What We Left Behind

by Robin Talley

  “This came from Lacey?” I asked. “Wasn’t she the one who tried to fight with you about random political stuff?”

  “Oh, I was misinterpreting that. It turns out Lacey’s got all these great contacts. Lacey did a program at Oxford, too, so now I’ve got a ton of insights into the academic culture there. It sounds incredibly stimulating. All I have to do is meet with them, and Lacey said if the lead researcher likes me, the job’s mine.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “I won’t be able to come to New York for that weekend we talked about, though. I’m way too behind on my work already. There’s no way I can take two more trips this semester, but at least we’ll see each other at Thanksgiving.”

  “So you’ll be in England,” I said. “All summer.”

  “Yeah. It’s great, right? It’s the perfect excuse not to have to go down to my parents’!”

  The thing is, if Toni’s not going down to Maryland, we won’t get to see each other, either. Toni didn’t seem terribly bothered about that part, though.

  I can’t help wondering if seeing me again made Toni realize that spending time with me isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That we might as well spend the summer living five time zones apart.

  “I’ll miss you,” I said.

  “I know. That’s the one part of this that sucks. I’ll miss you, too. But we’ll still see each other. You can come visit me in the UK. It’ll be fun.”

  “Can’t you get an internship in Boston or New York?” I asked. “It’d be a lot easier to visit you that way.”

  “No, no, listen, this internship is really competitive. It’s a huge deal to be asked. I can’t pass it up.”

  “So, what am I supposed to do all summer?” I asked. “When I’m not hanging out with you in England?”

  “I don’t know. Didn’t you say you wanted to get a job in DC or something?”

  Toni had to get off the phone after that. The guys were waiting.

  “I don’t see why you have this double standard,” Carroll says now. “She’s too busy to come see you, but you drop everything to go see her? You missed the Village Halloween parade, you know. Thanks to you, I nearly lost my virginity about thirty different times.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure my presence would’ve totally deterred you.” I take another swig from the cup. “Now stop defeating the purpose of this evening for me, please.”

  “Oh? Remind me what that purpose is, again?”

  “For me to not think about stuff that stresses me out.”

  “Since when does talking about your girlfriend stress you out? Used to be all you ever did was talk about your girlfriend.”

  “Hush.” I put two fingers over his lips. “Stop harshing my buzz, man.”

  He pulls my hand away. “Okay, even I know that’s not the right lingo. Please tell me you’re not actually drunk from half a screwdriver.”

  “I have ultralow tolerance. You know that.”

  “Oh, right. How much did you have to eat today? Should we get some pizza before we go out?”

  “I’ve eaten enough! Get off my back.”

  Someone knocks on the door, and I run over to answer it. It’s Briana with Heidi and a girl I don’t recognize. All three of them are wearing really shiny shirts.

  “We heard you guys talking,” Briana says. “Are you ready to go? Hey, Gretchen, you look cute.”

  “Thanks.” I gesture back into the room, my arm waving wildly. “We are totally ready to go. This is my best friend, Carroll.”

  Carroll waves. The girls wave back.

  “It’s so cool you guys are finally coming out with us,” Briana says as if it was her idea. “How come you never said yes when we asked you before?”

  “Oh, um,” I say.

  During our trips back and forth to Inwood, Briana and I always talk about us all going out some night. She’s texted me a few times asking me to meet up with them, but I was always hanging out with Carroll or talking to Toni online.

  “I wanted to,” I say. “I’ve just, you know, had so much going on.”

  “She means me.” Carroll puts his arms around my waist from behind and nuzzles my hair. The girls laugh. “She was afraid she’d lose her lesbo street cred if you found out she was hangin’ out with a stud like me.”

  “Keep up the Buffy quotes and you might earn some lesbo street cred yourself,” says the girl I don’t know. She smiles at Carroll.

  Carroll lets go of me and smiles back at her. “Now who might you be?”

  “I’m Rosa.” The girl puts her hand on Briana’s waist, all possessive.

  I look away. I’ve done that to Toni before a million times.

  “Shall we skedaddle?” Carroll says, and we do.

  The bar they bring us to is so dim you have to squint at people. It isn’t as crowded as I expected. Everyone there looks old and bored. It’s a Monday and no one except me is drunk yet.

  No one cards us, so we order mojitos. We gather around a table, and Carroll tells the girls stories about the drama queens in Tisch. They laugh as if they’ve never heard of such things before.

  By the third round of drinks, Briana and I are telling debate stories. We’re talking about the time these two coaches from rival schools got into a screaming fight in the middle of a tournament. It got so bad they started slapping each other and had to be pulled apart. Briana and I are laughing like crazy, but the others are glaring at us. We leave them to their boring conversation and go off to a corner where we can hear each other better.

  It’s even dimmer over in the corner, so we have to lean in close to see. I remind her about the time her teammate totally ran off the stage and puked in the middle of a final match, and I’m laughing so hard I’m crying. That’s when Briana puts her hand on my waist, the way Rosa did to her before, and says, “So what are we doing, here?”

