It really is.
Not to mention, it’ll never work.
That may all be true, but I’m still me. I’m still going to go for it. It worked with Andi. Maybe there’s a chance with this too?
Chapter 40: Andi
Ipull at my skirt, wishing it was longer and less fitted in the thighs. I’m more muscular than I have been in years, which means I feel like a stuffed sausage in this pencil skirt that I bought for job interviews when I got out of PT school.
I’m a little unsteady on my black pumps, not used to such a narrow, unstable shoe.
I don’t know what one is supposed to wear for a disciplinary hearing, but I imagine it’s like this. I feel like I’m playing dress-up.
No matter how many times I write out my statement of the events since the beginning of July with my first head refereeing game, I can see the truth in my words. I might as well put a heart-eyes emoji every time I write Brandon’s name and dot the “i” in Nix with an oversized heart. That’s how obvious it is.
Life was much easier when I was invisible. When I didn’t take up space and when no one saw me. I could pass neatly through, unnoticed.
This is messy.
I flip the page in my yellow legal pad. This is the page of the number calculations. This is why I have to be messy.
I want justice.
I know life isn’t fair. I know it all too well. If life were fair, Benj wouldn’t have SMA. I wouldn’t have had to grow up feeling that I couldn’t voice discontent about anything because it didn’t compare to what my brother was going through. I wouldn’t be so worried about my parents’ stress that I never let them see my needs.
This isn’t about that kind of fairness.
This is about gender equality.
I don’t know how long the USSLRA thought they could get away with it. I’m guessing for a while. Maybe it’s why they’ve been so slow to hire women, even when their professional counterpart, the British Football League, has been diversifying for years.
James York is waiting for me in the parking lot of the USSLRA headquarters. I come here at least three times a year for performance reviews, fitness tests, and professional development. This place has always filled me with excitement.
Until today.
What if I lose it all?
