Gender Fluid - Phan

2 - ???

Dan kicked the football, sweat dripping down his face and back. His teammates ran beside him, six or seven to each side. The field was muddy and half bare, the grass had been thoroughly trampled by the team early in the season.

"Alright team, balls in the basket, shoes off, I need eight laps around the track from all of you. Go!" yelled the coach. The boys ran to the side, tossing their footballs into a basket to the side and tearing off their football cleats. Dan set his shoes in a pile and ran, sweat only pooling more. He stayed towards the middle of the group, not too far forward or too far back. Some boys were already finishing their first laps, but he knew they'd fall back eventually.

Around the fourth lap, Dan slowed at the water fountain and gulped down the cool water, letting himself rest for just a minute before returning to the grind of running. By now the overachievers had exhausted themselves to the back, and Dan was around third out of the group of fifteen. He was one of the better members of the team, though he tried to stay in the background instead of drawing extra attention to himself.

The water break sent him back to fourth, but not for long. The coach smiled as he passed, probably wondering why he didn't notice this kid as much. The coach would forget, though, and Dan would fade back into the background.

At the end of practice Dan climbed into his mum's car and went home, hair curling from sweat and humidity.

"God, take a shower," said his mum, "You stink." She wrinkled her nose.

As stupid as it was, Dan felt dysphoric about tiny shit like this. Maybe if he was a girl he wouldn't smell. If he was a girl he wouldn't be in stupid football.

His mum pulled into their driveway and he got out of the car, carrying his football kit with him to his room. He wanted to check Tumblr and find out if P had replied, but he knew that first he needed to take a shower. He couldn't start talking to P smelling like a dead body.

After the shower, he was ready. He opened Tumblr and took a deep breath before looking at his messages.

He had a reply. From P, reading, "It's really just faking it until you make it! I know it sounds hard, but if you just act like your confident eventually you'll feel that way!"

Dan leaned back in his chair, a grin stretching across his face. P had replied. To him. He'd been noticed.

He looked back at his screen and looked for more messages, though so far it looked like all he had was some ads for a browser game.

Except, there it was, on the bottom of all the replies, one more, from P!

"Btw I checked out your blog, you seem really wonderful, but also confused. If you have more questions, just hit me up."

At this point Dan was ready to die and ascend to heaven, though he didn't believe in God and he was pretty sure God hated gay people like him. Maybe descend to hell, but either way, P had actually taken an interest in him! Him, a confused panromantic kid who sometimes hated his own dick.

P had invited him to ask more questions, though, and now Dan had to do that. Once again, he had to figure out what to ask. He didn't want to sound too stupid, unless that would make P take pity on him? He couldn't go with a bland question, that wouldn't work at all. But he had to stay true to himself.

Why was it so hard to get people to like you?

"Wow, thanks!" Dan typed. He supposed that was a good sort of intro. "I do have a lot of questions..."

Was that casual enough? He didn't want to come off as forced, or fake.

"How do I know I'm genderfluid?" he typed. It was a deep question, but he needed and answer. Now. He clicked send and prayed he would get a reply.

P must've been online, because they replied in just a few minutes. Dan gave a sigh of relief as he refreshed his inbox for the umpteenth time and saw the message. He clicked on it, reading it at least three times before even thinking about replying.

"No problem! And that's a bit of a loaded question, but it's really just identifying with the definition of gender fluid. If you feel like one gender one day and another the next, you are most likely gender fluid!"

Dan frowned. That was so open-ended. Sure, it was simple, but at the same time just identifying as somethings felt so difficult. What if he was wrong? What if he was just making it all up in his head?

"But how do I identify as a gender when it's always changing?" he asked.

"Well, how do you feel now?" replied P.

Dan looked at his body, sitting in his desk chair. He felt like a girl, he supposed, and he wanted to dress like one in pretty dresses and skinny jeans and maybe even high heels. But just a few days ago he'd felt like a boy and been fine with his appearance.

"A girl, I guess," typed Dan.

"So you're going by she/her pronouns?" asked P.

"No??" said Dan. Somewhere he had picked up that he could only go by one set of pronouns, and that was he/him. Any more and it might be confusing, he thought.

"Why don't you go by she/her?" asked P, "If you feel like a girl go by the pronouns!"

Dan thought about it to himself. He guessed he'd never really thought about going by pronouns other than the ones he'd been given at birth. It felt better, though, thinking of herself as a "she" rather than a "he." At least, it felt better now.

"That does feel nice. Really nice."

She smiled at herself in the mirror. Maybe she'd call herself "Daniela." Just for the day, to try it out. But she knew she would keep doing it as long as she felt like a girl.