Be a girl

Claire greeted me in homeroom with a warm smile that almost instantly shifted into a smirk which didn’t leave her face even after I sat down beside her. I looked at her, confused as to what she was feeling so smug about, but her expression didn’t waver. She even rested her head in her hand lazily, which only multiplied her smugness.

“What?” I asked, slightly miffed. She waggled her eyebrows in response, as smug as ever, which only amplified my irritation. “What!?” I said slightly louder, letting my annoyance slip into my voice.

“I was right~!” Claire replied in a singsong voice. What on Earth was she talking about?

I shook my head in confusion. “About what exactly?”

“I’ll tell you at recess.”

I rolled my eyes. Apparently, she wasn’t done being all secretive. Not that she really had that big a secret the other day, but she seemed to be enjoying it now. I hoped she wouldn’t make a habit of it from now on. Unless it was actually something worth keeping me in suspense for.

Knowing that she wasn’t going to answer any further questions on the matter, I didn’t bother trying to pry more information from her, and resigned myself to waiting until recess to get the answers I wanted. Homeroom went by quickly, and we said our farewells, promising to meet back at recess. Claire didn’t drop her smirk until we had both left the classroom and had gone our separate ways.

I of course spent the entirety of the day’s first lesson contemplating what exactly Claire thought she was right about. Well, yesterday she’d managed to convince Rachel of her identity. Oscar was still up in the air at the moment, but he’d come around. Could she be talking about that? Was she saying that she was right about being able to convince those two?

No, that didn’t make any sense. Why would she brag about that? She wouldn’t. What could she have been talking about then? I thought back even earlier. She, Izzy and I were discussing our orientations, and Claire said that I was neither straight nor gay. And then last night I realised that it was highly likely that I was asexual.

I sighed. That was absolutely it. She was right about my orientation and was boasting because of it. I had to admit that her psychic ability was less fallible than I had previously surmised. As it stood, after last night’s realisation, her accuracy was back up to one hundred percent, which irked me. I shouldn’t have even been surprised that it wasn’t wrong. This was literal magic; why wouldn’t it be perfectly accurate?

Rachel, Izzy, and Claire were all chatting away when I met up with them at recess. Before even saying hello, I raised my hand in Claire’s direction to indicate that she should refrain from speaking just yet.

“Before you say it,” I began, “Yes, you were right. But you don’t have to act all haughty about it.”

“You figured it out?” she replied, “You really are a smart cookie.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t hard. I mean, there was only one thing you could have possibly been talking about.”

“True.”

“Um, what are you two talking about?” Rachel interjected, raising her hand and leaning in between Claire and me. Right. Rachel wasn’t present for the conversation about my sexuality. At that time, she still thought Claire was Emily pretending.

“I was right about Ben’s orientation,” Claire replied smugly, her smirk from earlier returning. And I’d just told her not to act so haughtily. Not to mention her talking about my sexuality to others without my input or permission. Again. I sighed.

“Oh?”

“Ben insisted that they’re straight, and I was like nuh uh. And it seems like Ben realised that I was right. I had no idea there was a word for it. Makes sense though.”

“So, what is he?” Rachel asked.

Not wanting to have Claire answer in my stead, I spoke up quickly. “I did some research and realised I’m most likely asexual,” I replied. “But before you get too smug with yourself” – I pointed sternly at Claire, who still hadn’t wiped the smirk off her face – “I was also right.”

She frowned. At least the smirk was gone now. “Are you sure about that?”

It was my turn to frown now. “Yes?”

She pursed her lips. I narrowed my eyes at her. She was suggesting that I was wrong about my own orientation. Again. I wanted to bang my head against a door just to make this end. What could she possibly dispute now?

“I’ve never heard the term heteroromantic,” she said, “but I can guess at its meaning, and I really don’t think that describes you at all.”

I reared my head back, completely done with her bullshit. I’d had enough of her acting like she knew more about me than I did. It was infuriating to no end, not to mention utterly mortifying that she always talked about my orientation in the presence of others. This should have been a private conversation at the very least, but she couldn’t even afford me that. I needed to put a stop to this right now.

“Claire, stop!” I exclaimed, my sudden outburst causing her to flinch. I jabbed my index finger into her stomach firmly. “I don’t want you talking about my orientation ever again, with anyone, for any reason, whether or not you think I’m right. I don’t care. Stop it. It’s rude and embarrassing and you need to stop. Do you understand?”

