by Robin Talley
I sigh, too. “It really wasn’t a big deal.”
“You told all your other friends.”
“The guys always want to talk about this stuff. It just comes up.”
“I want to talk about this stuff with you, too.”
“I know, but...”
“Is it because you wanted to get back at me? For keeping a secret from you, about NYU?”
“What? No! It has nothing to do with that!”
“Because I’d understand if it was.” Gretchen’s voice is soft. “I know you’re probably still mad.”
“I’m not mad! I was never mad to begin with.” I reach around to scratch my back. The binder is itching like crazy. And it’s hot in here. How did I never notice how hot it is in here?
I lean back on the bed, resting my head against the wall. The hard masonry digs into my scalp. I’ll have to clean the smears of hair gel off it in the morning before Ebony gets back. I need it to ground me if we’re going to have this conversation, though.
Gretchen’s watching me, tears starting to form. Oh, God.
“Come here,” I say.
Gretchen lies down and puts her head in my lap. I pull strands of Gretchen’s hair between my fingers.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me,” Gretchen says, still in that soft, sweet voice. “I don’t want it to be, like, an obligation. It’s just, if you’re going to be not telling me stuff, especially the big stuff, then—could you maybe tell me up front that you’re not going to tell me? I don’t want any more surprises like that.”
“I didn’t mean to not tell you. I just—didn’t tell you. I guess. Does that make sense?”
“I don’t know.”
I wish I could see Gretchen’s face. I try to weave her hair into a braid, but my fingers are still fumbling from Nance’s damn punch. I settle for stroking it instead.
“I mean,” I begin, then stop. I don’t know how to explain this.
Usually I think about everything for a long time before I say what I’m thinking out loud to anyone. This time I broke tradition. One night when we were studying in the guys’ room, I looked up from texting with my sister about the essay she was writing for AP government and said, “I think I might like gender nonconforming better than genderqueer, actually.” Derek and Eli smiled. Nance rolled her eyes, gave me a thumbs-up and went back to her reading.
It was that simple.
Except nothing about this has ever been simple, really.
“It’s like this is all I think about anymore.” I don’t meet Gretchen’s eyes as I say the words. “Even when I’m not thinking about it, I’m thinking about it. I spend so much time talking about it, too. It sort of comes up naturally when I’m with Derek and my friends. It’s so normal, talking about it with him, that sometimes I forget what a big deal this stuff actually is. Wait, I’m messing up more pronouns, crap.”
“Yeah, you are. What was in that punch?”
“I don’t know, but you recovered from it a lot faster than I did.”
“I didn’t have that much. I was faking before so your friends would let us leave. Not that I don’t like them, but I’m not here for very much longer, and I want to spend time with you.”
“Yeah.” I nod and take Gretchen’s hand.
“Look, I understand what you’re saying. I think it’s great that this is all coming naturally to you. It’s just—please, remember you can talk to me, too, okay? Derek’s not the only one here who cares about you.”
Gretchen is crying. I want to cry, too.
“Come up here,” I whisper.
We kiss. A long, slow kiss. We aren’t frantic now, the way we were this afternoon. This time we’re kissing because we have something to prove to each other. To ourselves.
And because kissing is the easiest way to be close to each other.
And because we don’t know what else to do.
“I love you,” I say. That feels different this time, too.
“I love you, too.”
We kiss some more. Then we keep going until talking isn’t an option.
I’ve never kept anything from Gretchen before.
It isn’t only about the labels, either. That’s important, but it isn’t as important as some of the other stuff I’ve been thinking about. And talking to Derek about. And writing about in the privacy-locked journal I started a few weeks back.
It doesn’t mean I don’t love Gretchen. I do. I always will. Gretchen is a part of me. But that doesn’t mean Gretchen can understand all the other parts of me.
And. And. And what I said before was a lie.
I still can’t forgive Gretchen for what she did. No matter how much we love each other. I know I should. I want to forgive Gretchen, but that isn’t how this works. I can’t control it.
Thinking about it makes me want to cry some more.
“I love you,” I say again.
Gretchen says it, too, but I don’t know what it means anymore.
I don’t know what anything means right now.
8
NOVEMBER
FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE
1 DAY APART
GRETCHEN
“Tell us all the gory details,” Carroll says. “We want a blow-by-blow. Let those of us who don’t have sex lives of our own live vicariously through yours.”
It’s Monday morning. November 1. I’m having breakfast in the dining hall with Carroll and Samantha. Carroll’s been pestering me to tell him about all the supposedly scandalous details of my weekend since I got back from Boston last night, but I don’t want to talk about it.
Besides, sex is the last thing on my mind. The sex was the one part of the weekend I know I didn’t mess up.
Samantha rescues me.
“We most certainly do not need to hear about that,” she tells Carroll. “Not all of us are flaming perverts.”
Carroll clutches his chest. “That was way harsh, Tai.”
Samantha doesn’t get the movie reference, and I’m too glum to explain it. I stir my yogurt.
“Anyway, yeah, I don’t want the real gore,” Carroll says. “Girl parts are gross. I just want to hear about the bodice-ripping, take-me-now stuff.”
