What We Left Behind

by Robin Talley

  “No,” I say.

  “So, what, she’s just a butch lesbian?”

  The truth is, I’m not really clear on where the lines are between all these things. I was always afraid I’d say the wrong thing if I asked Toni too much about the details.

  “No,” I say. “Toni hates the word lesbian.”

  “So, what is she?”

  “It’s complicated.” I’m getting tired now. “You should look it up sometime. Genderqueer. It’s, like, a really well-known word.”

  “Right. Okay. I’ll look it up.”

  I should look it up again, too. I read some stuff online back when Toni first told me about it, but I got kind of anxious reading all that, because it seemed really complicated, and I couldn’t figure out where Toni and I fit in. So I stopped reading. That was more than a year ago.

  This whole conversation is making me feel really guilty. Not just because I outed Toni to Carroll, though I’m kind of wishing now that I hadn’t done that, either. But talking about Toni at all just reminds me of what I did. Of how Toni looked at me last night.

  I need more distractions.

  So I show Carroll yearbook pictures and tell him more about my friends back home. He’s shocked by how many gay people went to our high school.

  “I think it was partly because it was an all-girl school,” I say. “Going across the street to the guys’ school was so much effort. People got lazy.”

  “At my school, I was the only one,” he says.

  “That you know of.”

  “No. I’m positive. It was a small school. Everybody knew everybody’s business.”

  He’s got to be totally wrong, but I let it go. “Were you out?”

  “No, but everyone knew anyway. It sucked.” He sticks his lip out in a fake pout. “Do your parents know?”

  “Yeah. I told them the summer before ninth grade.”

  “Wow.” He shakes his head. “Do your girlfriend’s parents know, too?”

  “Yeah. Well, not totally. Toni’s out to them as gay, but not as genderqueer.”

  “Is she going to tell them?”

  This one I do know the answer to.

  “Not at least until college is over,” I say. “Toni’s mother is awful. She’s this total rich bitch. She practically kicked Toni out of the house just for being gay.”

  For some reason, Carroll smiles.

  “Hey, are you hungry?” He stands up. “I’m starving.”

  “Yeah.” Now that he’s mentioned it, I’m starving, too. “Is there a vending machine?”

  “Who cares? We’re in New York! They have twenty-four-hour delis here.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. He’s like a little kid.

  We take the elevator down fourteen floors again and go outside. I’ve forgotten how much I missed New York at night. Even the stores that have their shutters pulled down for the night still have their signs lit. People are walking down the sidewalk in groups, laughing. I’m going to miss this next semester.

  There’s a deli at the end of the block. We pick out ice cream and crackers and peanut M&Ms. At the counter, Carroll asks the clerk for a box of condoms.

  I laugh. “What, you think you’re getting lucky tonight?”

  “You never know who you’ll meet at breakfast,” he says, all mysterious.

  We stop by Carroll’s room so he can drop off his stuff. Juan’s honking snores are so loud we can hear him from the hallway. This sends me into a giggle fit.

  “Shh,” Carroll whispers. “I don’t need to give him any more reasons to hate me.”

  “Why do you think he hates you?” I ask on the walk back to my room.

  “He’s a jock. Jocks always hate me.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “It’s in the jock DNA. It’s like, jocks are born with a fear of falling, a taste for Pabst Blue Ribbon and a powerful hatred of Carroll Ostrowski.”

  I laugh and push open my door. The light is out. Strange—it was on when we left.

  Then I see a dark shape on one of the beds.

  “Crap! She’s alive!” Carroll stage-whispers behind me.

  “Shh!”

  Wow. I’d forgotten I even had a roommate.

  “Mom? Is that you?” the lump on the bed mutters.

  Carroll loses it.

  I shove him back out the door before his echoing laughs can wake up Samantha. I grab a blanket out of the nearest open laundry basket, dart out into the hall and lock the door behind us.

  “Sorry about that,” Carroll says, but we’re both cracking up now.

