“Ashlen wait!” Darcy and Kitty ran out of the gym after their friend.
“Leave me alone!” Ashlen was ahead of them and ran to the one place in school that their jackass boyfriend couldn’t follow. The girl’s bathroom. Ashlen headed into the handicap stall –it was big enough that it didn’t invoke a feeling of claustrophobia. After locking the stall door they slumped to the slumped to the floor with their head on their knees. “Please just leave me alone.”
“Ashlen, I’m not about to do that. I’m your friend, and that’s not what’s best for you right now,” Darcy said seriously as she and Kitty took up almost defensive positions outside the stall door.
“Go away. Why would you want to be friends with a broken person like me?” Ashlen said trying not to let their tears sound on their voice.
“You’re not broken,” Kitty said.
“You’re really not,” Darcy agreed.
“Hear us out, Ashlen.”
“You’ve been our friend forever. We’re not about to do a single thing that would hurt you.”
“You’re perfectly not broken. A minority, just like us.”
“An invisible.”
“I-invisible? Minority?” Ashlen asked trying to make sense of it.
“Hear us out. Have you ever wondered why you feel so at odds with your body?”
“Yeah,” Ashlen said with a sniffle.
“Well we can explain that to you, mostly.”
“Do you remember the day that everyone was talking about who they thought was sexy? And how much they wanted to get laid?”
“Yeah. I said I wasn’t attracted to anyone like that. That I didn’t feel the need to have sex and they all got mad at me and called me a liar. But I wasn’t lying, honest.”
“I know. We can teach you about this stuff. If you’ll let us.”
“Wait you know about this? It isn’t just a thing I’m imagining?”
“No it’s not. Are you going to listen to us?”
“Yeah. But I’m not leaving here. I don’t want to end up seeing my jackass boyfriend out there somewhere.”
“That’s fine. But school’s almost over, and this would be easier to explain at my house,” Darcy said.
“I guess that’s okay. I can’t go home anyway.”
Darcy and Kitty exchanged a confused look. They weren’t entirely sure what could possibly make Ashlen think that they couldn’t go home.
“Why not? If I may ask,” Darcy said quietly.
“My mom and dad disowned me. I’m not their perfect daughter. I’m not their daughter at all. I never was. I never will be. I don’t want to be. So I don’t know what to do now, but at least I don’t have to worry about if mom and dad will approve of my choices. They never approved, but now it doesn’t matter. Hey Darcy do you think your mom would mind if I sleep at your house?”
Darcy and Kitty stared at each other. “We’ll see.”
None of them knew that standing just outside the restroom was a teacher. She made sure that no one went in to bother the three inside, and she could hear every word they said.
“This is an extremely important thing for the last question before the bell rings, Ashlen. Does it upset you when people call you ‘she’?”
“Quite a bit, yes. I’m not a girl. At least I don’t think I am. I don’t want to be. I don’t like it. I’m…”
“It’s okay,” Darcy said. “We’ll help you with this. We can do this much before we absolutely have to leave school. Do you feel like you’re a boy on the inside?”
“No. Absolutely not. I’m definitely not a boy.”
“And you’re not a girl?”
“Nope. Not a girl.”
“Then you are non-binary. This is special. I suggest ‘they’ for your pronoun. It’s common, so people won’t be likely to forget it.”
“But they is plural?”
“They can be singular. If you don’t like it there are hundreds of other pronouns out there.”
“So say someone is talking about me, and they use the right pronoun—“ Ashlen began but stopped when they realized they had no idea how using singular they would work.
“That person would say ‘they is’ instead of he or she is.”
“But grammar?”
“Screw grammar we’re talking about your life here.”
Ashlen sighed and decided that Darcy was right. Darcy was the smart one. She must be right. They stood up and unlocked the door. “So, are we going to your house Darcy? Do you have like some magic thing to explain this there?”
“Yeah, the internet and some books I took from the bookstore I work part time at. It’s okay though. The owner said he had bought too many of them and it was okay if I took a few.”
“You’re the best, Darcy. So how long until school lets out?”