“I don’t think she feels like talking about it,” Samantha says.
Carroll rolls his eyes.
I stir my yogurt in tighter and tighter concentric circles. When I’m about to get to the middle, Carroll grabs my wrist. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying,” he says.
“Nope,” I say. “There is absolutely nothing the matter with me. I am peachy keen.”
I scoop out the biggest spoonful of yogurt I can and shove it in my mouth so Carroll can’t make me talk.
“She misses her girlfriend,” Samantha says. “I’d be depressed, too, if I were her.”
“I’m not depressed,” I say through my yogurt blob.
“You mean her boyfriend,” Carroll says to Samantha. “Or didn’t she tell you about that?”
“What?” Samantha looks back and forth between us as if she can’t tell if there’s a joke here she’s supposed to laugh at.
“Nothing.” I swallow my yogurt. “Ignore Carroll. He’s being a dick.”
My phone buzzes to tell me Derek accepted my friend request. Well, at least one good thing came out of that trip. Derek’s the kind of guy I would’ve liked even if he wasn’t Toni’s new BFF. Plus he explained to me why some people thought genderqueer was kind of a problematic word, which was more than Toni told me.
Well, except for all that stuff Toni said really fast at the dance. I could only half follow it. I don’t know if I had trouble because Toni was confused or because I’m just too dumb to under
stand all the intricacies.
Toni was throwing out all these words—nonbinary and multigender and others that sounded even stranger—and then, in the middle of all of it, like it was no big deal, Toni said, “I lean more toward the male end of the spectrum than the female end.”
Was I supposed to know that already? Toni said it like I already knew it.
This is all my fault. If I’d just gone to school in Boston like we planned, I’d see Toni all the time. We’d tell each other everything the way we did before. I’d know what Toni was thinking before anyone else did.
Toni and I were always supposed to come first with each other.
I gave up the best thing in my life, and for what? A city? What was the point? Half the time I’m too stressed out to even enjoy this place.
“I have an idea,” Carroll says. “Let’s go out tonight. Get you back to being happy, bubbly Gretchen again.”
“It’s Monday,” Samantha says. “Even my friends don’t go out on Mondays.”
“Your friends don’t follow normal human patterns,” Carroll says. “I know how you people feel about direct sunlight.”
“We’re not vampires,” Sam says.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to out you,” Carroll says. “Come on, Gretch, your lesbo friends must be going somewhere. We can tag along.”
I shrug. The only gay girls I really know at school are Briana and her friend Heidi, and I’ve never gone out with them. I just see them around the dorm and classes, and I go up to Inwood with Briana once a week to volunteer.
“Heidi’s one of your friends, right?” Samantha asks. “On our floor? I have her cell number.”
“Fab,” Carroll says. “Text her.”
“I can’t text her,” Samantha says. “What if she thinks I want to go hang out with a bunch of lesbians?”
“Obviously your reputation would be forever tarnished,” Carroll says. “I know how judgmental goths can be. Here, I’ll do it.”
Samantha gives Carroll the number. I dip my spoon in and out of my yogurt. The berries are complete mush by now.
“Hey, girlfriend,” Carroll says into the phone in a high-pitched voice. My head snaps up. I can’t believe he really called her. “No, wait, don’t hang up. Sorry, I’m not a stalker. My name’s Carroll. I’m friends with your friend Gretchen. You know, the hippie chick who wears Birks with wool socks every day despite my desperate pleas?”
I kick him under the table, but I’m starting to laugh. He winks at me.
“Yeah, so,” he says into the phone, “she needs cheering up. Just had a megadramatic weekend with the long-distance honey. Tears, laughter, epic reunion sex, you know how it goes. I was hoping we could hang out with you and your crew tonight. There’s got to be some chic girl bar around here that we’d have to dress up and pay a twenty-dollar cover for, right? Okay, sounds fabuloso. Meet in the lobby at nine? Lovely. Ciao, bella.”
He hangs up. I should be annoyed, but I’m still laughing.
He picks the yogurt up from where I left it on the table and chucks it into the nearest trash can, spoon and all.
“You were grossing me out with that,” he says. “Are you ready to be normal Gretchen now? The one we know and love?”
I was being normal Gretchen before, too, I want to say.
“Depends,” I say. “What will you make me wear?”
“We’ll borrow an outfit from Tracy,” he decides. “She’s your size, and unlike you, she knows what the inside of a Banana Republic looks like. Hey, Sam, this is your last chance to get in on this action tonight. You never know. Maybe you’ll decide muff-diving’s for you.”
“I’ll pass,” Samantha says.
“Be a loser, then.” Carroll stands up and turns back to me. “No more pouting today, Gretch. I’ll be at your room at seven sharp for beverages and wardrobe consultation.”
Then he’s off, snatching a cookie from the dessert stand and slipping it into his pocket on his way out of the hall.
“So how was your weekend, really?” Samantha asks when he’s gone.