  We go to the lounge at the end of the hall. It’s not much bigger than my room, but it has a microwave and a TV and a couple of unsanitary-looking couches. I find spoons for our ice cream and Carroll turns on the Food Network. It’s a show about waffles. We sit on the least gross couch and eat ice cream out of the cartons with my blanket spread over our laps.

  “It’s like a sleepover,” I say. “We should’ve gotten popcorn.”

  “Should we go wake up your roommate and invite her?” he says.

  “Only if we get your roommate, too,” I say. “Except then he’d just be honking in here.”

  “Yeah, it’s better with just us,” he says.

  We watch the waffles bake in silence for a while. Then Carroll asks, “So, what do you do for fun when you’re not eating ice cream and watching the Food Network with your new best friend?”

  I laugh. “Back home, you know, the usual. Hanging out, parties. I played volleyball and did debate all through high school.”

  “Oh, no, you’re a jock, too,” he says. “Are you playing here?”

  “No way. College volleyball is crazy intense. Besides, I was never really a jock. I liked playing, and I guess I was pretty good at it, but it was never my absolute favorite thing. Not like with you and theater.”

  “Why do you assume I’m obsessed with theater? Just because I could sing you the entire score of Wicked right now?”

  I smack his arm and bounce in my seat. “I used to love that show! I’ve seen it, like, thirty times at the Gershwin. What’s your favorite song? Mine used to be ‘Popular’ but it’s so overdone. I think now I like ‘For Good’ more.”

  “What?” Carroll isn’t bouncing with me. “You saw it here in New York? I thought you were from Maryland?”

  “I am. Well, my family lives in the DC suburbs now, but I lived in Brooklyn until two years ago.”

  He looks pissed. “Wait, you’re from New York? Have you been secretly laughing at me this whole time for being such a tourist?”

  “No!” Then I remember. “Okay, yeah, I did a little bit when you got so excited about the deli, but only in the nicest possible way.” I smile and tilt my head on his shoulder. “Come on, you can’t be mad at me. You’re my only friend here!”

  “That’s true.” He settles back. I guess everything’s okay now.

  We watch the waffle show for a while longer. I’m getting tired. I sink down lower on the couch and pull the blanket up to my chin.

  Carroll is quiet for another minute. Then he slides down next to me and pulls the blanket up over our heads. I laugh sleepily. It’s so dark under here, all I can see of his face is his nose and his eyebrows. The reek of cigarette smoke is strong.

  Now that it’s quiet, I can’t help thinking about Toni again. About what I did. God. I’m a truly horrible person. I don’t see how I can ever make this right.

  “Look,” Carroll says, as if he can hear my thoughts. “We’re in college now. It’s going to be amazing. This’ll be a totally different universe from high school. We’ll have nonstop fun from tomorrow through May. I guarantee you.”

  I nod against his shoulder. I think about seeing Toni the day after tomorrow, and how maybe co
llege doesn’t need to be completely different from high school.

  “Besides, you know what the most important thing is?” he asks. “The key reason college is going to be so amazing, for you in particular?”

  “What?” I say, already smiling because I think I know his answer.

  “You have me,” he says, kissing me on the cheek with a loud smack.

  3

  SEPTEMBER

  FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE

  1 WEEK APART

  TONI

  I dodge an unusually aggressive squirrel as I cross Cambridge Street and take out my phone to text my roommate. I’m going to be late for lunch. Ebony will probably already have eaten and be long gone by the time I get there. Ebony’s on the varsity tennis team and inhales food by the shovelful.

  I played tennis in high school, too. I even thought I was good. Until I saw Ebony play.

  Ebony is cool, though. Vastly superior to our other roommates. We all moved in a week ago, and right away Ebony and I decided we should share the smaller of the two bedrooms in our suite, and let Felicia and Joanna have the bigger one. We avoid running into them in our shared common room as much as we can. In return, Joanna and Felicia use their alone time to complain about Ebony and me. (We know. You can hear everything through the walls in this place.)

