How to Be Remy Cameron

We have no control over what labels others give us, but we can define who we are by the ones we choose to give ourselves.

The thing about revealing secrets is, your mind is always anticipating six million scenarios of how it’ll go before the secret is ever out: the good, the bad, the zombie apocalypse version. It never goes the way you’re expecting.

I’m one of five black kids at school. My freshman year, I was the token gay kid until others finally came out. I’ve been the token everything. I’m like a dragon in a city of unicorns.

“Everything okay?”
Instinct tells me to lie. This is the first time I’ve been in the same breathing space as Mr. Ivanov. He’s always been a ghost with a whimsical yard. But I reply, “No,” because something tells me he knows what it’s like to not be okay.
“Most of us aren’t okay,” he says. “We’re simply good at hiding it.”

Life is a journey, Rembrandt. You don’t know all of it at seventeen. Or as an adult. In fact, I think when you finally do know all of who you are, the universe stops the clock and ends the journey.

Fourteen is a strange place to deal with sexuality and hormones and math. I managed two of those things—I still suck at math.

After the first six times, coming out became as basic as telling a stranger my name. It became a joke: “Hi, my name is Gay and my sexuality is Remy Cameron.” Over and over, I’ve had to acknowledge my sexuality as if it’s a warning. The thing is, you always have to come out. Every day. To new people, to people you’ve known forever, to people who keep trying to ignore it.

There are some people who leave our lives and it’s not our job to hold on. To ask, ‘what if,’ even if we want to. We’re supposed to let them leave.

“I’m not ready to be a grandmother.” The urgency has faded, replaced by humor. “I haven’t even gone through my Britney Spears phase yet.”
“Which one? Catholic schoolgirl? Snake girl? Shaved head? Barefoot at a gas station?”
“Oh, honey,” Mom’s mouth curves upward, “All the Britney phases are important.”

Here’s the thing: Just because I came out at fourteen doesn’t mean I’m one-hundred-percent secure in myself all the time. Coming out doesn’t equal indisputable confidence. It means that, for those precious seconds it takes to identify yourself to someone else, you’re brave. It doesn’t last.