Deming and I walk home together. I'd be in a good mood, but in my last period, two girls behind me had started eagerly talking about the Harry Potter series and it had left me in a bad mood. "You know what never fails to piss me off?" I ask Deming.

"Trump supporters?"

"Well, them too. Fuck Trump supporters. Like, literally all of them. I hate them. I was gonna say 'Harry Potter and it's entire existence."

"Oh," Deming says. "I still don't know everything about why it sucks now."

"It's not even that the books themselves suck," I say. "I mean, now, some things are kind of..." I trail off. "But I mean—this woman goes on to write a book series all about love and friendship and magic, love, Deming. She writes about how love is the most powerful magic of all—and she grows and becomes a hateful woman who's made billions of dollars, and likes to act like she does things for feminism and equality, but like, now a lot of her beliefs are evident in the books."

Deming looks at me. "Not gonna lie, it's been a while since I've read the books, girl."

"Like, I mean—Hermione was never stated to be brown, but she was never stated to be white. I'm not entirely sure about that one, but then when she goes on to defend the rights of species of slaves, everyone just kind of laughs at her like she doesn't understand things? And they liked being enslaved or whatever? And the whole bullshit of boys not being allowed in the girls' bathroom now that she's an out and proud TERF, and her trying to insert some weak attempts at diversity in the series, by making Dumbledore gay." I am ranting now, but I don't care. "But it was half-assed, barely discussed, I didn't even know it, it was like, confirmed outside of the actual continuity and you know why? Because she's a coward. A hateful, terrible woman who acts like she's this defender of human rights, and you look into her books and she has like, no sort of diversity. One of the only characters in it was named Cho fucking Chang.” Cho Chang never fails to get me angry—one of the few Asian characters in the series, and she was into the smart house, had a Chinese first name and a Korean last name (I think? Maybe it was a Chinese last name and Korean first name) and her race was never specified. She was just the Asian character, who was a soft girl and got no character development. “The only LGBTQ+ character is an old man who fell in love with like, a horrible man, I think? Who might have died, I don't know." I can't remember, it's been awhile, but I remember how pissed I am at it. 

"And like, cool, if Hermione's brown, you know, like...You know I'd be pumped about that, but in the movies, she was played by a white girl, and like, I love Emma Watson, but she's white. And she's all, 'oh, I'm not transphobic, I've been a supporter of the movement—' Like, no, you're not. You're not supporting us. And instead of admitting it and owning up to it, you're trying to pretend, she was like, 'I have a trans friend, so I'm not transphobic,' like that's now how it works! That doesn't change your fucking actions. That doesn't change what you're doing and what you're saying. And it wasn't even like, 'I have trans friends, I thought I knew more about trans issues than I really did,' this wasn't admitting mistakes, this was 'I'm not transphobic.' Like, you don't get to choose what exactly is offensive to something you know nothing about. That'd be like..." I gesture to Deming and hesitate, because there isn't anything I can think about. "That'd be like..."

He nods. "I get what you're saying. People suck."

"Especially cis people," I sigh. "This is like, retail, Deming. Nonstop retail, and the customers are cis people. 'If sex isn't real,' like, BITCH, no one said that! Sex is real, I'm sorry I don't let it decide my identity? Concept of sex...! Like, ma'am, where are you getting these facts! What sort of bullshit are you on, I don't get paid enough for this." I am very passionate about this.

"The audacity of that bitch," Deming agrees. "Fuck TERFs."

"This is why we're friends." I used to love Harry Potter. I miss the love I had for it—but is it so wrong to just want to go to the girls' bathroom without being called a pervert or a predator? I’m a fucking child, for fuck’s sake. What’s so frightening and threatening about my existence?

He reaches over and squeezes my shoulder. "Yeah."

I hear wheels on the sidewalk. I look behind us—and there's Akila, gliding on roller skates like there's no tomorrow. She slides onto the street and passes us by, waving at me as she skates, but she's going so fast, she's a blur. "That's her!" Deming exclaims. "The chick who was on the bicycle!"

She rounds the corner. Maybe she's just skating in circles or something—I'm in shock she's able to roller skate, I know I can't.

Deming has a lot of homework, so he just goes home instead of staying to mess around with me at my house. I go up to my bedroom, sprawl out on my bed and think very, very hard.

I end up pulling out my phone to text Lada.

