What We Left Behind

A half-drunk girl wanders into the lounge and says hi to Carroll. He says hi back. She lives on a different floor, but she’s in Tisch with him, I learn.

“Hey, have you met my girl Gretchen?” Carroll asks. “Gretch, this is Tracy.”

The girl looks at me. “Oh, right. I heard there was a lesbian on this floor.”

I laugh. “Yeah, two of us, even.”

The first week of classes, I ran into this girl I knew from debate, Briana. After we stopped laughing about how funny it was that we’d both wound up at NYU, she recruited me to join this volunteer project she’s doing with a middle school in Inwood. She also introduced me to her friends. One of her friends, Heidi, turned out to live on my floor.

It’s nice to have some gay friends at school who are girls. They aren’t nearly as much fun to hang out with as Carroll, though.

“I need to call Toni before we go out,” I tell Carroll.

“Take your time,” he says. “Suck up to the ball and chain. I’m nowhere near finalizing my outfit anyway.”

“Whatever. You’ll wind up in that new shirt you got on Tuesday.”

“Not necessarily! There’s also the faux-vintage one you made me buy at Urban. I have to do a compare and contrast.”

Tracy laughs.

“Don’t encourage him,” I tell her.

I take my pasta back to my empty room. My roommate, Samantha, is already out at a party with her goth friends. She wandered out earlier wearing a black dress, red fishnets and knee-high boots. I’m not sure exactly what look she was going for, but I don’t think it quite worked out the way she was hoping.

Toni isn’t available on video chat, but when I call, T answers the phone on the first ring. I can hear voices in the background.

“Hey, Gretch!” I can hear the smile in Toni’s voice, and I automatically smile back. It’s so weird thinking it’s been more than two weeks since we were last in the same place. I thought that much time apart would be unbearable, but getting to hear Toni’s voice helps a lot. “I was about to call you! Are you going out?”

“Yeah, to a club with Carroll. How about you?”

“I’m out now, actually. Derek and the guys are having a party in their room.”

“For real? Do people at Harvard have really huge rooms?”

“Some do.” Someone says something in the background, and Toni laughs. “Hey, I meant to ask you, do you want to come up here for Halloween weekend? There’s a dance. It’s supposed to be cool.”

My face breaks into a full-on grin.

Two weeks ago, I’d emailed Toni a list of potential bus times for me to come visit. Toni had replied with a one-sentence note about being too busy.

When I first read that email, I thought that was it for us. I thought Toni was so mad about what I’d done that T had decided never to see me again. I’d gotten embarrassingly hysterical about it, actually. Then Samantha came in from the bathroom and I had to pretend I was all emotional from watching a sappy video about cats.

Then Toni sent me a totally normal text about dining hall food, and we’d gotten on video chat that night and gushed about how much we missed each other, and it seemed like things were back to usual between us. I guess Toni really was just overwhelmed in those first few days of school. I was so relieved I started crying as soon as we signed off the chat.

Now I’m going up tomorrow, and we’re planning another trip for after that. I guess things really are back to how they’re supposed to be.

“Sure!” I tell Toni. “I was thinking about going to the Village Halloween parade, but that’s okay. I’ve been before. Should I get a costume for the dance?”

“Yeah. Get something sexy, all right? I want to show you off.”

I laugh. Toni doesn’t usually say stuff like that. “Okay. Carroll can help me find something. Listen, do you have a sec to talk? It’s kind of serious.”

“Yeah, sure. Hang on.” A door closes on Toni’s end of the phone. “What’s up?”

I tell Toni about what I said to Carroll that first night. I don’t mention what Carroll said back, or how I didn’t know the answers to his questions. I’ll set him straight once I’ve read the websites and know the details.

Toni doesn’t react the way I expected.

“Oh, everyone knows now,” Toni says. “Even my roommates. Joanna’s in a class with someone who’s in the UBA, so they found out last week. It’s not a big deal.”

“Wow.” I sit down on the bed. I can’t believe Toni didn’t mention this before. I keep my voice normal, though, because Toni’s acting like it’s nothing special. “Really? Are they being cool?”

“Felicia’s being a bitch, but Felicia was a bitch already. Everyone else is acting extremely normal. Like they’re making a point of it. Ebony even asked me what pronouns to use.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I didn’t care, yet.” I can hear Toni fidgeting. “Derek and Nance and those guys use male pronouns for me.”

Oh.

Toni’s never used male pronouns before. What does this mean? Is Toni, like—becoming a guy?

Will Toni still like me as a guy?

I slide down from the bed onto the floor. I shake my head even though Toni can’t see me. “Why?”

“They assumed.”

“Oh.” I nod. That’s good. That means Toni didn’t tell them to do it. “Did you tell them to stop?”

“No. Actually, I kind of like it.”

“Oh.”

“It’s kind of making me wonder if maybe someday I’ll start asking other people to do that, too.”

“Oh. Oh.”

I shake my head again. I don’t understand what’s happening here. I don’t like this.

Wait. No. That’s wrong of me. It isn’t up to me to like or not like this. This is Toni’s decision.

Wait, but—is it a decision? Being genderqueer is like being gay, right? Being gay isn’t a choice, obviously. My parents gave me a book about that in elementary school when my brother first came out. Being gay or trans is no more a choice than being Australian.

There’s silence on the other end of the phone. Toni’s waiting for me to talk.

“Oh,” I say. “Really? When?”