Robin Talley - What We Left Behind

I close my eyes. “Last week?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t know how.”

Gretchen isn’t coming with me.

We can’t just hop on the subway and see each other whenever we want to.

Gretchen’s leaving me. This is only the first step.

“Oh my gosh, no, don’t cry, T!” Gretchen squeezes my hand tight. I blink fast against the tears, trying to focus on the orange light of the sunset that’s pouring in through the trees. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner! Look, it’s only for a semester, just to try it out. I can always transfer back to BU after that. I talked to them on the phone, and they said that would be really easy. I only thought—you know, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe we could just sort of see what it’s like. New York and Boston are superclose. We can take the train and be there in, like, seconds.”

I pull my hand out of Gretchen’s grip and turn to stare at the cheap red plastic leg of the swing set. It’s covered in grime from yesterday’s rain. I didn’t notice that before we sat down.

I can’t believe Gretchen didn’t even tell me. Applications were due in January. That means Gretchen has been keeping this secret for eight months, maybe longer.

Did I do something wrong?

I must’ve done something wrong, or else Gretchen would’ve stuck to the plan, right?

Gretchen doesn’t really want to be with me. There’s no other explanation for this.

“Toni.” Gretchen’s hand is on my shoulder, gentle. I want to wrench away, but instead I lean into the touch. I always lean into Gretchen’s touch. “We’ll still see each other. It’ll be all right. We can do this.”

I turn and stare into those blue eyes. I’m looking for anger, but I don’t see it there. I see guilt and something else. Hope, maybe. Hope that I’ll go along with this new plan.

Well, it’s not as if I have a choice.

Gretchen’s plans are already made. So are mine. No wonder Gretchen laughed off my question about fitting all that luggage on the plane. They wouldn’t fly to New York. They’d drive. It’s only a few hours north of here.

Wait. Chris. Chris said something before about us doing the long-distance thing. Chris knew about this before I did. So did Audrey.

How many others knew about my girlfriend’s not-so-secret plan before me?

It’s getting hard to breathe. I lurch to my feet, the swing set creaking as my weight leaves it. Behind me I hear Gretchen suck in a breath, but I don’t turn around.

I’m not used to feeling like this around Gretchen. I love Gretchen. Anger is reserved exclusively for my mother.

I close my eyes. I can’t let Gretchen see what I’m feeling.

We never fight. We aren’t like that. Anger and love don’t go together.

“Fine,” I say. “Fine. It’s fine.”

Gretchen’s fingers are light on my arm. “Are you sure?”

“Can we take the train and see each other every weekend?” I ask. “Because I thought I was going to see you every weekend.”

“Yes, sure, totally, every weekend.” Gretchen lays a soft hand on my cheek. I turn, and our eyes meet. I hate seeing Gretchen look so sad. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” I sniff. I’m such a wuss, crying out here on the street.

“Oh, crap,” a familiar voice says.

I look up. Audrey’s standing right in front of us, wavy brown hair streaming over awkwardly folded arms.

Christ. Now my kid sister is seeing me cry.

“Are you guys fighting?” Audrey asks. “You guys never fight.”

I answer quickly. “No.”

“No,” Gretchen says at the same time.

Audrey looks back and forth between us. “Chris wanted me to say he was sorry. He’s a total idiot who can’t keep his mouth shut.”

I don’t react, even though I want to flinch. I can’t believe Gretchen told them and not me. My 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.

2

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.