by Andrea Speed
STEP BY STEP
EMILY MORETON
“HEY, JOHN,” a voice called before Jen had even stepped all the way into the corridor.
She ignored it, focusing on the art room door. Two hundred steps. She counted them off as she took them.
“John. Hey, John—what, man, you’re too good to talk to me now? Jo-hn.”
Jen didn’t recognize the voice well enough to pick out who it was, only that it was a familiar male voice. Probably not someone from one of her classes. One hundred fifty steps.
Most of the kids crowding the corridor in the last few minutes of lunch didn’t even look up; she didn’t dress feminine enough for most of them to notice at a glance that she wasn’t a boy. Even now she wasn’t trying anymore to make them think that. That made it easier to just keep walking. One person wasn’t a threat, not so close to safety. One hundred steps.
“Why don’t you come to practice, John?” Whoever it was had followed her. She didn’t turn to see. It didn’t really matter anymore who was calling out. “Football team could always use more guys, John.”
Jen held tighter to the books in her arms and crossed the fingers of her left hand that Ms. Carter wouldn’t have locked the door. She did that, sometimes, if she’d gone out for lunch, and then Jen would have to turn around and see who was following her.
“John, talk to me, John. Come on, man….”
Jen’s hand wrapped around the door handle, and then she was inside, the door closing behind her, blocking off the noise of the corridor and the voice. For just a second, she let her hands tremble, not sure if it was relief or fear. Maybe both.
Ms. Carter was in the corner, crouched over a box of blank canvases, but she straightened up when she saw Jen. “You’re early.”
Jen put her things down on the front row and settled her pencil case neatly on top of her books. “Is that okay?”
“That’s always okay.” Ms. Carter put the stack of canvases on her desk and came to sit on the other side of the bench. “How are you?”
Jen shrugged. “Just some guy saying stuff. Calling me by my old name. It’s nothing.”
“Do you know who it was?” Ms. Carter asked, just like she always did.
Jen shook her head, and Ms. Carter sighed.
“I’ll talk to Mr. Sheppard again. He can talk to the senior class again.”
Jen wasn’t sure it was really doing any good anymore, but Ms. Carter always offered, and Mr. Sheppard, the principal, always did it. He always did it properly as well—he’d talked to Jen some when she’d come out as trans at the start of her senior year, and he never made her feel like she was causing him trouble, even though she knew she was.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I wish I could do more,” Ms. Carter said, frowning.
Jen shrugged, uncomfortable. “Can I sketch something before everyone else comes?”
Ms. Carter smiled, still looking sad, and got up. “What do you want to sketch? I can put a still life together for you, or you can choose.”
Jen looked around the art room, hoping to spot something she hadn’t noticed before. Ms. Carter had started at the school the same year Jen had, but the art room looked like she’d been there forever, full of odd things for people to sketch, with the walls covered in pictures from other students and prints of famous paintings.
Jen didn’t see anything new, but something still caught her eye. “The record player.”
Ms. Carter laughed. “Of course. Do you want a record on?”
Jen nodded, already pulling her sketch pad out from her books. Ms. Carter always chose the music—she said the records for the old gramophone had been her mom’s, and she didn’t want to risk anyone breaking them—and this time she put on something classical, slow and kind of sleepy. Jen liked it; it went with the record player and the room, and the way Ms. Carter always dressed in long skirts and pretty tops like someone from the 1960s, even though she wasn’t much older than Jen.
Jen started on the gramophone’s big horn and wished, not for the first time, that she could just stay in the art room until she graduated.
CAM WAS waiting outside the art room when class finished, and he only hesitated a tiny bit before knocking his shoulder against hers, like he used to do before. Jen pushed her hair out of her eyes and grinned back at him, still so pleased to have him there.
“Learn anything in French?” she asked, falling into step with him as they shoved their way through the other kids.
Cam said something in French that Jen didn’t understand at all. “Draw any naked people?”
“Nope.” Jen flipped open her sketch pad and showed him the drawing she’d done of the gramophone. She’d added a teapot and teacup, even though there weren’t any in reality, and then drawn a stream of notes dancing out of the horn and away into the air.
“That’s awesome. I’d kill to be that good at something, man.” Cam drew a sharp breath, and Jen braced herself. “Um, sorry. Jen. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” They had this conversation all the time, and Cam never stopped apologizing, or calling her man. She guessed it was probably habit; they’d known each other since they were in kindergarten, and she kind of liked it. “It doesn’t matter when you do it. Honest.”
Whatever Cam was going to say, he couldn’t, because someone bumped into her, knocking her sideways into him. She stumbled, trying to hold on to her books and not fall over, and Cam caught her arm, pulling her roughly back onto her feet.
“What the hell?” he demanded before she could say anything.
“Oops.” Jen resisted the urge to sigh, because she knew that voice. Todd lived down the street from her, and he’d been the worst by a mile since she came out. “Sorry, faggot.”
Jen felt herself flush and figured Cam was as well. It was Todd’s favorite insult, ever since the first time he’d used it, and she’d said, “I’m not—what?” like an idiot, while Cam didn’t say anything.
