"You know better than this. This is not how I raised you. This is not how God made you!"

"What are you talking about?" I snapped back. Now, I would consider myself a smart person. I have some common sense, and usually when I get in trouble, I have a pretty good sense of what I did wrong. But today? Today I had no idea.

"Mr. Patricks, first of all, you know our school policy on dating and public displays of affection."

Shoot.

At that moment, Tyler ran into the room and I gasped. Tyler was the last person I wanted to see right now.

"Tyler, what the everloving hell are you doing here?" I asked. I covered my mouth as soon as I said that, knowing that my school had a super strict no-cursing-or-offensive-language policy. But apparently, homophobic slurs are allowed? I should know, I've heard them before.

I'm not the only LGBTQ+ kid here. There was one other, and I think he was a year older than me. He came out last year and was pretty certain that nobody would bother him or be rude to him. Most kids here are pretty quiet and studious, and our school's anti-bullying policy is pretty strict. But apparently, all policies go away when there's a gay kid involved. I don't think I've ever heard so many slurs getting thrown at someone in a single hour in my life.

"Camden. Language." the headmaster said. Whatever my sentence was, I'm pretty sure it just got doubled from what I just said. I sighed and said, "Fine. Whatever. Please continue."

"First of all, the amount of times you're late for class is unacceptable. You are averaging 6 tardies a week, young man. Your constant interrupting and disruption of class is another problem, especially your disrespect in religion class. And not to mention that you've been dating another student against school policies."

Those weren't too bad. At least he didn't find out about the big things that could seriously get me in trouble, besides Tyler of course.

"And young man, what is this that I found in your locker?" the headmaster asked. He held up the mini transgender flag I kept in my locker. There's a reason I have a chemistry textbook in my locker but I use the digital versions instead of the hard copy. Behind the textbook are two pride flags. A lesbian one and a transgender one.

I'm a trans girl. My name is Emersyn Patricks.

Back to the matter at hand. Why on Earth was the headmaster asking me what the flag I kept in my locker was? There was no way I was telling him what those colors symbolized!

And then it hit me. He probably already knew and was playing dumb with me. I took a deep breath, getting angrier and angrier by the second. I stood up, pushed in my chair, and cleared my throat.

"That. That's the transgender flag, sir. That's right, I'm a transgender girl. Mom, I'm not your perfect little boy. Tyler, I'm not your precious boyfriend. And truth be told, I didn't even like you romantically in the first place, because surprise surprise! I'm a lesbian! And Headmaster, the last time I checked, QPRs weren't against the rules. And don't you dare hit me with that 'God made you the way He wanted to' or 'you're going to hell' or the 'that's against the Bible' crap. Cause frankly? I. Don't. Give. A. Flying. Crap."

I must've shoved in my chair a little too hard, because it fell onto the edge of the Headmaster's desk and his coffee mug fell on the floor and shattered into a million pieces. Shattered like my chances of staying in this God awful school.

"Mr. Patricks-"

"It's Miss, please don't tell me you're that forgetful."

"Gather your things, you are hereby expelled from Springfield Christian Academy."