  And that’s the funniest thing that’s happened all night. I tip my head back and laugh at the ceiling. When I look back at Briana, she hasn’t moved. She’s got this smile that makes me nervous.

  “Uh,” I say. Then I turn and see Rosa. She’s right behind us, looking over Briana’s shoulder, her face drawn. “Uh, so, your girlfriend’s, like, right there.”

  Briana drops her hand and turns around. Rosa is backing away.

  “Baby!” Briana says, reaching out to give Rosa a hug.

  Rosa runs to the door.

  “Baby!” Briana calls out again and runs outside after her.

  I finish the rest of my mojito and giggle to myself.

  Heidi comes over. “Was that what it looked like?”

  “I have no idea,” I tell her. I motion to Carroll, who’s hanging out by our old table, looking bored, and signal for him to get me another drink. He nods and goes to the bar.

  “Aren’t you going after them?” Heidi asks.

  “What for?”

  “You’re involved now.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “That’s not what it looked like to me.”

  “What does that matter?”

  Heidi shakes her head and follows the others outside.

  I want to stay where I am, but after a minute I get lonely, so I go join Carroll at the bar. He puts his arm around my waist, and I sag against him. The bartender glares at us and takes someone else’s order.

  I’m very, very drunk. I turn around to hug Carroll full-on and rest my head on his shoulder.

  “Please deliver me from lesbian drama,” I say.

  He hugs me back.

  “Want to go?” he asks.

  “Yeah, but I’m scared the girls will see me and draw their claws.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

  I let him pull me out of the bar. I sway on the sidewalk, looking around for Briana and
the others, but the whole world is blurry. Carroll holds me upright, flags down a cab, and pushes me inside.

  “You’re not about to puke, are you?” Carroll asks.

  “Shoot, girl!” the driver says. “If you’re going to throw up, get out of my cab!”

  “Don’t worry,” I mumble. “I never puke.” I slide down to lay my head in Carroll’s lap.

  The next thing I know, Carroll’s shaking me awake. We’re out front of the dorm.

  How did that happen? How much time did I lose?

  This is awful. I hate this. I hate everything.

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” I say as Carroll half drags me into the lobby. “I thought it was okay, but instead it’s all different. Toni’s different, and I don’t know if it’s bad different, but I know it’s not good different. I mean, things are different. Does that make sense? Now Toni’s leaving me here all summer and it’s like she doesn’t even care, won’t even miss me. It’s like I don’t matter anymore, and it makes me want to, like, die inside, and it’s all my fault.”

  I’m crying, getting his shirt all wet.

  Carroll hauls me into the elevator. There are people in there with us, looking at me, but I don’t care. Carroll keeps his eyes fixed straight ahead.

  When we get to our floor, he pushes me down the hallway. I’m stumbling, but he keeps pushing me faster.

  Samantha is there when we get to my room. When I see her, I start crying all over again.

  “It’s November 1,” I tell her, but my words come out all wrong. “Toni didn’t even ask if I applied.”

  “What the—” Samantha takes me away from Carroll and leads me to my bed. “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Carroll says. “Some girl hit on her and she flipped out. I’ll get her some water.”

  He leaves. Samantha closes the door behind him and drags the trash can over to my bed.

  “I never puke,” I say, pushing the trash can away.

  Samantha pushes my sweaty hair out of my face. “Do you want me to get your girlfriend on the phone?”

  “No!”

  “Okay, okay, sorry. What do you want me to do?”

  “Will you...I don’t know. Will you just sit with me?”

  She nods. Carroll never comes back with the water, so Samantha gets me some from the bathroom.

  I tell her everything. Every word I can choke out in between the sobs that won’t stop coming. Samantha listens, and she tells me she understands, and she tells me it’s going to be okay.

  I’m probably just still drunk, but whatever the reason, I fall asleep believing her.

  Before

  SEPTEMBER

  SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL

  11 MONTHS TOGETHER

  TONI

  I had to tell Gretchen. I’d already waited too long. At this point, not telling felt like lying, and lying to Gretchen was the worst thing I could possibly do.

  The hard part was finding the words. I’d never said them out loud. I’d never even typed them. I’d been lurking on sites and forums, and I was starting to learn the vocabulary, but I’d never posted myself. That would make it too real.

  Talking to Gretchen would make it realer still, but I had to do it. We’d promised we’d always be honest with each other.

  I’d tried to practice in advance but I always gave up halfway through. It was too scary. Besides, I didn’t need to practice. This was Gretchen. Maybe I’d have trouble thinking of the words to use, but Gretchen always understood me. Gretchen understood everything.

  GRETCHEN

  Something was wrong.

  When Toni texted me to come meet her after tennis practice, she sounded way too serious. “We have to talk,” she’d said. Nothing good in the history of ever has started with the words We have to talk.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked as soon as I saw her. She was sitting on top of a picnic table by the courts, still in her practice clothes, frowning down at her phone screen. Her hair had wilted during practice. Now, instead of its usual spikes, Toni’s hair hung down over her forehead, making her look younger than she was.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. “Hi. Come sit down.”