Todd turned specially to sneer at her—way to make her feel special. “That’s what it means, right? A boy who likes other boys, and everyone knows you like him. I bet you love getting on your knees to suck him off. Or, wait, does he do you? John?”
Jen felt her hands curl into fists and forced herself not to hit him. Not that she couldn’t probably knock him out, but she’d promised not to get into any more fights at school, after Marcus’s parents had threatened to sue when she sent him home with a black eye. It was still easier than looking at Cam when people said stuff like that about them, which was a new and unwelcome part of being out and one the two of them definitely didn’t talk about.
“He’s not worth it,” Cam said, tugging at her arm. “Come on.”
Jen let him half pull her a few steps, then shook his hand off. She hated it when he did that stuff, like she was one of the girls who always wanted the guys to protect her. She could handle Todd, even if all she did was walk away.
“You okay?” he asked.
Jen could still feel Todd watching them, and it made her skin crawl, but she nodded anyway. She could handle Todd. She could handle the guy who’d called her John earlier, and the girls who offered to give her tips on doing her hair and makeup, and her Spanish teacher who’d gone through Jen’s assignment about her future and changed all the female pronouns to male ones and then failed her when she handed it back in with them corrected back to female.
Less than a year and she’d be graduating and going to college, and no one would know or care that she used to be different. She could handle anything until then.
MONDAY MORNING was always the worst, like people spent the weekend coming up with better things to shout at her when she walked into school, and Cam had French Club first thing, so he wasn’t even there to walk with her.
“At least all they do is shout,” her dad always said, which was kind of true but didn’t make her feel any better. On the other hand, her dad had refused to let her come out at school without Mr. Sheppard’s permission, so that was probably the best she c
ould hope for from him. She tried not to think about it too much, the same way she tried not to think about the huge fight they’d had over her telling the rest of her family that she was Jen, not John.
Ms. Carter was always in the art room really early on Monday mornings, and there wasn’t usually anyone else there, so Jen jumped about three feet when she opened the door and saw another student sitting at the front bench, talking to Ms. Carter.
“Good morning, Jen,” Ms. Carter said, looking up. “How was your weekend?”
“Um, okay.” The other student—another girl, but not one Jen recognized from behind—hadn’t turned round. “Should I go?”
Ms. Carter shook her head. “No, come in. I’m going to leave you two girls alone for a few minutes while I run down to the prep room for some more clay.”
Jen couldn’t help her smile at Ms. Carter calling her a girl, even though Ms. Carter always did. She still hadn’t heard it often enough to be used to it.
She set her stuff down on the end of the front bench—because it was her bench, even if there was a stranger there—and ignored the other girl while Ms. Carter found her keys and reminded them she’d be back in a few minutes.
As the door closed behind their teacher, Jen watched from the corner of her eye as the other girl pushed her long hair back from her face and turned toward her. “Are you Jen?” she asked quietly.
Jen adjusted her pen so it was lying perfectly parallel to the spine of her math book. “Yes. Why?”
“I’m Katie,” the other girl said. She wrapped a strand of dark hair around her finger, not quite looking at Jen. “I just transferred here a few weeks ago.”
Jen tried not to sigh. Mr. Sheppard had gotten a couple of people from the local LGBT association to come into school and answer the other kids’ questions after Jen came out, but lots of people still had things they wanted to ask her. Ms. Carter always said it was just because they were curious and didn’t know anyone else they could ask, and that Jen couldn’t tell them to just google it. Which Jen thought was really unfair, since that was what the teachers always said when people had extra questions in class.
“Hi.” Jen looked back down at her books, hoping Katie wouldn’t say anything else.
“You’re friends with Cam, right? Who’s on the hockey team?”
“Yes?” Jen ducked her head, knowing it wouldn’t really hide her grin, since her hair wasn’t long enough. Before, loads of girls had wanted to get close to her so they could get close to Cam. She’d always hated it, even though Cam never seemed interested in them, but no one had tried it in ages. Not since she’d come out.
“Do you play?”
Jen shook her head. “No girls’ team here,” she said. Not that they couldn’t play with the boys, of course, but no one had in the whole time Jen had been at the school, probably because the soccer team had effectively defaulted to being a girls’ team a couple of years ago, and the division had stuck.
Katie made a disgusted face, but before Jen could say anything, she said, “I know!” sounding really upset about it, actually looking right at Jen for the first time. “It’s only, like, a decade and a half into the twenty-first century. How come only the boys get to play? That’s not fair.”
“You used to play?” Jen guessed, not feeling like it was exactly a wild and out there kind of guess.
“Yeah. You know, if this was England, it wouldn’t even be weird for there to only be a girls’ team. It’d be weird for there to only be a boys’ team.”
“Shame we’re not in England, then.”
“Yeah.” Katie took a deep breath and pushed her hair back behind her ears. “So, I was hoping I’d see you here this morning because I wanted to ask you something.
Jen braced herself again for whatever intrusive thing Katie was probably going to ask and wished Ms. Carter would come back before she got the chance.
“If there was, like, a mixed team or something, would you join? Ms. Carter said she thought you used to play for fun, like with Cam and stuff.”
