Chapter Text
“Alright, Big Red, you can do this.”
Red stares at his reflection. He made sure to wake up early this morning so he could have time to psych himself up for the day. After talking with Gina and Seb, he thought about how much he actually relied on other people, and how much he let himself be a doormat to everyone else.
Today he has decided to become a new man. He picks up his toothbrush and toothpaste and continues with his pep talk.
“What’s the worst that can happen, right? You are in charge of you, an oo aw da beff dere iff! Dey don’ caw oo Bih Reh fow nuffih!”
He spits and rinses, looking back up at himself. He frowns as a reflex, instantly doubtful. “Can I really do this?” He takes a deep breath and walks out of the bathroom, eyes glancing toward one of his shelves.
He spots something he thought was long forgotten out of the corner of his eye. Without a second thought, he walks over towards the shelf, picking it up.
Big Red takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, “Magic 8-ball, am I a dumbass?” He shakes it vigorously, and opens one eye to peek at the answer.
As I see it, yes.
He scowls down at the toy, “That doesn’t sound very objective, Magic 8-ball.”
He flops back down onto his bed. Wait, no, he can do this. It’d be stupid to waste a pep talk just because of a toy he bought at a garage sale.
Today, he decided he’d take Ashlyn up on her offer. He was gonna help her figure out who Primary is.
Yeah, that’s kind of dumb, considering he is Primary, but it’s not like she’s gonna know. Plus, he needs a distraction. To stop being a doormat, he needs to start making his own decisions, which means having some time away from Ricky. He makes things too complicated, and Big Red can’t deal with it right now.
He opens his laptop and refreshes his Tumblr, looking at all of the messages flowing in. Jeez. Has it really been that long? He’d only been gone for about a week, but seeing all of those messages coming in makes it seem like eight months.
Hey, guys. Sorry I’ve been away for so long. Life gets crazy, especially now, but don’t worry—I’ll be replying to your letters soon.
Signed,
Primary
That should fix things.
He packs his laptop into his backpack, puts his helmet on, grabs his skateboard and sets out. He told Ashlyn he’d meet her at the pizza shop, which is only about a five minute skate from his house. He doesn’t doubt that E.J. will drop her off, but she says he’s a terrible driver, which just means that he can reply to letters until she gets there, and she’ll be too pissed about him almost running over squirrels to ask what he’s doing for at least ten minutes.
“Goodness, Big Red, you are smart . An absolute genius ,” He says, continuing his pep talk as he skates. “How could you ever doubt yourself? Your intellect is unmatched. Never in your life has anyone been able to compare to you. You’re just so talented. So talented, even, that you could probably do a kickflip right now. Who cares if you’ve never done one before, so what? You are the only one holding you ba—AH!”
He kicks his foot out too far and pushes the board out from under him. Good thing he landed in the grass when he fell, because breaking another bone would not be fun.
“Okay...so, setbacks. Those are normal. It’s fine, everything’s gonna be fine,” he tells himself. “At least you wore a helmet and pads.” He gets up and dusts himself off, doing an awkward jog to retrieve his skateboard a few meters away. He hops back on, refraining from any cool tricks, and heads to the pizza shop.
———
“Can you believe him?!” Ashlyn huffs, taking off her jean jacket and draping it over the back of her chair. “He ran three stop signs on the way here. Three! There’s only, like, five along the whole stretch!”
“Well, that’s E.J. for you,” Big Red replies, typing away on his laptop. “You’re related to him, how come you don’t remember this?”
She sighs, taking a seat. “I don’t know. I guess I hoped he’d get better at driving with practice. Hey, what’re you doing?”
He looks up. “Uh…” Currently, he was working on a response to a letter.
Dear Primary,
My mom’s been making me carrot cake cupcakes for my birthday ever since my first birthday party. There’s only one problem—I hate carrot cake! How do I break it to her?
Signed,
NOT A Rabbit
Letters like these always make him chuckle. Sometimes he forgets what it’s like to deal with an easy, solvable problem.
“Just finishing up some AP homework,” he replies finally.
“Oh. Cool. Anyway, here's what I got,” Ashlyn says, digging in her bag. “So I think I’ve said this before, but E.J. said that Primary has been doing this since his sophomore year, which means that they have to be either a junior or a senior.” She lays a few papers out on the table, and Big Red closes his laptop as she continues. “I could see it going either way—like, maybe they wanted to get a feel for the school their freshman year and decided not to write, or maybe they wanted to help people as quickly as possible, so they started as soon as the school year did. But I said before that I think they’re a junior, and I’m sticking to that, because my gut is always right.”
“Right,” Red says. “So...is that all?”
“Not exactly,” she says. She leans in, “I want to do an analysis on the way that they write.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I think I can figure out their gender if I do.”
Red sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh...well, uh, I don’t think you can actually do that? Like, writing doesn’t have a gender,” he stammers.
“No, but I can get a better idea on what it could be. Listen,” she explains, “From what I’ve read, they seem like an ally, which narrows down a lot of the athletes and crazy Mormons in this school. If I compare their style of writing to one male, one female, and one nonbinary person, I might be able to determine the sex of Primary. It’s a long shot, obviously, but I think I can do it.”
“That...seems kind of arbitrary,” he says after a moment. “Won’t your results be kind of biased? A-And you can’t possibly determine the sex of Primary like that. And why their sex, anyway? You’re testing based on gender, which is a separate thing!”
Ashlyn looks up at him, “Whoa, dude, are you okay? Did I...did I hit a nerve or something?”
Oh shit. “Uh…” Think! “I-I just don’t think it’ll work out how you planned.”
She’s silent for a few moments, but nods firmly. “You’re right. It was a good idea in theory. Maybe I can just…” she gasps, “I got it! I’ll ask around in the English department! I-I can look at all of the writing-based extracurriculars and—shit, where’s my pen?”
Big Red closes his eyes and lets out a quick breath of relief. This isn’t gonna be easy, is it? He opens his laptop again and types.
Dear NOT A Rabbit,
I think all you can do is be honest. Tell her how much you appreciate the effort she’s putting into making you a cake and let her know what kind you actually like. It seems daunting, but it’ll only get worse the more you drag it out.
Signed,
Primary
Maybe he should take his own advice?
He looks up at Ashlyn as she furiously scribbles in her journal. She looks up, “Oh, hey, while you’re typing, can you make a Google Doc for this and add me to it? I want a digital copy of this stuff.”
Maybe not.