As part of the Wheeler Centre's Hot Desk Fellowship programme, Rae White worked on a YA speculative verse novel. Welcome Home is set in a fictional Queensland town. It focuses on the lives of two transgender teenagers, Kai and Em, who have a strong and intimate platonic friendship.
The first day
When I’m sad or can’t sleep
at night, I think of the first day
I met Em.
I’m wandering home from school
on a side of the street
I wouldn’t normally walk on.
I’m not sure what compels me to deviate to where there isn’t a footpath. But there I am shuffling along
I’m not sure what compels me
to deviate to where there isn’t
a footpath. But there I am
shuffling along
looking at my feet,
looking at the way
my school skirt billows
ghost-like
around my knees
when I hear this rustling of dry leaves
and a low humming.
There’s a house beside me
one I haven’t noticed
before – a bold tall mansion
flanked by an overgrown garden
and wrapped in an iron fence.
A person stands in the garden
singing softly, kicking crisp leaves
underfoot.
They’re wearing baggy cargo pants,
an oversized shirt tied in knot at hip.
Their cropped brown hair
is almost a bowl cut
and I wonder if they’ve stepped
straight out of the 90s.
I’d been trying to be more conscious
of not gendering people
as soon as I see them.
If I don’t like assumptions
people make
about my appearance
I can’t imagine
others like it either.
That’s when they look up
blinking against sunlight.
They smile at me.
There’s genuine warmth
in their face like in that moment
despite not knowing me
they’re happy to see me.
Hey there, they say.
I squeak something back
a strangled hey, before moving
closer to the fence.
I grasp one rusted bar in hand,
clear my throat to get some strength
behind my voice, Do you live here?
They step closer and I notice their eyes
are a milky shade of swirly blue.
Something like that, they say with a smirk, it’s more like the house owns me.
I do, it’s my house.
You own it? I say, gobsmacked
someone who looks my age
could own a house already.
Something like that, they say
with a smirk, it’s more like
the house owns me.
I laugh and they grin back at me.
What’s your name and pronouns? they ask.
I stop laughing and it’s like
my goddamn heart
has stopped.
Breathing feels difficult suddenly.
I’d been reading all this stuff
on the internet about pronouns
and how asking people is important
but until now I hadn’t experienced
any real world examples.
Then there they were
right in front of me
a stranger asking a question
I never thought I’d hear.
My mouth feels cluttered
and words tumble out
like I’m a vending machine
with too much change inside.
Kai and ... I don’t know yet.
I’m Em, they say, short for Emma
a name I may or may not
bury soon. They laugh
and it sounds guttural
like hail.
And I use they/them.
I nod, repeat quietly,
they ... them ...
It’s okay to not know
your pronouns yet.
You don’t ever have to choose
if you don’t want, Em says.
Then, Do you want
to come inside and have tea?
One statement, one question – both things
I’d needed someone
to say to me for a very
very long time.