What We Left Behind. Robin Talley
fingers curl and uncurl, the nails digging into my palm, but I hold my hand down low where they can’t see.
“Relax,” Audrey says. “It’s just college. Whatever. Afterward you can get married and have your little picket fence and adopt a hundred Chinese babies and be the most boring, stable couple on the planet, like you’ve always been.”
I try to smile. Coming from my sister, that’s a compliment.
When we were kids, Audrey and I used to say we were BFFs. The truth is, though, for a long time, I’ve felt much closer to Gretchen than I ever felt to Audrey or even Chris. Gretchen knows me better than anyone ever has or ever could.
Like with the gender stuff. I’ve never been able to talk to anyone but Gretchen about that.
Gretchen’s always listened and never, ever judged. When I first said I was genderqueer, Gretchen was so cool with everything, I couldn’t believe it. When I said I wanted to stop using gendered pronouns, Gretchen didn’t laugh once. It was never an issue between us at all.
I couldn’t imagine telling anyone else about that. Audrey was out of the question, because what if Mom overheard? I couldn’t tell Chris, either, because Chris was the ultimate joiner—a member of every sports team at the guys’ high school and half the clubs, too. Chris would’ve founded an interschool Transgender-Cisgender Alliance and ordered trans and nontrans folks to hold gender-neutral-themed softball tournaments and car-wash fund-raisers. And that would’ve been the final straw that made my mother officially disinherit me.
Back in ninth grade, when I first came out about liking girls, my mother told me I was in a “rebellious phase.” As far as Mom was concerned, this was yet another attempt on my part to torment my family. It got so bad I had to leave home and stay at a friend’s house for a week. I can only imagine what my mother would consider my real motive if I announced that I wasn’t even a girl in the first place.
So when I needed to talk about that stuff, I needed Gretchen.
I still need Gretchen now. It’ll take a lot more than a couple hundred miles between us to change that.
It’ll take more than a couple of lies, too.
Gretchen’s chin is still quivering. I put my finger in the dimple there, and Gretchen laughs. Only a small laugh, but it’s something.
This will be okay. If I just keep telling myself that, it’ll have to be the truth.
“Hey, this way we get to prove that the urban legend about long-distance college relationships is dead wrong,” I say.
Gretchen’s smile is almost too bright this time. “That has always been my number-one goal in life!”
I laugh, but now I’m actually thinking about it kind of seriously.
I’m pretty sure that rule—the don’t-go-to-college-with-a-girlfriend-back-home-unless-you-want-to-get-cheated-on-and-break-up-immediately rule—is just about casual relationships. Once they’re in different places, people in relationships like that probably get distracted as soon as someone new and shiny shows up in their dining hall. None of that has anything to do with Gretchen and me.
Plus, we’ll only be apart for a semester. After that, Gretchen can transfer back up to Boston, and college will be just like we always pictured it.
I squeeze Gretchen’s hand. The quiver in Gretchen’s chin has been replaced by that smile I love so much.
I lead us back toward the house, trying to think of a nice way to tell Chris and Audrey it’s time for them to go.
Gretchen and I still have tonight.
A few more hours until our world is scheduled to turn upside down.
AUGUST
FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE
1 DAY APART
GRETCHEN
I’m in New York now. So I have to do New York things.
There’s no point thinking about other stuff. Especially not about the car ride up here. About crying quietly in the backseat while Mom and Dad droned on about meal plans and registration. About how I wouldn’t let them help me unpack and basically shoved them out of my dorm room as soon as we got here. About how now I’m sitting on a bare mattress surrounded by boxes and laundry baskets full of towels and a suitcase full of jeans and old stuffed animals, waiting for the tears to start again.
There’s no point thinking about Toni up at Harvard. Being all smart and wearing wool scarves and doing whatever else it is people do up there.
Being mad at me.
Because, yeah, Toni’s mad. I’ve never seen Toni as mad as I did last night.
It’s all my fault. I lied. I spent a week acting like I was going up to Boston even when I’d already made up my mind. I spent months not mentioning I’d even applied here.
I just couldn’t do it. Tell the truth. I tried and tried, but I could never say the words.
Toni was so excited about college. About finally getting away from all the crap back home and living the life T had always dreamed of. I didn’t want to ruin that.
Instead I made it a thousand times worse.
I’ve got to find a way to make this up to Toni.
It seemed so important before. Coming here. Coming home.
Now it just seems stupid. How am I going to make it through a whole semester until I transfer? I can barely make it through a single day without Toni.
No. Thinking about that won’t help. I need to focus on fixing this. Making Toni forgive me.
I looked up the bus schedules from New York to Boston in the car, and I sent Toni a long email with a list of times I could go up there this weekend. Today’s Thursday, so I figure I could go up on Saturday morning. That way we’ll have had only two days apart, which seems like a good way to start. I figure for the first few weeks I can go up there instead of Toni coming down here. It’s the least I can do. The very least.
I haven’t heard back from my email yet, but Toni’s texted me twelve times since I got here anyway. Mostly funny stories about stuff the flight attendants said or jokes about how scary Boston cabdrivers are.
Maybe things will start to be all right. Maybe.
God, though. I’ve never seen Toni look the way T did last night. Like I’d just destroyed everything that was good in our world.
A random guy sticks his head inside the door of my dorm room. I jump up off the mattress, alarmed.
Then I remember my door is propped open. Everyone else’s doors were propped open and I figured it was the thing to do.
The guy grins at me. I try to smile back.
“Hey,” he says. “They told me there was a blond girl in this room.”
“They told you right,” I say.
“A bunch of us are going to a comedy club. Floor trip. We’re meeting downstairs in five.”
“Okay, cool.”
The guy leaves.
Perfect. A distraction!
Wait. Can I really just...leave? What about Toni? What about what I did?
I should really just sit here for the rest of the night. I don’t deserve distractions.
My phone buzzes. Another text from Toni.
My roommate and I are going to some burger place. What r u doing tonight?
Oh. Well, I guess if Toni’s going out, it’s OK for me to go out, too. I text back about the comedy show. Toni writes back right away.
Don’t