  She smiled at me and scooted over on the table to make room. I climbed up next to her, brushing off some loose leaves that had blown onto the table’s surface. Toni put her phone down and clasped her hands together. Her eyes darted to me and then away again.

  The only other time I’d seen her look this nervous was when she showed me her Harvard application essay. It was about how in middle school she’d been obsessed with the news coverage of the Arab Spring, and that was what had made her want to become a professional political scientist so she’d have an excuse to study every nuance of social justice movements.

  The essay was brilliant. Naturally.

  “So what’s up?” I asked.

  Toni didn’t look at me. Her smile had faded. “We should talk about something. It’s important.”

  Oh, God. I knew it.

  She was breaking up with me.

  Why? I tried to think. There had been that party when I talked to Renee off in the corner for an hour. Toni got jealous sometimes about things like that, but she never got angry.

  I must’ve done something else. What? How could I explain it so Toni would change her mind? Oh, God, oh, God.

  “I think I’m genderqueer,” Toni said.

  Oh. Was that all?

  I breathed out. I was so relieved I just nodded. This wasn’t a big deal. All that mattered was that she still wanted to be with me.

  “Okay,” I said.

  TONI

  “Okay,” Gretchen said, nodding.

  I waited for the freak-out, but Gretchen just looked at me with raised eyebrows, waiting for me to go on.

  All the sites said when you came out to someone as trans, you should explain what that meant in a lot of detail. Some of them said it was better to explain it in a letter or an email, because then the person you were coming out to could react in private and do research on their own before they tried to talk to you about it. I couldn’t write Gretchen an email about this, though. That would feel so fake.

  “Genderqueer is, like, when you think you have both masculine and feminine qualities, and you don’t fit into either end of the so-called gender binary,” I said. “It’s like a philosophical disagreement with the idea that everyone has to live in either the male box or the female box.”

  “Oh, right. I remember.” Gretchen smiled. “We did that whole big thing on it in the GSA, didn’t we?”

  “Oh, yeah.” In junior year we’d read a collection of essays by transgender and genderqueer writers called Beyond the Binary. It was my idea. I’d already read it, and I wanted to have people to talk to about it. It was hard, though, because I pretended all my opinions about it were totally objective reading comprehension–focused thoughts, when actually I kept wanting to jump up and down yelling, “It all makes so much sense now!”

  “I knew you were really into that book,” Gretchen said. “I wondered if maybe you identified with it some.”

  “Yeah, I did. Like, a lot.” I nodded. This was going great so far. I took Gretchen’s hand and smiled. I hadn’t expected Gretchen to run for the hills at the news or anything, but I’d expected some surprise, at least. Maybe some shock. The sites said sometimes significant others didn’t take the news well because they were worried it made them gay. Or straight, as the case may be.

  “So...” Gretchen said.

  I waited for the questions to start.

  GRETCHEN

  Was I allowed to ask questions?

  I was trying to be respectful. Well, I was also trying to remember everything we’d read in that book about what genderqueer meant, and everything Toni had ev
er said about it during all those long discussions. She’d said a lot.

  That was last year, though. I hadn’t known there was going to be this incredibly major quiz on it today.

  I wanted to ask what genderqueer actually meant in the real world. Toni had said something about the “binary” being bad, but did that mean she thought the binary was bad for everyone, or just her? Was she different now than how she was before, or was she still my same Toni?

  Wait, was I even supposed to call her she anymore? The book said some genderqueer people like to use other pronouns, like sie and hir.

  Was Toni still a girl? Was Toni ever a girl?

  Wait. If Toni wasn’t a girl, did this mean she wasn’t my girlfriend anymore? What did that make her? Just my friend? I couldn’t call Toni my friend. It felt like saying she wasn’t as important as she was.

  Wait. Maybe Toni really was breaking up with me. Maybe she thought she couldn’t have a girlfriend anymore if she was genderqueer.

  No, that couldn’t be it. She was holding my hand. You didn’t hold hands with someone while you dumped them. Did you?

  Wait. If Toni was able to see beyond gender and I wasn’t, did that mean I wasn’t as smart as she was? Because, well, the gender binary had never especially bothered me. I mean, I didn’t think it was fair that some people felt oppressed by it, but as for me, I’d always just felt like a girl. I had breasts and a vagina and I was perfectly content with them. I’d never really thought about my gender very much.

  What if Toni didn’t like my body anymore, though? What if she didn’t like her body? Was I still allowed to like it?

  Would we still get to have sex? If we did, would it be different now?

  Had Toni been not liking the sex all along? She sure seemed like she liked it.

  What did any of this mean?

  I swallowed all my questions and fought to keep a smile on my face.

  If I asked, I was guaranteed to say the wrong thing. I’d sound just as dumb as I actually was when it came to this stuff. Then what would Toni think?