Work Text:
There is no bravery without terror, Ellie realizes.
Not just the anxiety or fear or even feeling nervous. It is terror-and Ellie has the word memorized after writing so many essays for some cash. It flashes through her mind instantly. The state of being washed over by such intense dread it roots you to the spot.
Ellie would like to say she doesn't feel as terrified of every day. Maybe she gets anxious or pissed when the bills pile up. Maybe she gets worried a teacher will stop her little essay side hustle. Maybe she's worried that the boys in the truck who yell at her after school will do something worse. But, there are very few moments when fear crept in.
Except the moment she realized she was gay. And in her small town where the few people she talked to were teachers and her (rather absent) father, Ellie felt that moment collapse around her. Like a suffocating house of hards, and she was clawing her way to the exit. It had been a constant loop of switching between denial and-you guessed it, terror. Bad enough to be the only Asian girl in school, but to also be a lesbian?
So, as a way to survive, Ellie stamped it down. She changed in bathroom stalls during gym, avoided the topic of boys with even the friendliest of teachers, and never gave into those desires she had. To want to hold someone's hand and kiss her, and curl up against the curves of a cute girl. Specifically one cute girl.
Looking back at the complete utter shit show with the letters, Ellie wonders if what she did was really survival. Or was it her being a coward even as the lies became too much to handle. She thinks back to all the homophobic remarks she would hear in town and amongst her peers, and the way she wished she could have spoken up. But, if she did, would that shine a spotlight on her? Would they see right through her and paint her as some kind of freak?
And yet, how many other queer kids were in her town? How many times did Ellie see boys being harassed for daring to wear pink and not say a word? Or girls who had rumors spread around them until they became social pariahs? Was her instinct to survive at the expense of letting other queer people be left alone in this harsh world?
It was more than just betraying Aster and doing the letters. Her speech at the church was about the unseen who she could see-the boys in pink and the girls who were forced into silence. The kids who also wished they could reach out to someone just like them, but couldn't out of fear of being outed or attacked. And how fucked up was that that in this day and age, people were still fighting to be seen as equal amongst straight people?
Ellie hopes that someone in that church, someone as terrified and anxious and confused as her, also found bravery in her daring act.