Listen to your little friend

C/W: homophobia, transphobia

She walked over to where we were sat with a scary grin. I have never seen a smile this frightening before, so I got nervous, however Sangue seemed calm. ‘Is there anything we can help you with?’, they smiled back at her and reassuringly looked at me, ‘It’s okay,’ Sang mouthed.

‘Oh hello, ladies, you...’ she couldn’t finish because I interrupted her.

‘We are not ladies, sorry, miss, continue.’

‘Yes, I was saying that you, girls…’ this time Sangue didn’t let her finish.

‘As my friend have already corrected you, we are not girls or ladies, we do not represent as females, miss. I am sorry to confuse you, but please try to avoid using female-referring words. Thank you, please go on.’

‘Okay, you are making a lot of noise, I will have to ask you to leave,’ she finally managed to finish her spiteful sentence.

‘I apologise, but we didn’t make any noise. I accidentally dropped my water bottle, but I picked it up immediately. If you are looking for people who actually are making noise, check second isle – someone keeps laughing and dropping books,’ I proceeded to reassure her that neither me nor my dear friend were guilty of something she was trying to accuse us of.

‘I didn’t hear any noise coming from there, the inly disrespectful little brats here are two of you, young ladies.’

‘WE ARE NOT LADIES!’ Sang has always had a tendency to lose temper very quickly, especially when it came to be being misgendered. I came out to them as non-binary two weeks ago, but I was still struggling to tell other people, and especially stand up for myself.’

‘You might not be ladies, but you are making a lot of unnecessary comments and noise, now out of the library. Let people enjoy literature, little swines,’ she said that in the coldest voice I have ever heard, the kind of voice villains have in kids’ movies.

I got up without saying a word, started gathering my things and putting them into my bag. But Sangue did not move, they sat in the same spot as before staring at the librarian with their eyes filled with rage.

‘I have already requested for you to leave, my dear, stand up and pick up your stuff,’ the ‘my dear’ part of her speech sounded so nasty and full of hate that I felt so gross and out of place, my eyes started getting wet.

‘You made my friend cry, please, call someone I can talk to about this,’ Sangue didn’t want to give up that easily, they always try to have my back.

‘I am in charge here, sweet pea, maybe you should have watched your actions and mouth before getting all upset,’ she looked at me, ‘What is wrong sweetie pie? A scary librarian lady made you cry? Go post on tik tok about it, now out of my library,’ she had such a slow way of speaking, it set off a little shiver down my spine.

‘It is a public library, we are not going anywhere, sit down, rainbow, please,’ they looked at me with lots of love, but I didn’t want to play this silly little game this angry woman was trying to gain from, while fighting teenagers.

‘I don’t want to; can we please leave?’

‘Yes, listen to your little friend.’

Sang didn’t pay attention to what she said, ‘Sure, beautiful, let’s go,’ Sangue stood up with their stuff and grabbed me hand, whispering into my ear, ‘I’m sorry, lovely, let’s go.’

‘Oh, you are also lesbians, aren’t you? This pretty town is better without all this gayness.’

It hurt, but we finally realised, why she was doing all that. A middle-aged white woman, who has nothing better to do than harass queer teens. I was glad that Sangue did not get aggressive with her, I was very worried that they would have. I am always worried when someone tries to attack us on basis of how we look or what we do. And every single time Sang gets overprotective – one time they slapped a guy, who wanted to see us kiss. As we were walking out, she was shouting more things, something was said about Jesus and repenting for our own good. I think I heard her scream an f-word, when we were walking out of the door. I always try not to pay attention, but I am still hurt pretty easily.

When we walked out and the door closed behind our backs, I burst into tears and collapsed nearly five meters away from the library. Sangue was trying to comfort me - they hugged me as tight as they could, so I would feel safe, stroked my hair and gave me lots of forehead and face kisses – but I couldn’t stop sobbing, tears made my eyes violently red. At some point I had troubles breathing, then Sangue had to let me sit up straight, so my breath would even out. I could see how much they were hurting for me; I love them with all of my heart, so I began crying more because I didn’t want them to be upset. It took me a solid ten to fifteen minutes to calm down before I could get up. When I stood up, I knew that was it, the library picnic date was ruined.

Sangue took my hand, and we walked away from the library. We kept going further and further, we didn’t speak for the whole time. I didn’t think so then, but I reckon now that my partner was angry and was trying to process what had happened without lashing out on me.

We reached a beautiful park with a lake, Sangue sat me down on the grass and said, ‘I am so sorry that happened, I apologise for wanting to make you stay there and have a further argument. Do you mind?’, they always asked for consent to kiss me, I shook my head, letting them know I am fine with them kissing me.

‘I love you so much babybee,’ and I wrapped my arms around them.

‘I love you just as much, gorgeous. We can still have a picnic here, if you want, we got all the food left.’

‘Sure, lovely. After all, wasting food is a crime.’

‘Yeah, so are homophobic hate crimes.’

‘I know, but let’s try to enjoy our food, okay?’

‘Okay, but she is still a bad person.’

‘I know. Open up,’ I put a grape into their mouth and kissed them on the cheek.

‘I love you so much.’

‘I love you too, baby.’