Read Online Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera - Free Book Online Page B

another language. His judgment slid into my heart and carved a space for itself. Trans? Ze? PGPs? Those words weren’t a part of my vocabulary. No one in the Bronx or even in college asked me if I was a Ze or a trans. Was that even how they fit into sentences? I felt small, constricted, and stupid, very stupid. Phen dangled these phrases over my head. He was waiting for me to jump up and beg to be educated, beg for him to explain the world he inhabited.
    â€œHow did you even get here?” Phen asked, unblinking. “Harlowe told me she didn’t need any help this summer because she found you, some Internet fan girl.” Phen rolled a cigarette with organic tobacco and dye-free rolling papers. “I bet you’re not even really gay. You’re just feeling trendy because you’re going to a liberal arts college.”
    I started to tear up. I stood and walked to the back of the bus. Phen wasn’t going to see me cry or take pleasure in my silence. The moment to retaliate passed by, leaving brass knuckle bruises on my ego. His queer questions brought back memories of Puerto Rican kids asking me if I knew all the words to Big Pun’s part on Twinz (Deep Cover ‘98) . Pun spit lyrics so twisted they choked the tightest vine-tongued wannabe. But for some reason this song was the test: Are you Puerto Rican enough, Juliet Palante? Do you know the words? Are you down with us? Or are you just a white girl with brown skin?
    Dead in the middle of Little Italy little did we know
    That we riddled some middleman who didn’t do diddily
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    No, I didn’t know the words. No, I didn’t know my preferred gender pronouns. All of the moments where I was made to feel like an outsider in a group that was supposed to have room for me added up and left me feeling so much shame. Burning hot cheeks, eyes swollen with tears that were all the words I couldn’t say—that’s what my shame looked like. I wanted to run. The world is filled with enough room to flee at any moment. In any situation, there’s a window, a crowbar to blast through a locked door, or even the ability to just jump across the roof or down an entire flight of steps; there’s always some way to escape.
    After a few more stops, the bus driver announced that we were in downtown Portland. Two white lesbian moms on the bus—one had her blonde hair twisted into frayed dreadlocks and the other wore their baby wrapped behind her back in kente cloth—exited in front of me. I followed them, not alerting Phen, not making a sound, just moving. There were fewer trees and more concrete in this part of Portland. I stood at the intersection and just as I picked a direction, a hand landed on my shoulder from behind. I whipped around quick, ready to fight.
    â€œJuliet,” Phen said, jumping back, “I almost lost you.” He lit the smoke he’d rolled on the bus.
    I sighed and said, “Listen, dude, you don’t have to babysit me, okay? I’m from New York. I can navigate Portland.” I walked past him heading down West Burnside with no idea where I was going. Phen followed me, silent. We walked together with him a few paces behind. Our steps were awkward, like the steps taken while trying to make up after a public fight with your girlfriend. I wondered what he thought, if he knew that he’d been some weird word snob to me on the bus. I had no idea why he was here with me in this moment. Would Phen slow down my aura’s ability to sync with Portland? Since when did I start thinking about my aura as an entity that existed? Feeling light-headed and disoriented, I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and inhaled all the hippie air my lungs could take in.
    We stood at the corner of North West Tenth Avenue. Powell’s Books beckoned to us in red, black, and white, like a flag for a new America. One that’s educated, homegrown, and all about sustaining local book culture. “New and