Just Another Year At Forest High | Sanders Sides

Here We Go [Roman]

⚠️Transphobia CW ⚠️

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"Here we go. You got this Roman," I mumble to myself as I walk to school, my backpack slowing me down some.

It's the first day of sophomore year. My sibling wasn't up by the time I walked out the door, so I have to walk by myself. Oh well. It'll be xyr fault if xe arrives late.

As I get closer to the school, I can see my best friend Patton sitting on one of the steps to the main entrance.

"Hey, Pat!" I shout.

"Roman!! There you are! Where's Remus?" She —I saw that Patton's wearing a reddish-pink ribbon on her wrist— responds.

"Xe wasn't up by the time I was ready to go, so I left without xem," I say.

"Oh. That's too bad. Xe's going to be late on our first day of sophomore year!" Patton exclaims.

I look around for our other friends, Logan, Virgil, and Janus, but don't see them. I do see some of the other people that were in theatre last year.

"I'm going to go talk to my fellow theatre kids!" I yell, running over to the clump of theatre kids.

"Hey Rose! Haven't seen you in a while," one of them says to me, and I wince a little bit.

"Why'd you cut your hair?" Another asks.

"It's Roman now. And, I cut my hair because I don't want to be seen as a girl anymore since that's not who I am," I inform them.

"Oh, sorry! My bad," the first one mumbles awkwardly.

"It's ok, I guess. You didn't know. If any of you call me Rose again I will slap you, though," I reply, walking back over to Patton.

"Oh hey Roman!" Janus says to me, walking over to where Patton and I are, Virgil on his shoulders.

"Hey Jay! Hey Virge!" I reply, excited to see them. "Where's Logan?"

"We don't know," Virgil tells me. "My guess is that he's in the library."

"Well, to the library we go then!" I say, gesturing for them to come with me.

As we're about to open the doors to the school, one of the teachers stops us.

"Rose, Patton, Janus, Virgil! What are you doing?" The teacher asks us.

"First of all, it's Roman now. Second, we're going to go hang out in the library until classes start. It's boring just hanging out in front of the school," I tell her.

"Since when is your name Roman? I've got the attendance sheet right here and it says Rose," she says, holding up the piece of paper in her hand. I notice her nametag and realize she's my English teacher.

"He's transgender. His chosen name is Roman, and his pronouns are he/him/his," Logan says, walking up behind me.

"Well, until the attendance sheet says Roman and male, I'm going to use Rose and female pronouns," the teacher snarks, walking back into the building.

I run and crouch by a bush, tears about to start running down my face. I hear footsteps on the concrete, so I look up. It's Remus, hair sticking up everywhere, shoes untied.

"Hey Ro-Ro. Sorry that I didn't walk with you, I didn't wake up on time," xe whispers. "What happened?"

"Th-the English t-t-teacher said sh-she won't use my name or p-p-pronouns until the attendance sh-sheet says Roman and m-m-male," I say between sobs.