  Sure enough, when I get to our usual table near the front of the dining hall, there’s already an empty food tray in front of Ebony, who’s wearing gym clothes and munching on a protein bar.

  “Sorry.” Ebony sweeps a manicured hand over the tray, indicating the plates full of crumbs and salsa splotches. “I was about to starve to death. I’ll sit with you while you eat, though.”

  “You don’t have to,” I say. “I should be reading Race and Politics.”

  “Classes have barely started,” Ebony says. “Stop being such a psycho overachiever and go get some food. The only thing you need to know about race and politics is that white people suck.”

  “Totally.” I stand up. “Want anything?”

  “A banana, maybe? Actually, make that two bananas.”

  My phone buzzes with a text while I’m in the food line. Gretchen.

  Hey remember I told u about Briana from debate?? Crazy Texas chick w big hair?? Guess what she’s here!!! In my nat sci lab.

  Yeah. I remember Briana.

  Briana was the star of the national high school debate circuit. Gretchen ran into Briana at tournament after tournament over the past couple of years. They started out as rivals but they got to be friends, sort of.

  Here’s what Gretchen told me about Briana: One, Briana was a cheerleader during the off-season. Two, Briana was hot. Three, Briana was brilliant. Four, and best of all, Briana was gay.

  Now Briana’s at NYU.

  Not that it matters. Sure, Briana gets to see Gretchen every day, but that doesn’t mean anything will happen. Obviously. I trust Gretchen. Mostly.

  No, not mostly. I do trust Gretchen. Gretchen only kept the NYU thing a secret to avoid hurting me.

  I understand. For real, I do.

  I just wish I could force my brain to stop obsessing about it so much.

  Gretchen sent me an email the day we left with a list of bus times, but I said I thought we should wait a week before our first visit. I said it was because we needed time to settle in, but the truth was, I also wanted time to figure out what all this meant. How we’d wound up hundreds of miles apart instead of across the river from each other like we’d planned.

  I mean, I’m not one of those people who would insist my girlfriend go to a certain school just to be closer to me. I’m not some Neanderthal.

  But, damn, this sucks.

  What if Gretchen meets someone in New York? What if stupid Briana from Texas screws up everything we have?

  Why couldn’t Gretchen just leave well enough alone?

  I text Gretchen about how funny it is that Briana’s at NYU. Then I pick up my burger and fries, and trudge back to where Ebony’s drinking from an enormous water bottle. I manage not to slam my tray down on the table, but it’s hard.

  I hate being mad.

  “You’re lucky you can eat that crap.” Ebony takes the bananas and gestures to my tray, stealing a french fry at the same time. “You’re so skinny. What do you weigh, ninety pounds?”

  “More than that,” I say. Five pounds more than that.

  Ebony whistles. “I know girls that would kill to look like you.”

  Yeah.

  Except for the part where I don’t want to look like a girl. At least, not most of the time.

  Like, for example, I have this enormously complicated relationship with my chest.

  I’m told most people have complicated relationships with their chests. My sister reads Cosmo and Marie Claire, so I’ve absorbed via osmosis the insecurities you’re supposed to have about different body parts. If you have breasts, they’re either too big or too small. They stick up too much or they hang down too far. Your nipples can be too pointy or not pointy enough. There are so many ways your breasts can be weird that I doubt anyone thinks they have normal, acceptable breasts.

  I can’t relate to any of those problems, though. My problems are more like...sometimes, I wish my breasts weren’t there.

  It isn’t as if I hate them. Sometimes I almost like them. I usually don’t want anyone else to notice them, though. Most days I wear loose-fitting tops and sports bras and try not to think about it.

  It’s worst in the summer, when there are pool parties and water parks and trips to the beach and all those other torturous hot-weather activities. I’ll do whatever it takes to avoid wearing a bathing suit in front of other people. It’s creepy, when you think about it, that people will strip down in front of complete strangers just because it’s warm out. I’ve always found air conditioning vastly preferable.