Somewhat taken aback, Claire took a moment to collect herself and process my words. She sheepishly grabbed a hold of her upper arm and rubbed at it. “I understand,” she said quietly, “I’ll stop. Sorry for upsetting you.”

“Thank you,” I sighed.

The conversation quickly shifted to a far less serious topic. I pulled myself away, too tired and overwhelmed to continue with the kind of fast-paced conversation that Rachel and Claire enjoyed. The topic wasn’t one I was particularly interested in anyway; the two were talking about the possibility of Claire joining the school’s softball team like Rachel had suggested.

In typical Isabel fashion, she pulled away too, leaving the other girls to their devices, joining me in my quiet domain. She asked me how I was feeling, and I gave the most honest answer I could. I was frustrated with Claire’s behaviour, but also conflicted, because without her meddling I might have taken much longer to figure out my own identity. I felt that she was abusing her power, and even if it did end up helping me, I didn’t appreciate her methods.

But I supposed that was how Claire had always been. Eager to help, but so eager that she never asked how she should help, or whether or not the other party even wanted help. Izzy nodded along, completely understanding what I meant, having experienced that side of Claire as well.

She sympathised with my current situation, especially about Claire putting something so personal on full display in front of both her and Rachel without any sort of permission. Still, I couldn’t stay mad at my friend. She was only trying to help. And she did apologise. I hoped that today was a learning experience for her, and that history didn’t repeat itself. I meant what I said to her earlier. I didn’t need her blabbing about my orientation anymore, nor did some other poor soul deserve the same fate as me.

***

“Rainbows are beautiful, aren’t they?” Claire said absentmindedly. We were walking home together, once again. The sun shone brightly behind us, casting its rays towards the clouds hanging in the distance. And in front of us was the gorgeous arc of the visible spectrum that I considered one of the greatest natural wonders of the universe. Such a special sight. They always struck me with such immense awe, every single time I saw one.

Claire and I hadn’t spoken much until her comment. I was completely enraptured by the sight before us, all thoughts having been purged from my mind. There was only me and the rainbow.

“Yeah, they are,” I replied wistfully. I would have responded more eloquently had my mind not been utterly enamoured with the rainbow. “I love rainbows. Ever since I was a kid.” I was always very particular about rainbows when I was young too. I had learnt Isaac Newton’s seven colours of the rainbow, and I clung to them religiously – to the point where I would become annoyed when others would get the colours wrong. “Pink isn’t in the rainbow! Stop drawing them with pink!” I would say. But as I grew older, I gained a more nuanced opinion on the colours of the rainbow. There were infinitely many, of course, but if I were to name the distinct colours, they would be (in order): red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, and blue.

“Mhmm,” Claire hummed soothingly. “I bet you know all about rainbows, don’t you?”

That drew a pleasant smile to my face. She knew me well. “Of course,” I replied. I would be offended if she didn’t think I knew all about rainbows. Optical phenomena always had a special pull on me, drawing me in with its fascinating colours and magnificent spectacles. They were easily my favourite aspect of physics. And that was saying a lot. With the extraordinary beauty that rainbows held, it was no wonder I learnt everything I could about them.

“Well then. I declare that a physics lesson is in order!”

I grinned from ear to ear. There was no way I was going to pass up an opportunity to talk about something I loved so dearly. There were so many things to explain, but I still knew exactly where to start.

“You are aware that light from the sun is white, yes?” I asked, needing to establish a baseline of Claire’s knowledge on the subject.

“Um, I’m pretty sure the sun is yellow. I know you aren’t supposed to, but I may have glanced at the sun a few times when I was younger.” She scratched at the back of her head nervously.

Ah, this misconception. All too common.

“No, it’s white,” I said, shaking my head, “It just appears yellowish for the same reason that the sky is blue.”

“Uhhh…”

I waved my hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not important to rainbows. The important thing is that light from the sun contains light from all the visible wavelengths. The distribution is more centred around yellow light, but it’s still white and has all the colours in it as a result.”

“Ok.” She nodded her head to note her understanding.

