’s about as much of a promise as I’ve ever made.
Puck curls up next to me, purring, as I randomly scroll through Twitter on my phone. It’s a way to pass the time. I mostly retweet birds and cat memes. The only things I actually tweet myself are pictures of Puck. Not that my Instagram account is more than birds, my cat, and anime memes, but I use it to follow the GLAOE account, Kate, and Anderson.
And Elaine Yee.
At the thought, I quickly switch over to her newest selfie, which I didn’t double-tap earlier, because I saw it the same minute she posted it and I don’t want her to know how desperate and thirsty I am.
But Twitter is different. When I reopen the app, my time line is flooded with queer content. I keep it on private, and I can follow whoever I want, since it’s not like anyone besides my sister knows about it. I don’t use my full name; my handle is BiancaBirder06. Jeffrey from the GLAOE somehow found me and tried to follow me there, but I didn’t accept it. Twitter is my space where I don’t have to worry about liking posts from other lesbians or way too much One Piece content.
As I scroll, a meme pops up that is along the lines of “my only gender is tired,” and it kind of hits me different.
Dealing with creepy threats from a murderer is tiring enough, but . . . what if my gender identity has something to do with how I’ve been feeling? I’m a little familiar with some of the terms but didn’t make a connection.
Since it’s only the cat and me in my room now, I go to the search bar and type in nonbinary.
I mean, just in case. It’s like the thought has been there for a while, but I’ve never allowed myself to really explore and consider it.
I don’t know. Today has me feeling some kind of way.
While there’s things I enjoy about femininity, I never quite connected to it. Like I’m not actually a woman, I’m some kind of anxious void in a femme bodysuit. I’m attracted to girls, but I guess I don’t necessarily consider myself one. Words like “sister,” “daughter,” and “woman,” feel like masks I’ve worn, but the masculine counterparts don’t quite work either.
The idea of looking into my identity—my gender as something more complex than the letters F or XX—sends a thrill through me, an excited little flutter of the chest, like hummingbird wings.
But it’s confusing too, because if I’m not a woman, or not only a woman, does that make me not a lesbian? Or if I’m interested in women and other nonbinary people, should I consider myself bisexual? That doesn’t seem right. I can probably still use lesbian because I’m attracted to women and maybe I still have some connection to femininity. I think. Is the doubt I’m feeling ridiculous and a product of my overthinking and exposure to label gatekeeping?
Probably. Nonbinary lesbian pops up a few times, and that feels nice at least.
I take a breath and scroll through the tweets. There’s a lot of people posting selfies and claiming the nonbinary label with LGBTQ+ hashtags. I hate that a little jealousy rises up in me. I have no right. I should be able to come out.
Well, coming out as lesbian alone is one thing. I’m not sure how my parents would feel about me possibly-most-likely-perhaps-definitely not being cis. We’ve never really talked about other genders, so I don’t know how they’d react. Dad might be okay with it. He was raised Catholic, but he’s not remotely religious now and is open-minded when it comes to sexuality and gender issues. That doesn’t mean he’ll be one hundred percent supportive of me, but there’s a good chance. Mom . . . well, she’s another story.
Her all-female productions don’t exactly scream nonbinary inclusion. She’s already made comments about me not being feminine enough, not wearing the right clothes or doing the right things. It’s almost like she knows I somehow missed the necessary components to be a girl and overcompensates to get me to make up for it. If I had a dollar for every time I heard her say she’s so happy to have daughters and not sons, I’d be able to buy myself an entirely new wardrobe, just to try it out. She acts more like the kind of feminist that puts down men to hold up women.
If I’m not a man or a woman, I don’t really know what she’d think of me.
I come across a chart that shows the 3D-spectrum nature of gender and how it goes beyond a simple understanding of solely two genders, and nonbinary isn’t some midpoint between male and female. The more I read into these types of genderqueer identities, the more they fit. I move from Twitter to Google and look up some additional points and terms.
Like, for example, my gender expression can differ from my gender identity, and presenting as female wouldn’t make me less nonbinary. Even if I’m gender fluid, my masculinity doesn’t have to fit the textbook definition—however I look and feel is nonbinary because I’m nonbinary.
Just thinking that makes me giggle.
I’m nonbinary.
It’s kind of wild that I assumed there is a right and wrong way to have a specific identity.
And there are some labels that resonate with me. If I primarily identity as female but also as nonbinary, I could be demigirl. But I don’t think I like the girl at all, as I take comfort in the masc side of me. Demiboy seems maybe a little too far in that direction. It’s not a linear scale though. Maybe genderflux would fit?
I scan the description. I’m not sure I really connect to a female identity much at all, so maybe nonbinary alone is fine to say. It’s hard to grasp what I’m feeling, but this strange excitement continues to build within me.
It kind of feels like, no matter what terms I may settle on, for the first time, I’m not leaving a major part of myself behind. I can include all of me into my identity, even if for now, no one else knows. Even if I’m not exactly sure how to name it or define it.
It’s like I’m allowing myself to know what it feels like, at least.
I’m both tearing up and smiling. A laugh escapes me. It’s so silly. I feel like I’m meeting myself for the first time.
I come across a link for a Los Angeles nonbinary and transgender support group. I enter the address into my maps app. It’s close. Maybe I could go?
Just to see.
My phone buzzes, breaking me away from my thoughts.
It buzzes again, with another text delivered. I quickly bookmark the page; I can sit on this for a little and figure it out. I doubt I’d be able to go alone anyway, if at all.
Fear #37: Opening Up to Strangers
One more buzz from my phone. Everyone in my family is already home and can just come talk to me directly, which means it is definitely . . .
Anderson: I’ll bring the diary to school tomorrow—we can look into it more during lunch
Anderson: we can try to get more info on this VQ and Nate
A part of me instantly wants to make some excuse to meet him after school instead, but he’s the one who brought it up. Maybe it’s fine if we hang out in school. It’s not like I’m Naruto-running through the halls. Just being friends with me wouldn’t make Anderson seem uncool.
I sigh. I shouldn’t be worried about it if he isn’t.
We’re friends, and I don’t have to think beyond that.
Sounds good
I feel like I always sound angry through text messages. I don’t want Anderson to think I’m being moody or anything, so I quickly type out a
:)
Anderson: see you then, striker
Shut up
Another text quickly comes in. This time from Jillian. I can’t help but smile at it. I’m sure she wouldn’t think differently of me if I told her about my gender feelings. The only binary in her head when it comes to people is birders and nonbirders.
Jillian: I have the internship recommendation done for you! Would you be able to stop by tomorrow to pick it up? The museum will only take physical letters to make sure they aren’t altered, so I want to give it to you properly, and just check in!
Jillian texts exactly how she speaks, all songbird energy and proper grammar.
I’ve never been over to Jillian’s place before, but I know she doesn’t live that far. I can probably get Kate to drive me over.
Sure, thank you so much
