The fluorescent lights of Mr. Hemmingsworth’s AP Sociology class hum with a clinical, soul-sucking frequency. I sit three rows back and two seats over from Luanne, hidden behind the broad, stiff shoulders of my own jacket. Mr. Hemmingsworth is droning on about “social structures” and “the invisible threads that bind us,” but all I can see is the island of oak where Luanne sits alone.

She doesn’t look like an invisible thread. She looks like a jagged, purple lightning bolt in a room full of gray static.

While the rest of the class scribbles notes on class procedures, I watch her hand move. She isn’t taking notes. She’s leaning over that leather-bound journal, her purple glitter pen carving out mountain ranges and watchtowers. I see a crumpled ball of paper land on her desk—a silent, paper-thin slur thrown by someone in the front row—but she doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t even unfold it. Instead, she knocks it aside, and draws right over it, her pen moving with a steady, rhythmic grace that makes my own hands feel like they’re vibrating with static.

I want that steadiness. I want to know how she can be so comfortable in a room that is actively trying to erase her.

The bell rings, a sharp, metallic scream that shatters the silence. The sea of students begins to part, giving Luanne that familiar, wide berth as she starts to roll up her maps. My heart hammers against my ribs—a trapped bird trying to break through my chest. If I don’t speak now, I’m just a passenger again, watching her walk out of my life and into a world I don’t understand.

I stand up. My legs feel like lead anchors, but I force them to move toward her table.

“What kind of a world are you building?” I say. My voice is thin, cracking under the weight of the name Arthur. “I’ve never played D&D but, I’d love to learn?”

Luanne freezes. Her thumb, stained with a galaxy-purple smudge, rests on the edge of the parchment. She looks up, and for a second, I feel like she’s reading my blueprint, looking straight past the winter coat of my body and into the person underneath.

“Uh, sure! We can always use more players. Though I hope that you don’t mind us?” she says.

‘‘Us? Who’s us?”

Before she responds, she reaches into her bag and slides a neon-orange flier across the desk. It covers the crumpled note her bullies threw.

“Real worlds are hard to find,” she says, her voice steady as a heartbeat. “But we’re building one tonight. 4:00 PM at Orange Street. Don’t be late, Arthur.”

She says my name like it’s a temporary placeholder. Then, she shoulders her bag and vanishes into the hallway, leaving me standing over an orange map to a place I’ve never been.

I reach down, and grab the note she left on the table, eager to see what it says.

I can’t do the ‘girl’ thing today. Tell the group my character is meditating in the tavern. I’m in the back of the Q, if you can slip away. I just need to be me for a minute.

My mind is racing! There is someone like me. Someone who just can’t deal with their gender on a regular basis.

As always, I would really love some critiques. Thanks