Dear Mum, Hi.

Mum,

To think we built such different lives around each other that the thought that I have secrets from you implies an intimacy that does not exist between us. And yet, I have secrets. I keep them clutched close to my heart like a child hiding under their sheets with a flashlight in the dark. Because I want that intimacy. I want to experience the loving, steady, and protective embrace all mothers bestow on their children but, it's just not possible for us. We hope for a connection we can never have and yet there are still things I wish to tell you though. I guess the first secret I've been longing to tell you is that I'm not straight but I'm not gay either. I am Rowan-Quinn. I go by she/they and I am your Non- Binary, Genderfluid, Asexual, and Pansexual child. Hi.

You probably remember the high school Trigonometry teacher I couldn't stop talking about. You thought it was because I liked her long white hair but that wasn't fully the case. The way she taught and showed each person compassion and care is something I couldn't help but notice. She made learning easy and I didn't feel like a burden. For the first time, I felt seen in what I could do. Not belittled for needing more help with Math. It was just a fleeting childhood crush. I want to equate it mostly to hormones and ... I wish you could agree with me. I wish I could have the opportunity for you to maybe agree with me. You remember, we moved and I complained that the new teacher taught in a way I couldn't understand but, you only cared my grade was slipping. It was one letter grade. One. You called me stupid for asking my younger brother's help and even told him not to help.

I chose to tread water after that. I grew so unfeeling I forgot that it hurt. I forget that my hurt was such a secret from you and dad that it eventually became a secret for me. I didn't care to know if I was hurting or not. I got sloppy though and fell in love after we moved. I suppose we are now up to secret number three.

She was amazing and sweet and showed me the time of day. Gale made adjusting to my new surroundings just a tiny bit easier. Of course it helped that I went over to her house whenever I could. I didn't want to spend time with you and dad and Clay. I wanted to be wanted and for those few months after we moved, she wanted me. I asked her out and even though she hadn't said yes, I took it for a yes. I took her kisses and caresses for a yes. I accepted the fumbles in the dark and the nervous giggles that came with a blooming love between two young people. We cuddled out of view from her parents cause she too couldn't risk our spark becoming a wildfire brought onto us by outside forces.

Do you know how hard it feels to be so happy and try so hard to keep it in? I wanted you to be the first person to tell. That I fell tripped into wobbly sweet teen love and yet, something in my core said to stop just as the words would dance on my tongue, just as I would breathe to utter the words. Maybe deep down I knew you wouldn't want to hear. It wouldn't be about the fragile love I had found, it would be about how I had forsaken the powers that be and that HE would be watching. However if he was indeed watching, he wasn't watching close enough.

Gale entered Miss Teen pagents and we spent less time together. Come spring, I wanted us to be out as an exclusive pair and I didn't care who knew. Prom seemed the perfect time to come out and she politely accepted when I had asked her one rainy day after school. Later that week you took me dress shopping and I was so irritated I couldn't put off picking a dress. You thought it was cause I couldn't find one that I fully liked but, I wanted Gale to be there. It didn't matter that day because Gale was too busy hooking up with another guy that she had been talking to along side me. I can't say behind because, by her standards, we were never dating.

They had bonded over her photoshoots for the Miss Teen. Apparently she had shown them to him in an attempt to try to go all the way with him and it had worked. I was heartbroken. As soon as I found out, I went up to her and asked her to explain what had happened. I begged to her for it to be a sick rumor but, she looked at me like I was crazy. Her friends started asking what was wrong with me and yet she passed my being upset off as my being crazy with jealousy that she had placed in the pagents.

The day of Prom came and I went with a group of my guy friends and there I saw her. She decided to wear one of her Pagent dresses while on the arm of the guy she had chosen over me. I was sad yes, but I grew to push my feelings down. I had experienced my first heartbreak and wanted comfort but knew I couldn't go to you so I simply stopped feeling. That trust you thought we had was never there. Not truly, especially when it was just a trust that I could be there to take up space and that was it.

I couldn't come to you when her friends called me disgusting. I couldn't come to you when I was being bullied for loving a girl. I dare not utter a word when they coupled that with my being Asian. I did what I could do then and that was slip out of sight and make myself as small as possible.

How do you think I felt when ten years later, you echo some of the same sentiments as her friends did. Seeing Non-Binary people on the television made you so upset that one day. You could do nothing but utter how mentally deranged they were. That they either have a p***y or a d**k and if they "think" they have anything else they need to be f**ked straight. It's terrifying to hear that come from my own mother and echoed by dad.

I am your child but I don't wish to parent you through this. I will keep faith that something is on the horizon that will help you see that I am human just as you are too. Until then, it will be a secret to you that I will not see you much because of the things you said. I am what I am and maybe that is in part because I don't want to fully define myself. This secret I write here now will never reach you but if it did, you would never care in the proper way. I leave you with this, I hate myself because of everything you've said about me, directly and indirectly. I danced with suicide multiple times because of the things you chose to make known to me. I waltzed with death because you cannot stand to look at me.

Despite this, I love you.