Knight in Purple Hair

written by Rhea | graphics by Ian Haliburton | layout by Alex Modiano, Angel Coronado

It was a lazy Thursday morning, and I was completing my Chemistry homework at school. Mallika sat next to me, helping with the calculations. With our heads huddled together and our concentration allowing nothing but equations in its radius, we were blindly unaware of the gradually increasing chatter in the class. A collective jeer had been bubbling up for quite some time now, and by the time we realized its magnitude, it was too late.

“Can you girls just stop with all the PDA?” someone shouted in our direction.

We looked up, clueless. It took us a couple of seconds to realize our relationship was under fire.

“It’s none of your…” Mallika tried to deflect the bullet, but was silenced by laughs across the class. She tried to speak again, but she couldn’t be heard over the chaos anymore. The taunts had multiplied — it seemed like everyone had been holding in an irrational homophobic discomfort, waiting to seep out all this time.

I burned red with fury, but I knew nothing I said would make a difference now. Mallika held on to my hand firmly, ensuring I didn’t act wildly.

“It’s okay,” she kept whispering to me. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay to me. I wanted to shout over their laughter. I wanted to ask them what was so wrong with loving someone unconditionally. I wanted to walk out of class and never come back.

Before I could act on any of my raging thoughts, I heard someone in the crowd roar, “STOP IT, YOU ALL.”

It was one of my classmates, someone I barely talked to. Someone who barely knew us. She took charge of the situation and whisked the people away from us, threatening to complain to the teacher if anybody tried to rebel.

I didn’t really get to thank her — I was too muddle-headed that day. I simply looked at her with eyes full of tears and a smile full of gratitude.

That day I realized not all heroes wear capes, but instead sport braces and messy, purple hair. Not all heroes are celebrated publicly — some are forgotten in small classrooms. And not all heroes are born a hero: some are simply heroes because they choose to be.

This is for all those friends who protected us from dirty eyes, all those relatives who stood up for our happiness, and all those strangers who didn’t mock us as we held hands. Heroes are often just humans who acted human when nobody else did.