How the Netflix Show 'Heartstopper' Made Me Cry in the Shower, aged 46
Listen, it wasn’t really your fault, Nick Nelson. It was just that your boyish face was so earnest and sincere in your confusion, but then all you had to do was reach for a thing like a laptop and go on the internet and look up ‘am I bisexual?’ as easy as pie. And I know it wasn’t really easy, Nick, but were you an Indian girl in a 1980s childhood where your family pretended intimacy didn’t exist, but the screen was full of white people kissing as casually as drinking water? And when you came out to Olivia Colman, she hit the parental nail on the head, didn’t she? You didn’t have to tidy your inconvenient parts away, draw a frame around yourself kajal-thick, braid expectations into yourself with cloying buds of jasmine. Did you spend hours in front of the Ardhanari – half-man-half-woman, wondering how a culture that produces such undivided beauty can refuse to acknowledge the blurred lines in yourself? I look back at my childhood like a person with cancer trying to figure out the signs they missed, Nick. And I remember my childhood friend who pulled me to her, taught me to explore all her hidden places, then shunned me when there were others watching. I remember someone just like that Ardhanari – muscular lines, but with the gentle, milky light of the moon in their eyes. I remember turning away from them, to my rightful place. I remember someone saying she loved all humans, regardless of gender. And I remember saying to her, sure as my dragging shame, that she was probably just undecided. I remember how she laughed at me, putting her hand on my arm, and how the place burned for years afterwards. I’ve always been on the shore, waves lapping at my feet like a persistent pest. I love swimming, Nick – but isn’t there always a jagged rock waiting to pierce unsuspecting skin? I don’t know how it’ll go, Nick Nelson. I don’t know if I will ever be able to fully realise my burning need to feel a woman’s skin on mine, to hear her moan hot in my ear. I just know that you flipped a switch – well, Alice Oseman did, but isn’t that the point? Haven’t I been playing a character my whole life? Anyway, you flipped a switch, and there’s no flipping it back.
Beeper Peddle is a writer and healer living on the East Coast. She lives with her partner and their beloved soul puppy. Beeper writes about sorrows, lies, and deep loves. When you read her work, you will dip down into her heart and end up in all manner of body parts. Should you find yourself reflected in these words, it is merely coincidence; however, it does not surprise her you share the same heart. Find her at bethpeddle.com and @beeperpeddle on Twitter and Instagram
Sumitra Singam (she/her) is a Malaysian-Indian-Australian coconut who writes in Naarm/Melbourne. She travelled through many spaces, both beautiful and traumatic to get there and writes to make sense of her experiences. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?). She works in mental health. You can find her and her other publication credits on twitter: @pleomorphic2
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