Her knee scrapes against the uneven pavement. She inhales sharply. 

She tries to catch her breath before she is caught. Hollers and shrieks bounce off the brick walls. Her lungs feel like they are about to cave in. A barrier rises in her throat. She closes her eyes and focuses on the pain in her knee. At this moment, she would give anything to be able to run just a little bit faster, just enough to catch up to the slowest of them. She peeks out from behind the garbage bin, watching the boys whiz by, up the hill and down the yard and back and forth across the basketball court. 

She is shoved forwards, and she catches herself, scraping her hand. 

“Got you!” 

Her friend stands triumphantly behind her, but not for long. His head flicks upwards, eyeing another runner. He shouts, and bolts away. 

Pebbles cling to the open wounds on her hand and knee. She rubs her hand on her skirt. She is the first to be caught. 

* * * 

“She’s such a tomboy!” 

is what my parents say. I wear that word like a gold star; it means I am not like a girl, even though I am a girl. It means I play with the boys at recess but sit with the girls when the teachers tell us the differences between girl bodies and boy bodies. 

At home, I am a tomboy because I squish the spiders that crawl on the walls. Mommy says that I am not like a lot of little girls, because a lot of little girls would be too afraid of touching the spiders. Even my brothers are afraid of touching the spiders.

One time at daycare, one of the boys stepped on a caterpillar. Its insides came out in one green blob. The blob was still shaped like the caterpillar. Most of the girls started yelling and running away. It was gross, but I still wanted to look at it; I guess I stayed because I am a tomboy. 

* * * 

Her smile is plastic. Her cheeks hurt, so she pushes them up with her fingers. One more flash, and her mother calls, 

“Okay, now a photo with just the girls!” 

She waits for them to gather. Her stomach growls noiselessly, giving the inside of her belly a little poke. She is not sick, or hungry. 

The girls—all younger than nine—surround her, in their frilly pink skirts and bedazzled t-shirts. 

“You girls look so pretty!” one aunt coos, holding a large camera up to her eye. Her stomach pokes her again. It folds a bit along the edges, wrinkling itself, getting smaller and smaller. She wonders how she will muster the willpower to eat cake. “One more picture, girls!” 

And with that, her stomach crumples and attempts to lodge itself in her small intestine.

* * * 

For my Grade Eight graduation, I wear a strapless dress and short heels. My mom insists on curling my hair into little ringlets, although I tell her that I would rather just wear it natural. My grandmother calls me “pretty.” My teacher makes a joke about how scandalous it is that I am baring my shoulders.

I keep tripping in the heels, or sinking into the grass. I feel more like a hippo on stilts, trying to fit in amongst the giraffes; I am wobbling, trying to reach the leaves at the tops of the trees, tilting on the stilts until I have toppled over. 

“Say ‘cheese’!” 

* * * 

She keeps bugging her parents for new clothes. Every time she goes to the mall, she eyes pressed suits and tuxedos, shiny flat shoes, bow ties and neckties. 

She argues back and forth with her parents: she cannot wear a suit to a wedding, she cannot wear men’s shoes, she has to wear shiny jewelry, she is not fancy enough, take that tie off right now, young lady! 

But she is a tomboy, not a young lady. She has no problem with the spiders, neither their spindly legs nor their beady little head-eye conglomerates. These days, she is a bit more sympathetic to the micro-intruders, but someone in her household has to, as they say, “wear the pants,” on occasion. 

She tells everyone that she wants to wear pants. In dresses, she feels exposed, ogled at, trapped. She cannot run with the boys in a poofy skirt because it will blow in the wind. She shops in the men’s section of retail stores with her own money. She takes each parental protest as it comes. She takes hit after hit, name after title, “girl,” “woman,” “young lady,” “princess,” “bella,” all meaning well but all cutting just a little bit deeper. Now, even “tomboy” carries a sharp edge. 

Late at night, when the world is asleep, she googles “What am I?” 

* * *

An idea dances in and out of my mind for years, pirouetting with other thoughts that have yet to come to fruition. In ten years I’ll do it, I think, or after university. In a few years. Next year. Maybe in a few months, when the time is right. 

The time is never going to be right. So I do it. 

The stylist spins me around in the chair and gathers my hair in a long braid. “I’ll take you to the sink right afterwards for a wash,” she informs me, “Some girls freak out if they look in the mirror for too long after the first snip.” 

I smile again. 

“It’s okay, I should be fine.” 

She takes up the scissors in one hand and clasps my hair in the other. 

“Are you ready?” 

Faced with any other big change, I would be a nervous wreck on the inside. My stomach would churn my lunch into a thick froth, my wrists would ache with anticipation, my face would heat up, my legs would clench in preparation to fight or flee. But here and now, I am more calm than I have been in a very long time. 

The stylist does not wait for my response. A few seconds later, I am holding the thick bundle in my hand, then setting it down on the counter in front of me. I take a look at how my hair falls around my face now: a short bob, angular and admittedly very stylish. I laugh. “Hey, that looks pretty good!” 

“Quick, quick, don’t look,” the stylist beckons hastily. “To the sink, now.” As she lathers and rinses, my eyelids drift lower and lower. I could fall asleep right here, if not for the fact that I still have more hair to lose today.

* * * 

Four years ago, my dad laughed when I said that I would be wearing a suit to prom. Now I sit in his car, in an all-black tuxedo and a bright bow tie, waiting for him to drive me to meet my friends. He took me to a tailor to get the suit adjusted. Even so, he still insists on calling it a “women’s pantsuit.” I tell him again and again that it is just a suit. 

My mom insists on a photoshoot. This time, I do not have to worry about my heels sinking into the grass, because the shoes that I wear do not have heels. 

“Say ‘cheese’!” 

I smile. There is a small click. 

My mom looks at the photo. “Aww, honey, aren’t you just so cute?” 

Cute? 

Can a tomboy be cute? Am I supposed to be cute? If I am cute, will other people hate me for being cute? Is being cute such a bad thing? What if I want to be cute? What if I hate being cute? Am I allowed to change it? Am I allowed to dress differently? Act differently? All to convince someone that I am not cute? Will I confuse people by telling them that I am not cute? Who decides if I am cute? 

Am I cute? Does it matter to you? 

Does it matter?