Something to be Proud Of (eBook)

I have long been aware that I inhabit a world that was built neither by nor for people like me. What I was not aware of, however, was that sometimes highly necessary wake-up calls come in the form of drag queens in lilac wigs brandishing silk handkerchiefs at you.

I’m not doing too fantastically. I’m at a pride festival in the city (the very last one of the summer, but the first and only one I managed to convince my friends to attend with me). Ten minutes ago, a marching band began bellowing its obnoxiously loud ‘music’ without any warning (rude), while pop songs still played over the speakers so loudly that I felt them vibrating through my veins. Add on the small matter of approximately three thousand people all talking and laughing and shouting within a one-mile radius and, to put it succinctly, my autistic ass couldn’t handle it. I forgot how to talk, my brain doing the equivalent of a keyboard smash at even the vaguest threat of a coherent thought, and my supposed ‘friends’ Jen and Hannah left me alone in this random coffee shop, wearing my noise-cancelling headphones that, let me tell you, are not living up to their name.

This is where Auntie Septic finds me, offers me a literal silk handkerchief embroidered with AS to dry my glittery tears (and regular, non-glittery snot) and says, “Honey, if friends are people who leave you alone at a time like this, then I’m going to need Beyoncé to stop texting me because I want none of that, thank you.”

And, not for the first time – albeit definitely the first time the thought’s invoked by someone wearing a wig large enough and doused in enough hairspray to fit the actual cast of Hairspray inside it – I realise I need to shake things up.

“Are you going to be OK, sweetcheeks?” Auntie Septic says, blinking at me through vivid pink false lashes.

I nod, still not quite able to form words, and offer up a watery smile.

“That’s the spirit.” She pats me on the head. “I’ll maybe see you out there, but if I don’t, then good luck, and never forget to be fabulous, be gay and do crime.”

I manage a laugh for the first time all day, and she blows me a final kiss before strutting back out of the café to rejoin the hordes of people outside.

I pull out my phone and examine myself in the black screen. Stray curls of the thick mess I call my hair are stuck to my clammy face, with patchwork pink blotches scattered across my skin for good measure. Hot, I know.

I pipe some white noise into my headphones to stop my head pounding while I text my dad to come and get me. I’d wanted to come to my first pride event so badly I thought I could handle the crowds, but obviously I can’t. Not like this, not on my own. I draw my Bi Pride flag tightly round my shoulders and wait for my disgruntled father to text me and tell me that he’s going to miss some kind of sporting endeavour on TV but he’s on his way. Hopefully, the crowds will have dispersed by then and my sensory overload will have dissipated enough for me to move from this chair.

As if mocking me, a loud roar comes from outside, some performance evidently having started, and a shiver twitches its way through my torso. I don’t think I’m going to forget the sheer, all-encompassing panic that I experienced out there in a hurry.

Or the feeling of my bones contracting inside me, shrivelling against the noise and smell and the act of being jostled and shunted from side to side by a crowd that seemingly had the sole goal of crushing me.

Or, for that matter, how a thundering boom cracked in the electric air, interrupting the sonorous honking of the marching band and the thumping of the speakers, and a confetti cannon erupted over the crowd sending scratchy shards of glitter shuddering down my back.

And I definitely won’t forget how, when I grabbed Hannah and Jen’s arms to get their attention, it wasn’t only them that followed behind me through the crowd, but also their groaned words and loud complaints about missing the parade.

Watching a parade versus stopping their friend from exploding, actually physically exploding. Apparently, it wasn’t the easy choice I thought it would be. But then I don’t think like everyone else; that much is clear.

*

“I knew you wouldn’t cope.”

Dad’s driving me home, windscreen wipers sweeping hypnotically across the glass. I feel a pang of guilty pleasure at the fact that Jen and Hannah will currently be getting soaked, their laboriously applied make-up running down their faces… All right, fine, so maybe I don’t feel that guilty.

Dad flicks the windscreen wipers up another notch; they start flashing back and forth in a dizzying blur. “I’m missing the test match right now.”

He should really be thanking me. I find cricket the dullest of the sports (which is saying something, given that golf exists).

“Sorry,” I say, “but I didn’t anticipate my friends being assholes and abandoning me mid-meltdown.”

He frowns. “Language.”

“Sorry. Twats.”

“IMOGEN.” He stretches his neck from side to side; I flinch as I hear the bones click. “You shouldn’t have gone.”

“Great,” I say, staring out at all the red brake lights piercing the dismal grey of the dual carriageway. “That’s super helpful, thanks, Dad.”

His eyes flick upwards. “I’m just saying, if you knew your limits, then this would never have happened. It’s not your friends’ fault you had a meltdown.”

“It’s not mine either,” I say, festering in mounting irritation. “And why shouldn’t I be able to go to Pride and have a great time?” My voice grows in both volume and pitch. “It’s not like I’m the only neurodivergent queer person who exists.”

He sighs again. “You know, at some point, you’re just going to have to accept that you’re not going to be able to do some things like normal people.”

“NEUROTYPICAL, not ‘normal’.” I fold my arms tightly across my chest. “And no, I won’t just accept that. Nothing would ever change if people never got angry about things. But whatever, let’s just sit in awkward silence for the rest of the way home, shall we?”

His face flickers in annoyance once more, but he stays quiet until we pull into the driveway.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” he says, turning the engine off. “For me picking you up.”

“Thanks,” I say, my voice sounding as flat as I feel.

I head into the house, barricade myself in my room with a chair, put on some sweet, sweet tunes, change into comfier clothes and grab my blanket. What a perfect end to the summer holidays. I don’t like transitions as a rule, they tend to make my back sweaty, but I’m kind of glad school starts again next week.

I throw myself down on to my bed. I’m so sick and tired of not being able to enjoy things just because they’re only designed to be enjoyed by one specific kind of person. I reach for my phone to change the music to something angstier but my hand falters, hovering in mid-air as I get a thought.

The very first Pride was a riot. People got mad at the ways they were being treated and then they did something about it. They threw those first bricks and demanded to be seen as who they are, no more, certainly no less. Maybe it’s time for me to start harnessing my rage in a more productive way too…

Ignoring my mum’s calls to come down for tea, I eat some flapjacks from my secret snack drawer while I draw up plans in my ‘gay agenda’ notebook: first thing Monday morning I’m going straight to the headteacher’s office to make a proposal.

*

I march to school twenty minutes early, burst into Ms Greenacre’s office without knocking and announce my idea before she’s even had the chance to tell me to take my denim jacket off and replace it with my school blazer (like she has done every other single day of my high-school career).

“I would like to start an activist society in school,” I say.

Ms Greenacre takes a full ten seconds to compose herself. She was our head of year before she finally got her mitts on the headteacher position at the end of last term. She was probably hoping that being head would mean she’d have to see less of me, but unfortunately for her I have zero understanding of or respect for authoritarian hierarchies.

“Right,” she says at last, straightening the lapels of her tweed jacket and carefully considering each word. “I’m not saying no, Imogen, but I’ll need an idea of what kind of activism this group would be engaging in first. We can’t have you throwing eggs...