Chapter 5
“Ok, I’ll come get you.”
“They are here”, they called to Andy and quickly went down the stairs.
Sam opened the door and saw Robin standing a few feet away.
“Hi.”, Sam said shyly.
“Hi.”, Robin replied, both of them starring at each other for a while.
“Um… come in”, Sam said awkwardly when they noticed themselves starring.
The teenagers went in, and Sam was glad that the team hadn’t come back from their call yet.
They moved upstairs, where Andy met them.
“Hi, you must be Robin. Nice to meet you.”, Andy welcomed them.
“Robin, this is Lieutenant Andy Herrera.”
“Um… nice to meet you, too Lieutenant Herrera. Thank you, for inviting me here.”
“Sure, and call me Andy, please.”
Robin nodded shyly.
“Do you want anything? Something to drink, a snack? Sam, you know where everything is.”, Andy offered.
Sam got them both some juice and they went into the TV room. They closed the door and sat down on the sofa.
“What a nice and kind kid”, Andy thought, watching them through the window.
“So… your name is Sam?”, Robin asked tensely, feeling welcomed but a little overwhelmed in that environment.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you my name.”, Sam chuckled nervously.
An awkward silence was broken by Robin again: “I… I didn’t want to pry but I saw what happened yesterday with Laura and I overheard what she said to you in class… so you’re non-binary, too?”
“Yeah. I hadn’t actually come out to anyone until yesterday.”, Sam said.
“Oh, wow. I’m so sorry that that was your first coming-out, or rather outing.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t the greatest experience. The class is pretty shitty when it comes to that I guess.”
“Yeah, that’s the understatement of the century.”, Robin admitted with a dark chuckle.
Sam thought about asking what else had happened today, but they didn’t want to overwhelm Robin.
“Is Lieutenant Herrera, sorry… Andy your mom?”, Robin asked curiously.
“What? Oh no, Andy is just friends with my mom. The team is on a call right now, but Andy is on desk duty. I actually just came out to her half an hour ago.”
“Really? She seems to be taking it really well.”, Robin admitted surprised.
“Yeah, apparently she and a few other firefighters have been speculating about me being queer for a while…”
“Wow, they seem really chill. That’s nice for a change. Is your mom the same?”, Robin asked, eager to find out more about Sam.
“Unless that’s not something you wanna talk about, in which case that’s totally fine. Sorry for asking.”, they backtracked.
“No, no, that’s fine. My mom reacted really well, too.”, they hesitated a little before uttering the next sentence, “Both of my mom’s did actually.”, they nervously glanced at Robin, knowing that with them being queer their fear was probably baseless, but they couldn’t shake the nerves whenever they told a classmate about their mothers.
“You have two moms? That’s so cool. I wish I had queer parents, or at least someone queer in my family.”
“Yeah, I guess it was helpful for me coming out yesterday. How did, how did your parents react? If you wanna talk about that…”, Sam carefully asked.
“Well, they don’t really get it. They still see me as their little girl and their daughter, really. But they mostly call me Robin now after I started ignoring them whenever they would use my deadname.”, they chuckled darkly.
“I’m really sorry your parents aren’t accepting.”, Sam said.
“Yeah, it sucks.”
“So, did you move here recently?”, Sam asked, wondering why they had changed schools.
“No, I didn’t. I just changed schools because my old school forced me either go to a ‘summer camp’ this year or to leave the school, because they are very catholic. And I know that the summer camp is basically conversion therapy, so there is no way I’m going there. And my parents actually agreed with that, they didn’t want me to go there either. They just don’t get why ‘I can’t just be gay and why I have to get on this crazy gender bandwagon.’ I mean I’m glad they are not completely homophobic, so they are not going to throw me out but it’s still not great.”
“Yeah, that sounds rough. And now you’re at this school, I guess it’s a little bit of an improvement from conversion therapy, but I honestly still don’t know how we are supposed to go back to school on Monday.”
“Yeah, me neither. At my old school, there were a couple of gay people that most students knew about and even if they taught us that being gay is a sin, most students didn’t really agree with that. And they didn’t even know what trans or non-binary is, so they mostly left me alone. In that sense, the students were alright there compared to this mess.”
“Wow, I’m really sorry.”, Sam said.
“It’s alright, it’s not something you could influence. But at least were not alone anymore, right?”, Robin asked, trying to slip in that question.
“Yes, we are definitely not alone anymore.”, Sam agreed.
The two of them chatted for a while longer, when the team came back from the call. After Maya had showered, she went into the TV room, saying hi to Sam and introducing herself to Robin.
Maya invited Robin to come to the station with Sam whenever they wanted.
Robin felt grateful but overwhelmed. Just yesterday, they had thought that their situation had turned from bad to worse with the new school. But now, having met Sam, they were hopeful, that for the first time, maybe they’d have a friend, a real one, who would not turn on them when they were trying to be their true self.
Robin realised, that it was time for them to go home, because they hadn’t told their parents about leaving school. They hoped that the school hadn’t contacted them. The two said their goodbyes and decided to meet up this weekend again.
Sam went into their mom’s office before everyone else saw them. Maya was working on some paperwork but stopped when their child entered. Sam sat down opposite her.
“Robin seemed nice, didn’t they? How come they came here?”, Maya asked.
“Um, well they already texted me yesterday, because they had seen the whole Laura thing in school, and they texted me again today which is when I saw both texts. And they said that school was bad today, again. So I said that they could come here instead, I hope that was alright.”
“Yeah, sure, as long as their parents were fine with it.”, Maya said, knowing that she was responsible for Robin’s safety when they were at the station.
“Um… I’m not sure their parents knew that they skipped school, to be honest.”, they admitted.
“Well, then maybe today was an exception, but make sure that they know in future, please.”
Sam nodded.
“So, Andy told me that you told her? She was really excited and is really keen on everyone else knowing but she’ll wait as long as you want, of course.”, Maya reassured them.
“Well, since everyone has apparently been speculating about this, I feel like the cat is out of the back.”, Sam chuckled.
“Oh, Andy told you, then. It’s completely your decision, but I think you can be sure that they’ll react really well. I mean, they may be a bit excited about it, but that’ll be the worst of it.”
“Yeah, I think I would like to get it over with, especially when Robin comes here more often. Do you think I could tell the rest all together maybe?”
“Yeah, if you want you could tell them at lunch, I think Andy already started cooking, so it’ll probably be ready in half an hour.”, Maya suggested.
Sam agreed.
When it was time for lunch, before they all started eating, Maya said that she had an announcement to make. When she had everyone’s attention, she turned the word over to Sam.
“Hi, I don’t really want to make this awkward, and I’m a little scared about it, but I’ll just say it: “I… I’m non-binary, my name is… Sam and I use they/them pronouns.”
Their last words were almost overshadowed by a loud, high-pitched squeal that came form both Travis and Vic. They went over to Sam and almost tackled them to the ground in their excitement.
Maya shook her head, seeing her two friends’ behaviour, but was so grateful the firehouse family she was a part of.
Sam was glad that with Vic’s and Travis’ excitement the attention shifted from themself to both of them.
“I knew it, I knew it!”, Travis shouted, holding his hand out for a high five with Sam”, who couldn’t help but laugh at his behaviour.
During the rest of Maya’s shift, she insisted on Sam doing some schoolwork since they skipped school today.
When they went home in the evening, Sam let the events of the day pass them by. All in all, it had been a good day. They were incredibly relieved that everyone at the station had reacted so well, and they were grateful for Robin, really, even though them joining their class the day before had led to this cascade of events. They were glad, that they wouldn’t have to face school and everything that came with it by themselves.