Ophelia After All

by Racquel Marie

Usually my raised fingers would’ve felt like a glaring sign above my head screaming “Look at me! I’m boring!” but something about the communal participation made me feel less on display. Like the collective vulnerability protected all of us from judgment.

There’s something about the way my mind numbs when I garden. I can let my thoughts wander or allow my head to fill with white noise and not worry about overwatering or missing any leaves when clearing the dead ones off the bushes. I’m most at peace when I’m gardening. Sometimes, it’s just what I need to keep it together.

My parents love me; I know this for sure. But I also know they love weddings and grandchildren and the expectations they have for me. They love the daughter they know, but what if I stop being that daughter?

Though I’m still getting over the embarrassment of calling it chai tea until I was thirteen and one of Sammie’s younger sisters, Hana, called me out, telling me I was basically saying tea-tea.

“But sometimes, when you’ve known someone for years and they build up this image of you, it’s hard to talk about things that mess with that image. It feels like you’d be breaking some bond of trust between you and that person by being different than you were before. I don’t just mean subtle, slow changes. I mean, like, the big things that they never saw coming.”

But how do you say what you can’t explain? How do I convey a heartbeat, a caught breath, the goose bumps on my skin when Talia hugged me goodbye in the confines of her truck on Sunday?

What happens when you tell the girls who trust and love you that you realized you sometimes look at them the way they expect boys to? Does everything—every borrowed lipstick and shared dressing room and innocent cheek kiss—become suspect, corrupted by some illusion of straightness?

It’s not that we like the pain of not having something; it’s more that the act of wanting gives us more satisfaction than the actual thing ever will. Less masochistic and more like we’re all Goldilocks, getting off on constantly searching for the perfect whatever. But we’ll never find it.”

But in this moment, that girl that I am doesn’t matter. Because right now I am this girl.

Because maybe I don’t know myself with the same certainty I’ve always claimed.

Who I am in high school isn’t my endgame. I don’t want to be defined right now, especially not by a plastic tiara that’ll probably have fucking seahorses on it.”

but whatever is going on with your friends, even if it isn’t anything at all, like you say, just know it’ll pass. You’ll see in a few months when you start college, mija, that the world is much bigger than it feels in high school.”

Was that really only a week ago? How long has it been since Mom and I had a normal conversation? Time flies when you’re having an identity crisis.

The lover’s fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.’”

“It means those who love are always waiting. Waiting to be seen, waiting to be understood. Waiting to be loved back.” She sighs. “‘The lover is the one who waits.’”

Waiting for someone to love you back seems beautiful in a miserable way when you’re young. No offense.” She smiles. “But a life spent waiting is not a life spent loving. It’s a life spent wasting away on the promise of something you’re not guaranteed.”

Sure, he’s a lot quieter, gentler, and altogether better than I think I am, but we’re both waiters. We wait for love, wait for the people we love to see us the way we see them. And in the face of waiting for one of the most popular and loved girls in school, who already had a funny, kind, loud, and attractive boy with his sights set on her, Wesley went for it.

“The black and brown stripes represent queer people of color. Just because we’re a community doesn’t mean everyone’s experiences are the same, especially when race and ethnicity come into play.

Half of my blood and heritage is one thing, half is another, and more often than not, it leaves me feeling less like a whole person with a complete, unique makeup, and more like two halves of a girl who is never enough.

“Being queer is hard enough. Don’t lock yourself out of all of this just because you’re scared you won’t fit in the keyhole, without even trying.”

“I don’t want to risk everything if this isn’t real,” I whisper. “But I also don’t want to pretend like this doesn’t change things for me. Because it does.”

“Your sexuality doesn’t define you, but it is a part of you.”

“But questioning who you are? It’s a risk we all take. It’s your risk to take if you want to. No one else gets to decide this for you; it’s your life.”

Maybe none of those flags or words are me. Maybe one day they will be. But maybe I don’t need them as armor to have this conversation. Maybe all I need is the thing I lost more than my confidence in knowing myself: my honesty.

“I know, but I still have to apologize. Unfortunately, not being straight doesn’t give me a free pass to be an asshole.