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But also, has anything really changed, other than me?

I am seven years old, and my English teacher demands to see my mother. My English teacher says, ‘your daughter keeps using the wrong English words. They are too advanced for her level. The correct answer is ‘buy’ but she says ‘purchase’. I have no choice but to mark her wrong. Obviously she is not failing because she is not good at English, but because she doesn’t know the right answers.’

At that point, I know: I am in love with a girl. I am seven years old. I’ll never have the right answers. My country will never accept me. I am too autistic, too weird, too queer. I will keep using big words.

My mother says, ‘Yes, I barely understand anything she says or writes in English, but it seems important, and you seem wrong.’

When I go home and cry and complain to my grandfather, he just laughs and says, baby, you can always find another home you like, just like I did.

I am forty years old. I am eight thousand and eight hundred miles away from where I was born.

Forteen hundred and one hundred and sixty two kilometres.