“Nothing.” I shrug. “It was fun. Harvard people aren’t as uptight as you’d think. Except they have no idea how awesome their dorm rooms are. These guys Toni’s friends with have a bar, two couches and a big-screen TV. They download all the new movies because they say they’re too busy studying to go out like normal people, but I didn’t see anyone studying all weekend. I did see a bunch of drunk girls in cocktail dresses and pearls trying to get into the library at three in the morning because they wanted scones from the café, though. We’re really lucky we have all-night delis.”
“Pearls?” Sam said. “For real? Girls there wear pearls to parties on campus?”
“Parties there are like clubs here,” I say. “For the good ones, your name has to be on a list or you won’t get in.”
“Dang.” Sam shook her head. “Remind me never to transfer to Harvard. Anyway, what really happened? Something’s wrong, I can tell. This morning was the first time since we’ve been here that you didn’t go to the gym as soon as your alarm went off. I was afraid I was going to have to throw something on you to get you out of bed.”
“I was just tired.”
“Look, for real, it’s okay. You can talk to me.”
She’s kind of right. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, what with the rope-thick mascara and the black lace gloves and the fake spiderweb tattoo, but Sam’s a good listener.
I could tell her the whole thing. It would be so amazing to be able to actually talk about this with someone.
I could tell her what Nance said. About how there’s this whole subculture I’m supposed to join called SOFFAs. It stands for Significant Others of...something? I can’t remember. It’s for people whose girlfriends or boyfriends or whatever are trans.
I could tell Sam about how Nance said it’s really complicated, trying to be supportive of your girlfriend and remember to take care of yourself, too. How she kept giving me these really skeptical looks like she thought I wasn’t up to the challenge.
When I looked up SOFFAs, I found a page about how partners of transgender people are often victims of hate crimes. That was information I could’ve done without. I felt bad for even thinking about it, though, because I know trans people get attacked way more often.
Then I felt even worse because, God, how awful to think about Toni getting hurt. Then I wondered if maybe Toni shouldn’t be talking quite so openly about all this trans stuff, because what if it makes someone more likely to commit some awful hate crime?
Then I felt bad again, because I know it’s important to be open, and being open is the only way things will get better for trans people. We learned about that in the GSA last year. It was the same with gay people. The reason more people support us getting married now is because more and more gay people came out over the past couple of decades.
The problem is, I don’t care about things getting better for all those other trans people nearly as much as I care about Toni being safe.
I could tell Sam about how when Toni and I talk now, Toni never tells me anything important. I guess there’s no need anymore, with all those awesome people up at Harvard to talk to.
I could tell Sam about how I’m scared Toni isn’t telling me things because Toni knows I won’t understand. After all, I’m just boring little Gretchen. I’m nowhere near as cool as all of Toni’s new genius friends.
I could tell Sam I’m so scared about all this stuff I can’t sleep at night.
Then I remember Sam’s too embarrassed to even go to a gay bar. I bet she’s never once heard the word genderqueer. She’d have a thousand questions before I’d even finished the story. I’m sick of explaining my life to everyone.
Besides, Carroll’s almost put me back into my happy mood. I like being in my happy mood.
So I say it’
s nothing. That Sam was right from the beginning. That I’m freaked because I miss Toni.
I’m not even lying about that part. If Toni and I were just in the same place all the time, everything would be simpler.
Carroll’s right. I need to stop thinking about this so much and focus on having fun. Distractions, that’s the key.
Starting now.
* * *
“Those make your ass look cute,” Carroll says nine hours later as I try on a pair of Tracy’s tight gray pants. “They make you look like you have an ass, at least.”
I laugh. “Thanks, I guess.”
He passes me a plastic cup of orange juice mixed with Absolut that he stole from Juan. I take a drink and pass it back. We’re supposed to meet Briana and her friends in the lobby in ten minutes. If I really want to keep up my good mood, I need to drink as much as possible tonight.
“How’s the overall effect?” I ask Carroll, spinning around and nearly falling over.
“To be honest? Kinda dykey.”
I laugh. “That’s okay. I am kinda dykey.”
“Oh? I’m disappointed. I thought you were all the way dykey.”
“I am!” I say, feigning outrage. “One hundred percent dykeadelic!”
“Yeah, as if that’s not obvious based on your footwear alone.” Carroll points to my neon-green Crocs. I switch them out for the black witch shoes I wore to the dance. They’re the only shoes I have that meet with Carroll’s approval.
“Speaking of which,” he says, “do I ever get to meet your partner in dykedom? Is she coming down here this semester?”
“Toni’s busy,” I say and take another long sip. “The classes up there are insanely demanding. It’s Harvard.”
“What’s NYU, a safety school?” he asks. “You managed to go visit her.”
I shrug.
What I don’t say is that we’d been talking about Toni coming down here in the next couple of weeks, but that plan is off now.
Toni called this afternoon to tell me that a teaching fellow named Lacey had offered to set Toni up with a summer internship. At Oxford. In England.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity,” Toni told me. “A chance to do research with some of the top people in the field when I’ll only be a sophomore! All I have to do is go over there next month for an interview.”