Roe Peterson hiked their loud yellow backpack over their shoulder, the only one they had been able to scrounge up in the haze of packing, and glanced behind them as their mother pulled out of the pebbled parking lot.
“I love you, hon!” Roe’s mom hollered, hot pink visor slipping over her sweaty forehead as she made a painful three point turn to depart.
Roe pursed their lips and gave a short wave before turning to look again at Cabin Ten. The rainbow flag waved proudly in the light summer breeze and Roe puffed out their cheeks. They weren’t ecstatic about being in a cabin that marked them as queer right out the bat, but then again, it wasn’t exactly subtle that Roe fell in the realm of the rainbow spectrum.
With a freshly shaved head, a slit in their eyebrow, piercings dotting their ears, and a wardrobe consisting primarily of baggy shirts, they practically screamed, “I don’t like men”.
Roe could feel sweat dripping slowly down their back, the heat of the Michigan summer sun being absorbed by their black leather jacket. At least it hid the general shape of their body
Whatever. Two and a half months of Sad Teen Camp to make their mom happy was better than seeing their mom’s concerned, pitying looks for another eternity. Ever since everything that had happened. January haunted Roe like a storm cloud, and their mom had tried so hard, so incredibly hard, to make things better for Roe. But there wasn’t much she could do to take away the pit at the base of Roe’s stomach, the constant drip-drip-drip of a reminder that they had lost-
“Roe, right?” A camper with a lollipop stood in front of Roe, who nodded wordlessly. “Eva. She/her. Raging aromantic asexual, what’s good?”
Roe shrugged, adjusting their backpack.
“Here, need help with that?” Eva made to give Roe a hand, but Roe jolted backward.
“No!” Roe practically shouted. Eva gave a confused look. Roe cleared their throat, regained a bit of their composure. “I mean, uh...no, thanks I’m good.”
“Whatever you say, Roe,” Eva held up their hands in mock defeat, but didn’t look quite done with the conversation. Roe quirked an eyebrow in invitation, ready to dive into their bunk with a Percy Jackson novel and ignore everyone until a responsibility arose. “Uh...pronouns?” Eva continued, as if it was obvious that it was the next point in the conversation.
“Oh,” Roe sighed. “They/them.”
“Got it,” Eva threw finger guns at Roe, but Roe simply nodded and walked off toward the cabin. They could practically hear Eva’s confused and slightly off-put expression, but Roe didn’t really care. They didn’t care much about impressing other people anymore, not since January.
Stepping inside the cabin, Roe kept their eyes on the ground, hoping nobody else approached them as they made their way over to the bottom bunk in the back corner of the cabin where Roe’s mom had already helped set up their blankets and sleeping bag. Their mom had tucked Bugsy, Roe’s embarrassing stuffed animal secret, deep in their pillowcase, so nobody would find it, but Roe still knew he was there, still could feel him. Bugsy went with Roe everywhere since Roe was 2 years old, and that included Sad Teen Camp.
Roe could see one of the other trans people in the cabin, Vera, watching them. Vera, who was also Roe’s bunk mate, flipped her long straight hair off of her shoulder, then walked over to Roe, smiling. Thinking Vera was going to attempt to talk to them, Roe hastily shoved their yellow backpack under the bed. Roe began for another conversation, guaranteed to be awkward now that Roe’s mom wasn’t present to facilitate. Suddenly (and thankfully), the conversation-to-be was cut off by someone clapping their hands loudly.
“Okay, okay, everybody!” This someone clapped their hands again, pins clacking and bouncing alongside patches on a jean jacket that seemed to host every possible color on the rainbow. The kid - Michael, if Roe remembered correctly - waved to everyone, jutted out his hip, and started absently picking at his bright blue fingernail polish. “I think we should go around and introduce ourselves, and like, our pronouns, our sexuality, all that good shit. Gay rights, you know?”
Roe rolled their eyes.
It wasn’t like Roe didn’t like being queer. They just felt like it was quite possibly the least interesting thing about them. Unfortunately, it was also the most visible thing about them. Nobody ever asked Roe about, say, their wealth of knowledge about moss. Nobody asked them what they wanted to major in at college, or if they wanted to go to college at all. Everyone just immediately labeled Roe as queer and somewhere outside of the gender binary, and assumed that was that, nothing else to know.
So when the entire cabin of queer kids gathered in a circle to share in what Roe assumed was supposed to be some meaningful bonding moment, Roe didn’t even bother. They started to head out for the screen door when a manicured hand reached out and blocked their path.
“Yo,” the hand belonged, unsurprisingly, to Vera. “Did you not hear, bunkie? We’re doing intros.”
“Yeah, I’m not really into this whole thing,” Roe tried to shoulder her off, but Vera stood her ground, raising an eyebrow, still in Roe’s path.
“What whole thing?” Vera gestured to the group that had sat themselves in a haphazard circle-adjacent shape. “Us? The queers? You’re in the gay cabin, honey.”
“Don’t call me honey,” Roe griped, twisting her lips in frustration.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Alphabet Mafia cabin is literally what you signed up for,” Vera meant it as a joke, but it only served to grate at Roe’s nerves.
To make my mom worry a little less about me, Roe thought in response. Their mom already had a penchant for worrying about Roe after… well, after January. She became flustered and worried that Roe would get picked on in a traditional cabin. They frankly wouldn’t have cared if someone had decided to tease them, but they wanted to put their mom more at ease. So when the time came, they reluctantly checked the box for “Cabin 10: LGBTQIA+ Crew!”.
“I…” Roe stammered. Vera pursed her lips in anticipation. “Why the hell do you care?”
“Well I like to consider myself a nice person...some of the time,” Vera sighed, looking at the others for help. “I just want us all to feel a little less alienated.”
“Yeah,” Michael jumped in, fiddling with one of the plastic beads in his head of short, dark braids. “I mean, don’t you want to at least know a few people around camp who you can go to if you...well, you know…”
Roe clenched their teeth, fighting the urge to lash out. “Oh, right, I almost forgot that I’m here because someone died,” Roe hissed under their breath.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Vera gasped.
“I said,” Roe cleared their throat. “I said we’re all here because someone died, okay? I’m not here to sing kumbaya and bond with another lesbian because we both don’t like dick.”
“I like dick,” Michael muttered.
“We know, Michael,” someone else pointed out. Roe almost laughed.
Almost.
“I don’t...I- listen,” Roe sputtered. “I’m not here to make friends or enemies or get involved in drama. I’m here to get my mom off my back and maybe wake up in the morning feeling a little less depressed by the time I leave.”
“At least try to get to know us!” Vera reasoned.
“They don’t want to, Vera, obvi,” Michael rolled his eyes.
“We all cope in different ways,” Roe steamed. “My method of coping just happens to take place when people leave me the hell alone.”
Vera scoffed, obviously hurt, but stepped aside while Roe stormed out of the cabin. Their combat boots were heavy enough to squeak the floorboards as they stomped down the steps.
“Who was that?” Roe heard a voice ask as they stalked away.
“Roe. Nonbinary equivalent of a Debby Downer, it seems,” Michael’s response was met with several laughs.
Roe rolled their eyes and tried not to feel guilty for being an asshole within eh first five minutes. Whatever. Two and a half months of this, and then maybe things would be better for the first time in a while.
Since January, at least.
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