The next morning, I exit my house and immediately, Akila exits hers. She is still wearing roller skates, but I assume she took them off at some point since I last saw her in them. Effortlessly, she skates over to me. She's wearing glasses, black lipstick, smokey eyes and a shade of lipstick that matches the purple in her crazy looking updo. She's wearing a double helix piercing and an upper lobe one, a gleaming silver. She's dressed in Uniform B—the scarlet blazer the school is known for over a black shirt and black pants with white detailing. "Hi!" For a goth, she's awfully peppy, and not the snarky type portrayed on TV, but TV also usually portrays as white, nerdy boys in glasses as outcasts and victims of bullies, so I don't know if it's one of those outdated things, or one of those things that was never true to begin with, or one of those things that I just don't know enough about.

"Morning," I say. I'm not entirely sure about her name right now, so I decide I'm going to avoid using it. "Just hold on a second, I always walk to school with my friend, they should be on their way right now."

"Oh, they aren't gonna mind that I'm here, right?"

I texted Deming about her last night and told him, so he shouldn't care too much. Or at least, if he cares, he won't be surprised. After a few minutes, Deming is next to us. He stands next to me. "Hi," he says to Akila. And nothing else.

"Hi," Akila says. "I'm Akila." It reminds me of her name—I thought maybe I had it wrong.

"Deming," Deming says. We all start walking.

"So, like, what do you do around here for fun?"

Deming shrugs. "They got a bowling alley nearby with a pretty dated arcade, but like—it's still an arcade."

"And they have the best mozzarella sticks," I add, because that is just as important as an arcade in my opinion.

Deming nods in agreement—we have our priorities straight. "There's also a um..." He frowns. "I don't know if it has a name or what, but it's basically a mall, but with housing and outdoors."

I nod. "Restaurants, shops, seating. Basically an outdoor mall. Sunlit Diner also has good mozzarella sticks."

"And then there's like, this weird...It's kind of like a bar, but they've noticed how many teenagers are here, so they only sell mocktails and they have a karaoke machine."

Akila glances at me. "...They don't have mozzarella sticks," I say. "But they do have over five thousand songs to choose from on the karaoke machine, and I haven't gone a whole lot, but it's a lot of fun to sing Drowning Pool's Bodies."

Akila nods. "Sounds like fun."

"Yeah," Deming says. "But it's a bit difficult to find time to do these things, with how competitive school can be."

"Don't freak her out, Deming," I say.

"It takes a lot to freak me," Akila says. "I watch Happy Tree Friends." I don’t know how that connects to the first statement.

The walk to school is the same as always. We continue to chat with Akila—she's relatively friendly. She has a pet possum. She likes spiders. Her mother's a waitress at an Italian restaurant a half hour away, and a hostess at another one. She has a tattoo of a crescent moon on her ankle.

"Hey," Deming says after a bit of silence. "Did you talk to Lada?"

"Lada?" Akila asks.

"Just a cool girl from my chemistry class—I did, Deming." I rub the back of my neck with my hand. "We're going to be hanging out this weekend so she can take me shopping."

"Yes!" He exclaims, like this is a personal victory. I smile and shake my head. "You better tell me how it goes."

"Alright, Deming."

Akila looks at us weird, but just keeps walking—or, well...skating.

When we reach the campus, she keeps skating, but stops at the outside wall, leans up against it and unlaces the skates.

"How are you so good at roller skating?" I ask.

"I have a good sense of balance," Akila says. "...And it's faster." I don't see how that last sentence connects to the first, but I mean, fast is good! She easily slips out of them and pulls a pair of shoes out of her backpack. So weird—but, by the looks of it, her feet are small, and as are her shoes. I guess her backpack has the room? She steps into the shoes and starts walking inside. I get the feeling her hair isn't the weirdest part about her.

"Well," Deming says. "I'm gonna go find Kohl real quick. Have fun with your friend, Roz."

He's off before I can tease him on his man crush—but I mean, his man crush is obvious because it's on his boyfriend, but still; what's the meaning of friendship if you don't make fun of a few things? If I had a boyfriend or a girlfriend or anything, he would make fun of me and I'd be embarrassed, but wouldn't it be weird if your friends didn't make fun of you for those things?

Akila's off to find her locker by herself, on the other side of the school. I get to mine.

I get another note.