Jen had been so busy expecting a stupid question that it took her a couple of seconds to realize what Katie had actually asked. “You know no one else would join if I did, right?” She didn’t mean to sound too bitter, but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sometimes she just got tired. Especially knowing this was probably the moment that Katie would shrug and say never mind.
“That’s not true,” Katie said firmly, frowning. She shuffled her chair a bit closer to Jen’s. “Look, I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, but I took my girlfriend to junior prom with me last year, and it was like they’d never seen two girls even holding hands before. It sucked majorly, but then a couple of people came up to talk to us, and one of the other girls said she wished she’d asked her girlfriend, and it was like….” She trailed off, her face falling, and Jen thought that made sense. She’d be sad if she’d left something like that behind to come here, especially if she’d had to leave her girlfriend (well, or boyfriend, in her case) as well.
“And you think a hockey club’s going to do the same?” she asked, not quite able to keep the doubt out of her voice.
Katie grinned, bright and happy. “At least if it doesn’t, we’ll have sticks to hit people in the shins when they say stupid stuff.”
That, Jen thought she could get behind.
THEY GOT permission from Mr. Ford, the hockey coach, to use the pitch on Wednesdays after school, when the boys’ team didn’t have it, and put up posters all over school advertising that they were meeting in the cafeteria before the first practice.
When Jen arrived, Katie was the only person there.
“Great turnout,” Jen said dryly, sitting on the edge of the table and resting her feet on the chair next to Katie.
“It’s only five of,” Katie said, not bothered. “People can still turn up.”
“Maybe there’s a reason we’ve never had a mixed hockey team here.”
“Yeah, no one ever tried to start one till I got here.”
Katie’s total confidence kind of made Jen want to laugh, especially since she’d been so shy when they’d first met. It was good to know someone felt confident, since Jen was pretty much only there because Katie had reached out to her, and no one really did that anymore, even if most people were generally fairly accepting.
“You know what this is like?” she asked. Katie shook her head. “It’s like the start of one of those movies where the popular kids learn to respect the geeky kids, and just when we’re starting to feel like no one’s going to turn up and we’re such failures, a whole bunch of people will walk through the door.”
They both turned to look at the cafeteria doors, which didn’t even open.
“Good thought,” Katie said, grinning.
“That would’ve been weird, though.”
Katie nodded, and they stared at the door for a while. “So, I saw a poster for a Halloween dance,” Katie said when the door didn’t open.
“Every year. Cam and I went as fairies last year.” She’d looked at herself in the mirror and wanted to cry, because, head to toe in glitter and silver, she’d looked like a girl. Three months later, she’d told her dad and Cam who she really was.
“Fairies?” Katie asked, eyebrows going up.
“Real fairies.” Jen dug her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her pictures. “Like, wings and everything.” She turned her phone to show Katie—her and Cam in matching outfits, arms round each other, both of them grinning.
“You look pretty,” Katie said softly. She looked down at the photo again, mouth opening like she was going to ask something.
Of course, that was when the door opened. It wasn’t a crowd of people, just one, but that one was more of a surprise than a whole crowd would have been: Liz was on the track team and a cheerleader, popular and smart and funny. She was pretty much the last person Jen would have expected to see.
“Hey,” Liz called, hurrying across to them. “You’re still here, great. I thought I might’v
e missed you.”
When neither Jen nor Katie said anything, she frowned uncertainly. “Mixed hockey team, right? Oh God, did I get the wrong day? Have I just cut in on your conversation? I’m sorry—”
“No,” Katie said quickly. “I mean, no, you haven’t got the wrong day, yes, hockey team. I’m Katie.”
“Hi.” Liz grinned again, flipping her blonde ponytail over her shoulder. “You send everyone else out already?”
“We’re it, so far,” Jen said.
Liz looked over, and her smile didn’t change at all. “Small but perfectly formed,” she said cheerfully.
“I guess,” Katie said uncertainly. “I’m not sure how much we can really do with three people, though. Even numbers would be better.”
“You did call it the Oddballs Hockey Club,” Liz pointed out. “You should’ve expected odd numbers.”
Jen laughed, even though it was a terrible pun, and Liz grinned at her again.
“All right,” Katie said decisively. “We’ll get started. Maybe some other people will turn up later on.”
Jen couldn’t help dropping back from them slightly as they walked down to the locker rooms, not wanting anyone to make a big deal out of how she wouldn’t follow them in there.
“Come on, already.” Liz circled back, tugging at Jen’s arm. “Let’s go.” She didn’t let go as they passed the unisex disabled toilet that Jen usually changed in, because it was easier, and because Mr. Sheppard was great, better than loads of other people’s teachers, but he wasn’t ever going to be perfect, and there were some fights he hadn’t wanted to have.
“I don’t—” Jen started feeling herself flush stupidly.
Katie held the door, looking right at her. “Yeah, you do,” she said, and it was easier just to follow her and Liz. Easier to let them pull her along, instead of trying to argue through a throat that had tightened up with a weird kind of relief and sadness at the way they just made her seem normal.
