At 13, who I was inside, who I wanted to be, didn’t match the intentions of my body. Outside, there was no little girl to be loved innocently.
Justine Zwiebel for BuzzFeed
The men in my life noticed my body was changing before I did. Suddenly, at 13, the parts of me I had largely ignored made people uncomfortable. And in some cases, downright angry. I was walking home from school when a man pulled his car over and asked me for my phone number. I told him how old I was and he spat on the ground next to my feet.
"Go home and tell your mama she needs to be dressing you like you're 13. You almost didn't get treated like somebody's child." He sped off.
I stood there, shaking, gaping at my jeans and T-shirt. What about my clothes said I wasn't 13? What about me kept telling the rest of the world I wasn't a child? My mother told me, more than once when I was growing up, if a man ever put his hands on me, she'd kill him. I walked home, already knowing I wouldn't tell her what just happened. I believed her.
The same day, my mother laid my Christmas wish list on the kitchen counter between us. This is how we discussed most things, her on one side of the counter, and me on the other. She set her cigarette in an ashtray made of tin foil.
"Are you serious with this?" she said, reaching for another cigarette.
My eyesight was poor enough that my own handwriting was basically illegible. I put the list closer to my face and reread it. She took a drag without taking her eyes off of me. I sat the list back on the counter, folded my arms over my chest, and nodded. Everything was there. She pointed to a few items on the list.
"You want a teddy bear, a coloring book, and a Kenny Loggins album? Who is Kenny Loggins?"
"He's just a singer. I like some of his songs."
My mother narrowed her eyes, waiting for me to elaborate. She knew who Kenny Loggins was. What she didn't know was why her 13-year-old daughter was asking for the greatest hits CD of a '70s/'80s yacht-rock legend. My mother had a habit of clinging to the belief that because she'd given birth to me, I was incapable of keeping secrets from her. This usually worked in my favor. If I was quiet, she'd come up with her own theories about strange behaviors or how I discovered things she hadn't personally introduced me to, and she would be satisfied. So, I remained silent, tugging on the bottom of my shirt so it covered the bare half-inch below my navel.
Justine Zwiebel for BuzzFeed