“Anyway, how rainbows form. If it rains, and the sun isn’t blocked by clouds, sunlight is able to enter the raindrops falling to the ground unimpeded. This is important as it needs to be quite bright for our eyes to actually be able to see rainbows.

“So, when the sunlight enters the raindrop, it refracts because water has a higher refractive index than air. This means that the light bends as it transitions from air to water. Importantly: different wavelengths refract by different amounts. This splits the white light into its component colours.”

“That’s amazing, thanks for telling me all about this,” Claire said.

“I’m not done yet. Don’t interrupt.” My friend looked at me with a stunned expression, before miming zipping her mouth closed, allowing me to continue. “What I said is not sufficient to form a rainbow. The light that is refracted in the water then reflects off the back of the raindrop before refracting once again as it leaves the raindrop. Now, each colour leaves the raindrop forming a circle in that colour. In the centre of all those circles, all the colours overlap and form a bright white circle in the centre of the rainbow.”

I pointed at the rainbow ahead of us, hoping that Claire could see that the rainbow was indeed brighter inside the bow than outside of it. She nodded, and I continued. “Now, remember how I said that the different colours refract by different amounts? Well, what this means is that they all have different maximum angles at which they can appear. Blue refracts the most, so it has the smallest maximum angle and is the innermost band of the rainbow. Red refracts the least and is the outermost band. All the other colours have different maximum angles, and so they appear between red and blue. And that’s how rainbows form.”

“Wow,” Claire said. She had placed her hands behind her head in a relaxed posture before stretching and dropping her arms back to her sides. “You really are a walking physics textbook.”

I giggled at her comment. She wasn’t wrong.

We continued to walk silently for a while. I was a tad exhausted from my short explanation, and my mind began to wander. By this point, she had made multiple puns using her new name. Very silly puns I might add. But that made me think about why she had chosen that name for herself. I felt that I already knew the answer, but I wanted to be sure.

“Hey Claire, did you choose that name just for the puns?” I asked.

She bit her lip and looked away from me suspiciously. “Nooooo?” she replied, sounding completely unconvincing. I shook my head. I’d say I couldn’t believe it but that would be a lie. This was so typical of her. One hundred percent expected. “I just think it’s a pretty name.”

“A pretty name that just happens to be full of puntential?”

“Pure coincidence,” she proclaimed, struggling to keep a straight face. She was doing a positively terrible job of lying right now. Although perhaps that was on purpose. She knew that I knew that she liked puns. She was probably just putting on an act so that she appeared like she took choosing her own name more seriously. But I’d known her long enough that she couldn’t fool me. She was so predictable.

But that got me thinking once again. Earlier, before I’d even transformed her, she mentioned a name. A name that should have passed out of my mind shortly after, but had somehow wormed its way inside my brain and inexplicably found its home there. I couldn’t explain why, but I hadn’t forgotten it, despite everything that had happened since.

Bea.

I was confused at the time when she first mentioned it. I was still confused. She’d said that it was a cute name for a cute girl. No, it was a B-E-A-utiful name for a girl. And yet she hadn’t chosen it for herself. So, why had she mentioned it? She hadn’t offered it as a suggestion for me, had she?

No, of course not. Absurdity. I dismissed the thought immediately. I wasn’t a girl. I couldn’t be a girl. Unless she was offering it as a potential name for a future daughter of mine? No. That didn’t make sense. She’d known about my asexuality from the moment she met me. I wouldn’t be having kids. Not to mention that we were still in high school. It was far too early to even think about kids at this stage in our lives. So, what? What? What? What?

I needed to know her reasoning.

“Before I transformed you,” I said, “You mentioned a name. Bea. Why?”

“It’s a cute name,” she replied.

“Um, ok? Why not choose it for yourself then?”

“Well, it didn’t feel right for me.”

“So then why did you mention it?”

“Oh look, we’re at my home. See ya Ben!” she said suspiciously quickly, waving to me as she ran towards her front door.

Rather convenient for her, I should say. But we had indeed arrived at her place. Did she have to rush off, avoiding answering my question? No. Of course not. And yet she did. Sus. I figured that I wouldn’t get any more out of her, however. If I tried pushing it, she’d likely dodge the question again.

I sighed. Whatever her reason, she simply did not want to tell me, so I’d need to figure it out on my own. A difficult task, because how that girl’s brain functioned was a mystery to me.