Yaniel Ayala Velez
November 04, 2023 10:48 PM
Baby steps by Yaniel Ayala Velez
Yaniel ran a hand through his hair as the wagon descended. He had written ahead, timing his letter carefully so that he knew it would arrive before he did but without enough time for his mom to reply.Just to warn you, I’ve cut my hair short. I know it looks pretty different but I really, really like it this way.
By which he meant ‘don’t say bad things about it or nag me about it’ only he couldn’t write that so directly. Now he would find out how much reading between the lines Mama had been able to do on that. It wasn’t exactly her forte.
As he stepped off the wagon, his parents scanned the group, Mama’s eyes almost moving past him. But it wasn’t like there were a lot of Latinx kids getting off the wagon.
“Mija?!” she asked, sounding like she was double checking. He plastered on a smile, jogging over to embrace her and Papa in big, enthusiastic hugs, wondering if he could use those to smooth away the evident shock.
“It’s good to see you,” he said. Because it was. He could smell the bakery clinging to his dad’s clothes, and on his mom it was buried under her perfume. He would spend the summer working that floury, buttery scent back into his own skin with them both, and playing games of baseball with Papa, and with Mama… With Mama he wasn’t sure.
“You weren’t kidding when you said ‘short,’ huh?” she asked, and Yaniel was glad that they were speaking Spanish. There were probably plenty of strangers around them who understood the conversation, but none of his peers from school would be able to listen in on this moment. His mom ran an experimental hand through his hair, ruffling it. “It’s not enough that you act like a boy, now you want to look like one too?” she asked, laughing.
Because she meant that as a joke. Even though Yaniel’s immediate reaction was a hopeful leap of the heart that he acted like a boy!
“I like it,” Papa said, before Yaniel could form his wriggling feeling into a question or a confirmation. “It’s… cool, right?”
“Yes. Very nice. Very different.” Everything about his mother’s smile said that she hated it. But she was smiling and trying and not saying so… “Come on, let’s go home. There’s a tres leches cake waiting for you.”
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
Baby steps
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
November 06, 2023 6:27 AM
Since I was three... by Yaniel Ayala Velez
OOC: CW - coming out, passing references to transphobia BIC:
The first smooth, creamy bites of tres leches had slid down his throat no problem. The moment which had happened at the wagon stop had evaporated into the air, and now… Now they were talking about classes and town gossip and new recipes that he would try out over the summer. None of it offered a place to interject and say ‘There’s a reason I act and look like a boy,’ apart from the way the conversation was peppered with ‘ella’ and adjectives ending in ‘a’ but that was no different than how most people at Sonora talked about him.
He had settled on enjoying his cake and being enthusiastic about all their summer plans, until Mama asked “And how was this ball? Do we get to see pictures?”
It was tempting to say ‘no’ but that would also disappoint them. And, if he was being honest with himself, wasn’t part of the reason he had taken them for this? Because he knew he would be asked, and then he would have to explain…
“Yeah,” he said slowly, trying to pre-empt his mother’s excitement so that he didn’t have to shatter it. “But the outfit… It kind of matches the haircut.”
“In what way?” Mama asked.
“Let me get them,” he said, sliding out of his seat to go gather his pictures and his thoughts. The former was easier. His suitcase was well-organised, and of the pictures, it was easy to know which one he wanted. It was the one of the four beaters, which captured so neatly everything he wanted; where he just blended in as one of the guys… He liked the ones he had of him and Cole too. Those were special in a different way, because Cole was the one person who had really got him to this point, but the instant association of a picture of two people was that it was a date, and that was only going to add confusion. Especially as it looked like kind of a gay date with them both in suits.
He clutched the picture close to his chest as he went back to the kitchen.
“I already told you, I wouldn’t exactly be pink and sparkly,” he reminded them. “And you said to do whatever makes me happy. So I did.” He lay the picture on the table. “These are my teammates. That’s Oz, Billy, Cole,” he scrambled to fill the room with words before they could.
“Are you wearing boys’ clothes?” Mama asked.
Yaniel knew there were two answers to that. The Lenny Answer which said that all clothes were for all people. That skirts could be boy clothes if they were on him, a boy. But then, by that logic, any clothes that were on Yaniel were boy clothes because that was what he was. He also didn’t feel like getting into the philosophy side of it was going to help things here.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“This reminds me of all the conversations we had when you were three,” Papa said.
“Yeah. And if we’re still having them when I’m fifteen, maybe there’s a reason,” Yaniel said.
“What do you mean?” Mama asked.
“I mean I don’t like doing girl things. Being a girl makes me want to hide in corners and stop existing and I hate it so much.”
“You don’t have to. No one’s forcing you. You don’t want to wear pink and sparkles, that’s okay. You’ve always been a more rough and tumble kind of girl, and we’ve never minded—”
“But I’m not a girl. I don’t want to be one. At all.”
“Mija, I don’t—”
“Mijo.” It was probably the wrong place to start. A word that was so embedded in their speech that it was uttered with as much ease as breathing. “I’m not a girl. You don’t get what I’m saying—”
“I know what you’re saying! But people… People already say enough things about you for being a girl who behaves the way you do. And I have never minded. I have always stood up for you. But if you start saying this instead… People won’t be nice to you, baby. People are gonna wanna name call you and hurt you. It’s not a safe thing to say.”
Yaniel swallowed, focussing on his socks and trying not to kick repeatedly against the leg of the table because he knew that habit annoyed his Mama. He tried to puzzle out her remarks, which were a few steps forward but also quite a lot sideways from where he’d expected to come into this conversation.
“It’s still gonna be true. Even if I don’t say it,” he said. It felt small and quiet, but it was still a point he couldn’t be made to move on.
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
Since I was three...
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
November 20, 2023 7:10 AM
Letter to Cole by Yaniel Ayala Velez
Hey man,I promised I’d write and let you know how things went. I won’t be showing up on your doorstep anytime soon, don’t worry.
I told them when we got back and talked about the ball. It’s… okay? Like, they get what I’m saying but they kind of don’t want me to be saying it. Most of it’s from a place of not wanting my life to be hard or scary though. Which is nice, but not really on the cards right now. It’s like my mom’s searching for some kind of option that lets me be both safe and happy, and she’s having some trouble catching on that ‘just be a girl who isn’t girly’ isn’t the wonderful middle ground she thinks it is that allows both of those.
It’s sort of like watching my own thought process of the last couple of years being played out in front of me. And I really wanna say—or sometimes yell—’let me save you the trouble, trust me, I checked all the other options.’ Like, it’s frustrating that they can’t get the answer when I’m literally telling it to them. At least when I was being slow about it, no one was directly saying it to my face, even if it maybe should’ve been obvious. And pretty much did take you doing that in the end. But like, I am giving them that shortcut now!
Anyway, it’s weird but not awful, and then around that we’re still doing bakery stuff, so I guess I didn’t totally destroy our lives by saying it. It’s nice being in the kitchen together. It’s like we know we know the script when we’re there.
Hope your break’s going well.
Yaniel.
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Yaniel Ayala Velez
Letter to Cole
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