Ghost

Hello! This isn't exactly about two species meeting, but there's me (the ghost) and the girl at the end, so... um, yeah. I hope you enjoy it. Trigger warning, there's some homophobic stuff, so if you don't want to read about my dad insulting people, you have full permission to not read this. This is a personal story, and kinda good if I say so myself. It's about been Christian and queer and trying to find the balance when I feel like, well, a ghost. I hope you enjoy this, and yeah, it has a random vent at the end about a pride parade. For reasons.

*Edit: I had a typo where I forgot the B at one point, I am totes not a biphobe, and thought I was bi for a time myself. Love y'all.*

It’s difficult. 

There’s doubt all over— from strangers, from deep inside, from my own spirit.

From family.

Why?

It’s not that hard to explain.

The world sees it like this: here are the religious people. They cannot be queer. Here are the queer people. They cannot be religious.

Aren’t we all children of God, though? Can’t we all be loved, no matter who we love?

But no.

It’s not, not for them.

You see, I’m a ghost.

In my own home, in my own family. I am a ghost, who moves through walls, haunting the people who say they love her, trying to be seen for what she is, and at the same time, terrified that my true colors will show through.

Black, gray, white, purple.

Red yellow, green blue, indigo, violet. 

 The colors that my parents see and scoff at. They scoff at the brightly-colored flags hanging from neighbor’s porches and frown at the rainbow stickers on my friends’ cars. 

She’s not going to be friends with one of them. They’ll turn her, you know… gay.

Like glass, I am transparent, light shining through me. I’m so scared they’ll see me for who I am. Because I’m not like them. I pray, almost eery night, for God to help me find who I am. And it’s working, a little. I’m still too scared. 

I was always fascinated by things I didn’t understand. As a kid, I would read a book or see a show with two people of the same gender together, and I would be interested. 

How did they learn they could be in love with each other?

How come they could, but I couldn’t?

My father was probably the worst part of it all.

He didn’t understand.

Neurotypical, allosexual, straight as a line. 

I still remember his commentary from my childhood.

A library is no place for children. Especially not with the books they’ve got nowadays.

Ah, yes. Those forbidden books. I would haunt my way over to the library, a little ghost, skimming titles and spines, always tantalized by the ones I could not read. The ones with that strange string of letters on the back. It wasn’t a word, I knew. Must’ve been an acronym. 

L.

G.

B.

T.

Q.

I grabbed one of those forbidden books, once. It was a risky move, but I was interested. I held it in my quivering, ghostly hands, amazed at he wonders it could contain— a story about a girl. 

A girl who liked girls.

It was taken from me pretty quickly.

This book is too mature for you. It contains romance. Mature themes.

I let myself part with it.

I still remember the way those words were spat out, like romance was a bad thing.

I remained a little ghost. Loyal to my parents. Loyal to their beliefs. Loyal, so they’d love me. They said they’d love me otherwise, but I heard what they said.

How cruel they were to people who were different.

I was eight years old, a loyal little ghost, when I learned about chromosomes. 

Two X’s made a girl. An X and a Y made a boy. 

“But what about two Y’s?” I remember asking, drawing what I’d learned in chalk. “I think… voila! I’ve invented a new gender!”

I remember my father’s frown.

There’s no such thing as a third gender. Two Y’s don’t make anything. Some people try to invent new genders, but they are stupid. Understand?

I paled until I was nearly invisible. But I nodded. I didn’t want to disagree.

Only now do I realize how much I repressed to pretend I was like them. A little ghost girl, following her parents, who always knew better. Who didn’t like lots of things, like people who “made up” genders and people who kissed people of the same gender. 

And tattoos. 

Lord, how they loathed tattoos. 

I’d like to say I told God about it. But I was kinda detached from the whole religion thing as a kid. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized maybe I should think about who was up there. And it brought me comfort. But I knew people didn’t like those who looked to the sky. Society didn’t like ghosts.

Just another thing to hide.

But it’s hard to hide when they can see right through you. 

The world is ****ed up. I’m going to protect her from all that. She’s my daughter. Not my son. 

I repressed a lot. Forced myself to forget. When you’re a ghost, you can’t do much about memories. They’re fluid, fleeting, weird. 

I remember this mural.

It was of a boy, holding a girl mask. He’d been born as a girl, but had a boy’s spirit inside. 

How long did I hold that down?

How long before it faded, like I did?

It started coming back. The hurtful words, the hateful swears, the things I forgot all about. Like that girl who I thought was pretty. 

Dad said those people were gay, and being gay was bad. I would be a good little ghost, I reasoned, and stop liking her.

How did I forget her?

Then, I started exploring. What if this little ghost was something else?

There was a kid in one of my classes who wasn’t a boy or a girl.

There was a girl I was friends with who liked boys and girls.

There was an incredibly cute girl, with curly, fluffy hair and a smile like Philippa Soo who made me feel a bit less of a ghost.

Sometimes she was a girl and sometimes she wasn’t. 

She saw my stupid, see-through self and said it was okay. 

She said that it was okay be who I was.

That God would love me even if I was out of the ordinary.

She liked someone. Someone who wasn’t a boy— the first person I met who said she was “a lesbian” and smiled. 

I guess something was wrong with me, cause I liked her. 

Not that way.

But way more than a friend.

And I’m still a ghost.

I’m still scared.

My dad still says non-binary people are retarded.

My mom still cringes when she sees my friends wearing rainbow stuff.

But at least if I’m a ghost, I can walk through walls.

Hide in the closet.

Wait until someone say “I like you.”

And they mean it.

My way.

*Additional story/vent thingy*

THE PRIDE PARADE

It comes to me in fragments, broken pieces. As we drove past, I saw a couple, two girls, wearing rainbow capes and walking and in hand. But my dad didn’t like them. He said something cruel under his breath. There were more ad more of them— a whole rainbow of different flags, different couples. My dad drove the long way to avoid them. He doesn’t even go the long way to keep me off the highway when I’m having an anxiety attack. He called them freaks. I started to fade. I was a freak. I was a bad one. I wasn’t good enough. But I didn’t even know why he was upset. I only knew what the G in that string of letters meant, and that was because he liked to use it as an insult. It mean people of the same gender who liked each other, not an idiot. But still, but still, but still. And then, later, we were at the store. I went to the bathroom, with my mom, clearly, because there could be men. And on and on, there was this girl. She came from the parade. My age. Blond, pretty, rainbows on her cheeks.

Like dad taught me, I frowned at her.

She looked sad.

I smiled.

I tried not to stare.

But I knew how my mom rushed me out of there that this girl was Not One Of Us.

I wonder where she is.

I wonder if she remembers me.

I wonder if anyone cares at all, that the little ghost is not so ghostly anymore. 

Ghost, ghost, ghost.

Not that it matters.

It’s difficult.