“You didn’t think, right? You didn’t know you were being overheard, and that makes it okay to voice your toxic thoughts out loud. You thought it was okay to say some bitchy shit about a person you’ve never spoken to based on his appearance and that he’s an athlete. Somehow, because you’re over herewhisperingyour nasty little words, you think it’s okay.”
Both girls look like they’re about to cry. Philomena wipes her eyes and shakes her head.
“You two are on notice. I’m embarrassed to have you along on this trip. So far, the impression I’m getting from you twois notwhat we want representing our university.” Zarek gets to his feet and returns to his seat.
The girls look at me, and I see more horror once they know that I’m privy to the exchange. As are Katai, sitting behind me, and Byndley to my right. The three of us are looking at the girls with their red cheeks and tears in their eyes.
I sigh. It’s far too much to hope that people grow out of that behavior.
Knowing that we’ll be boarding soon, I get to my feet and stretch my legs. The door to the air bridge opens, and I watch absently as passengers disembark. When the gaggle becomes stragglers, I search the area for Brevan.
He’s as far away from us as he can get, staring out the window. I have a feeling he overheard Anna and Philomena’s whispers, whatever they’d been. Apparently, not kind.
Perhaps I chose wrongly.
Minutes pass. I keep Brevan in my periphery. He remains right where he is, staring out the window at the plane until thepre-boarding announcements. I can almost see his reluctance as he comes closer.
I’m relieved when Wendy and Jerome sandwich him on either side and attempt to pull him into conversation. His eyes move around us. I can see how tense his shoulders are. Whatever ease he’d brought with him has faded.
I keep them in front of me while we board. We’re not in first class, but comfort plus, so we board second. The Airbus is large. Large enough that there’s a middle row and aisles on both sides. In this section, where the seats are wider and there’s more space between them, the aisles on the sides of the plane have two seats and the middle row has three. Looking beyond the comfort plus seating, you can see the aisle shift inwards as a third seat is added to the outside rows so instead of seven seats across the width of the plane, there are now nine.
Byndley booked three rows of two seats on the left side of the plane and two rows of two on the right. Byndley, Katai, Zarek, and I are in a center three-seat row and one seat in front of ours. Katai grabs the single seat before we board. I immediately note that Brevan is sitting on the opposite side of the plane from Anna and Philomena. He’s sharing a row with Jerome.
I take a seat in the middle of the three seats once my bag is stored overhead. Zarek sits on my right, close to the girls, while Byndley is on my left. I have a clear view of Brevan from right here, and while he remains in conversation with Jerome, I can almostseethat he looks… dejected? Is that the right word? Sad anyway, but I think more than that.
“I’d like to ship them home,” Zarek mutters.
“What happened?” Byndley asks before I can. “All I heard was your scolding, though from what I gleaned, I can probably guess.”
“The wordsdumb jockandtoken hot guyto ‘round out our diverse representation’ were thrown out,” Zarek says, throwing the girls another glare.
I frown. “While I certainly don’t condone that kind of conversation, I’m gonna need to ask you to stop glaring at them, Zarek.”
Byndley snorts.
Zarek huffs, scowls, but nods his agreement. “I haven’t had many conversations with Brevan, but I can attest that he’s a kind, sweet soul who certainly appears to have some self-confidence issues, so overhearing their bullshit most likely hit him hard since they were voicing what he already believes about himself.”
My eyes flicker up to Brevan. He’s watching out the window now, no longer talking to Jerome. Jerome is poking around on his phone.
“Perhaps we’re going to need to modify our applications, though I’m unsure how to weed that kind of behavior out,” I say while I continue to watch Brevan. I hate the sad aura hanging around him. He looks down at his phone, and I think he must have received a text since he taps away on his screen.
“We’ll think on it. We’ve been in talks with Denmark and Germany for the next trip, and that’s just under a year out. We have time to rethink how we choose our ambassadors,” Byndley says.
I’d thought removing every piece of identifying information and letting the facts speak for themselves was going to work out best. Yes, we have a diverse group of individuals, especially once I see them in person. It proves that when you take all identifying information out—everything—when pulling from an already diverse pool, you’re going to get a pretty rainbow of individuals.
We’re already a queer campus, so I knew that selecting queer students was going to be easy. It was highly unlikely that I’d endup with a group of self-proclaimed straight students. Though, on a side note, we conduct surveys of our students every year for research purposes with a lot of demographic information, and I’m surprised to see that only seventeen percent of our student body identifies as straight.
Likewise, when that same research survey is given to the staff, only three percent identify as straight. One of the most interesting questions on the survey is a progressive question that begins with how long they’ve been with RDU and whether they’ve changed how they identify, and based on what factors.
Overwhelmingly, the answer is that they’ve allowed themselves to embrace the things that they’ve refused to acknowledge about themselves because the environment they came from wasn’t supportive. Sadly, ‘not supportive’ is terminology I use when most comments are more in line with them coming from hostile environments.
Anyway, I have a truly diverse sample of my university’s population. What I don’t have is a personality check. I guarantee that if Byndley or I had known that this was the behavior we’d see within the first twelve hours of this trip, those problematic individuals would not have been invited.
“Perhaps not put it to a vote, but select your handful of finalists and then give the staff some time to weigh in,” Zarek says.
“Before you see them, Kendrick. I like the method of choosing. You went in completely blind. But I agree. Considering you and I are largely isolated from the student body, Zarek’s suggestion makes a lot of sense.”
I frown. Not because I disagree but because I don’t like one part of that. “Maybe that needs to change.”
