Attempting Average

How Will Will React?

Today I was feeling rather effeminate. I wore a cute headband on my short brown hair, roughly an inch of makeup, a cute flowery dress paired with black tights and flats.

I arrived at my first period class, Algebra 2, super early, as usual and slid on my headphones. A few minutes later, a guy I've never seen before walked in. He was a stunning specimen to say the least. He was a little taller than average, still shorter than me, and a little muscular. He had neat black hair paired with light brown eyes that are definitely the cause of Global warming. He looked around and walked up to me, as I was the only one in the classroom at the time. I slid off my headphones.

"This is Mr. Linnaeus's class, right?" He tilted his head to the side like a lost puppy.

I made sure my voice was feminine and high, but not unbelievably so before replying, "Yep. I'm Jessie by the way."

He smiled at me and we shook hands. "Nice to meet you. I'm Will," He nodded over at the chair next to me, "Is this seat taken by any chance?"

I shook my head, "Nope, all yours." He sat down. "Why haven't I seen you around here before?"

"Well, that is probably because I just transferred here from Wisconsin. But I could be wrong... That's just an idea."

I laughed as the teacher walked in. "No...That can't be it. It's gotta be something else."

★★★

It turns out that I had three out of four classes with Will. I showed him around the school a bit and asked him to join us for lunch during History.

"Uhh, sure. Who do you sit with?"

"Well, there's Oliver. He's right over there." I nodded my head in his general direction. "And then Wei, you might have seen her in the hall. She's the one with the white hair, she'll be in our Chemistry class."

Will nodded. "Cool."

★★★

I received my daily hello smack from Wei as she sat down next to me at the table. Oliver and Will nodded at her.

Oliver turned to me. "Oh, so Jessie, did I tell you about the most amazing thing that happened today with George?" George is this guy in Oliver's English class who he is crushing on to the extreme.

"What happened? Did he ask to borrow a pencil?" I rolled my eyes but motioned for him to continue.

"So you know my flag folder?"

"Yeah," He has this one folder covered in different gender and sexuality flags.

"So George, he looks over and sees the folder. And then he points to the bisexual flag. And then! Then he said 'same' at the bi flag! He's bi! I have a chance."

"Except for the fact that he's taken." Wei deadpanned.

"Shhh. They could break up. I can dream," Oliver grinned.

Will looked confused. "Wait, so you're gay?" He asked Oliver, "Not that I have a problem with that! I just want confirmation."

"Nah. I'm pan and Jessie's poly. Wei's hella gay, though," Oliver laughed.

"You're the Greek God Pan?" Will looked confused.

"No," I laughed. "He's pansexual. It means attracted to all genders. I'm poly so I'm attracted to most genders, but not all."

"But aren't there only two gender?" Will's confusion was growing.

"No," Wei, Oliver and I said in unison.

"Gender is a spectrum. You can feel masculine, or feminine, or neither, or both. Or even something totally other than that. It could change from day to day, or you could feel like you don't have one at all," I continued.

Will nodded with a blank look on his face. "I feel so ignorant compared to you guys."

Wei waved her hand, "Meh. If you hang around us enough, the gayness will take over and our lingo will be second nature. So, what's your deal anyway?"

"Oh. I'm straight. But with all this stuff about more than two genders, who really knows" He said.

"Cool." Oliver nodded. "So, I trust our dearest Jessie has been treating you with plenty of care."

"Uh, yeah. She's shown me most of the school already."

Wei, and Oliver froze. Will probably hasn't picked up on my prefered pronouns yet, and assumed I was female based off of today's outfit. I was glad that I passed well, and because I was feeling so effeminate today I really didn't mind.. Wei and Oliver didn't say anything. They looked over at me, knowing I normally would want to clear up the confusion for future reference.

"What?" Will looked confused, "Is that code for us hooking up or something?"

I adjusted my glasses. "It's just you called me 'she.' However, I prefer gender neutral pronouns they, if you will, Will. Yes that pun was needed,"

"Yeah, but I thought they was plural. Of course I'm probably wrong."

"It can be used for a group of people. However, even the Oxford dictionary states that they was used singularly historically for one person, and is perfectly acceptable to be used for one person while still being grammatically correct. The more you know," I made a rainbow with my hands at the end of the last sentence.

"Wait so why do you use they?"

"Oh, I'm genderfluid!"

Poor Will looked so confused, "Does this get easier to understand?"