So this story takes place (yikes) almost a decade ago.
I knew this woman in undergrad who was, well…boyish. Not *tom*boyish, just small (~4’11”) and a little scrawny and thin and sharp-featured and flat-chested and deep-voiced, and definitely got teased about all of it. Same haircut as my whitebread, generic midwestern ass. She had the sort of personality that was constantly trying to hide behind itself as a result. She was always smart as a whip though—she’s a particle physicist somewhere in Texas now, researching something I can’t even begin to comprehend. We found each other in freshman year because we were both in advanced placement French classes with juniors and seniors, and both shy sort of dweebs. Somehow we managed to negotiate our mutual social anxiety and become friends, mostly by procrastinating on our French homework by watching Futurama.
We’ll call her Nat, although the truth was that she has a very androgynous name and got hell for that, too.