He pulled his zippo out from my black leather purse and lit another Chester. I waited him to swear at me, to shout out what kind of a s*** I am and to make sure he is clear about I am nothing without him.  But this time, he chose to surprise me.

I watched him taking a drag from his half burnt cigarette, tried to French-inhale. Then, he opened his mouth, turned his slanting, bloodshot, cement colored eyes to me and said, ”I just can’t stand it anymore. Your jealousy, it is killing me. Anytime I go out with a friend who shares the same gender with you, you respond with the same grudging face. Just get over it; it is not like I am sleeping with the girl?” By the time words passed his lips, I dreamed of nothing but tasting them. Not that I wasn’t listening to him, but at that time my lips would suit better to his rather than words. ”I am sickened tired of wrangling with my friends about your hemline, your fully transparent tights or your endless spiteful days. Can’t you just be like …’s girlfriend and stop talking like a girl around my friends.” Dampen every single tissue on those seductive lips and bite it afterwards. His eyes scanned me from head to foot as if they wanted to say something,” I can’t even imagine having a sister or a daughter like you, your dad and brother must be ashamed of you. Actually, you know what?  If you were a boy, I wouldn’t give a f*** to your s****y behaviors. But the thing is you are not a boy, so at least try to act like one. ” Wisps of silver grey smoke surrounded his lips and- , wait what? My logic was inadequate to reason the bullshit he just said. I gazed at him to find an answer or an apology, but his phone’s ringtone cut off my thoughts as he spared no pain to reply me.  I dropped my eyes to the street, tried to focus on the dusty pavement.  My mind was blowing, like if there was this hidden part of me wondering a single question all along. I didn’t want to consider the fact that he might be right; that maybe I should stop acting like a girl. My tongue hesitated to say it out loud and my ears was in a quandary as to decide whether hearing or not. So, I whispered to my only listener, to my consciousness. “What If I were a boy?”

Heaps of thoughts came up to my mind; ones that including myself, ones that I had to stand as a bystander, ones that placed in the history and so on.

If I were a boy, I wouldn’t have to carry a pepper spray every time I go out.  If I were a boy, I wouldn’t spend hours front of the wardrobe to decide which of these clothes can help me to avoid from those perverts who rape women not just physically, but also with their vigilant eyes and salivated mouths to pass a word and satisfy themselves especially on the street corners or subways.  If I were a boy, I wouldn’t be stamped as a w**** by my neighbors just because they saw me entering home in a late hour.  If I were a boy, a close touch to someone I like would not make me the s*** and I wouldn’t get confronted for it. If I were a boy, physical attraction, love and sex would be the beauty of my soul and astral body, not the stigma of my chastity.  If I were a boy, I wouldn’t work twice as much hard in order to convince my father that I am worth being educated.  If I were a boy, I wouldn’t be an embarrassment for the family when my mother delivered me as a girl. If I were a boy, I wouldn’t be taken away from my crib to fill my place with a real child, with a boy that would carry the father’s surname to the further line of the family. If I were a boy, I wouldn’t see my mother get killed or tortured because she gave birth to me, to a girl. If I were a boy, I wouldn’t be exposed to genital mutilation, when I was still at the age of innocence, to make sure I am not taking pleasure during sexual intercourse, not that I would dare to do that. And I wouldn’t get covered my tiny body with cloying smell of bloody, frosty soil and buried to the ground alive while gasping for a breath which already surrounded by the dancing figures of death and my fellows; butterflies, just because I weren’t a boy. There were thousands of women, girls, babies who underwent over these conditions. And here I was, crushing my pride for a chauvinist pig that wants me to give up on my personality .I closed my eyes with the awareness of how I’ve been underestimated for all this time because of that single matter, my gender.  How fair was it to judge and discriminate a human being under the pretense of our sex, to determine the value of our livability? Being a girl is something we didn’t get to choose.  Something we should never regret about. And something that should never be held against us.

He took the last deep drag from his cigarette, exhaled the smoke into the bleak air, rubbed it on his left arm slightly and threw it to the ground. There was no rational excuse for me to stay, but I just wasn’t one of those people who formed of straight logic. Sitting beside him in silence, cannot find the courage to respond nor talk. At that moment, I had to say something.  Scream in his face that there is no such a thing as “if I were a boy”. Force him to understand that our problem wasn’t my gender or its “handicaps”.  Tell him that I am proud of myself and ain’t going to change to become his stereotypical girl; ingenuous, defenseless and mawkish.  Reset his narrow-minded thoughts and relieve him from that abysmal ignorance. Eventually, I raised my head, sandwiched my chapped hands between my legs and looked towards his eyes. I wanted to speak, defend myself, and disprove him. But I didn’t, maybe I couldn’t, not sure. My vision got blurred reluctantly; words stuck in my throat as the salty water tickled my eyes. I hated myself, hated every single segment of my body and soul.  Disgusted with my weakness and idiocy.  But the funny thing was, even this whole desolation stayed with me.  I stood numb in his embrace, knew that his warmth was insufficient to fill the gap and suppress the screams inside my conscience. His velvet itchy brown coat irritated my wet cheeks while the mainstream smoke was triggering my asthma. By the time I allowed him to wrap me harsher, my innocence merged and finally vanished with my tears.  I gave him the right to console this vulnerable girl.  I deserved it. From that moment, the underdog was no longer me.My body dwindled in his brawny arms as the regret inside me greatened. Then, he up righted his back unconsciously, thickened his voice, looked down upon me like we were so far away, “Don’t worry, you will always be my poor little girl, I will always be there to wipe your tears...” The unintentional irony in his words putted a wry smile on my rueful face.