  There are things that can be done about breasts. There’s chest-binding. And then there’s top surgery.

  Surgery just seems so...extreme. So permanent. My chest is part of me. It’s bizarre to think about getting rid of a part of myself, forever.

  Except—people get rid of parts of themselves all the time. Isn’t that what shaving is? Cutting your hair? Getting your ears pierced? It’s all costume. Fitting in to what society expects. Gender’s no different.

  It’s exhausting, thinking about all this. It’s easier to talk it through. But Gretchen is the only person I’ve really talked to about this stuff so far, and even Gretchen can’t totally relate. My girlfriend’s great at listening, but I can never tell how much Gretchen really understands.

  “T? T, are you there?” Ebony’s been calling me T lately. It makes me homesick. “Are you listening?”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “You always get that look on your face when you’re missing the honey,” Ebony says. “Is it that bad?”

  I shake my head. “I can handle it,” I say, though I’m not actually sure that’s true.

  We didn’t get to talk last night. Chris and Steven are having issues again, so I spent hours online with Chris instead. I resisted the urge to say I told you so. Instead I read over drafts of the long email Chris was planning to send explaining why open relationships weren’t a good idea. I also listened patiently and tried to offer helpful tips while Chris ranted about some hot freshman interloper at Stanford who had the audacity to be named Elvis. (Seriously, only Steven would find a guy named Elvis attractive.)

  It’s been a week since Gretchen and I last saw each other, though, and I hadn’t realized how lonely it would feel. Even with how complicated everything’s gotten, I still wish I could see Gretchen. I wish we could touch. I need someone I can be honest with. Someone I don’t have to act around.

  I thought talking on video chat would help. We were used to that since we talked online every night back h
ome. But it’s completely different, talking from my dorm room to Gretchen’s dorm room instead of talking from one house to another.

  Back home, I knew Gretchen’s room almost as well as my own. When we talked I could see Gretchen stretched out on the bed, ankles crossed, lips twitching into the camera. I could pretend I was right there, my arm around Gretchen’s shoulders, my lips moving in for a kiss.

  When we talk now, Gretchen’s dorm room looks wrong. Alien. White painted cinder block walls and brand-new Target sheets on the bed, still showing the wrinkles from their cellophane wrapper. I’ve never leaned back against those walls or felt those sheets against my skin.

  I can’t imagine being in that room. I can’t imagine seeing Gretchen in my tiny bedroom, either, with the ancient bunk beds and the obnoxious roommates cackling on the other side of the door.

  I don’t know. Maybe it’s not about our dorm rooms at all. But I don’t want to think about what else it might be.

  “Well, you’re way better than me,” Ebony says. “I was online with Zach for six hours last night. Almost slept through class.”

  “Crap, that sucks.” Long-distance relationships. Hatred of our roommates. Tennis. This is what people bond over in college, I’m finding.

  I like Ebony, but we’re not exactly BFFs. I’m pretty sure Ebony’s just nice to me because I don’t have any other friends here. I just haven’t figured out how to meet people yet. At least, not people I actually want to hang out with.

  Everything will be easier if Gretchen transfers to BU. I can’t imagine making it even one semester on my own here.

  “So, do you know what groups you’re signing up for?” Ebony asks.

  I shrug. “Mostly.”

  The campus activities fair is this afternoon. Ebony and I spent breakfast going through the list of student organizations. Now we’re about to come face-to-face with the upperclassmen who run all the clubs, and I’m getting nervous.

  “What’ll you do if you get hit on at the UBA table?” Ebony asks. “Tell them you’re already taken or play it cool?”

  “That,” I say, “is the least of my worries.”

  Before I’d even gotten accepted to Harvard I already knew I wanted to join the Undergraduate BGLTQIA Association. (It stands for Undergraduate Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Asexual Association. I think. Actually, I get confused about what some of the letters stand for. They seem to change a lot.)