Page 20 of Leaving the Station

came by to set them up, and I tried to look like I wasn’t going to spend the night, though all that did was make me seem guiltier.

“That top bunk’s a coffin.”

“Why do you think I offered it to you?”

I give her what I hope is my most withering look, and she smiles in return.

The distance between the mattress and the ceiling can’t be more than a couple of feet. I would barely be able to prop myself

on my elbow, let alone sit up.

“You get what you get and you don’t get upset,” Oakley says, smug. “Do you want it or not?”

I pretend to consider the offer. My alternative is going back to my rightful place in coach, bundling my jacket behind my

neck in a futile attempt to find a comfortable sleeping position. Or I could go to the observation car and practice my T-spins.

“I want it,” I grumble.

We take turns getting changed in the cramped bathroom—nothing falls into the toilet—and when I’m done, I climb into the top bunk.

“If I suffocate here it’s your fault,” I tell her. “And if I get a concussion from slamming my head on the ceiling, you’re

paying my medical bills.”

“Sounds good,” she says, crawling into the safety of the bottom bunk.

Then, it’s silent, save for the sounds of the train making its way out west.

After a minute: “Are you asleep?”

“No,” I tell Oakley, laughing a little. The train blanket is thin, but in the stale air of the room I barely need it. “Of

course not.”

“Me neither.” She takes a breath.

I wait.

“Can I tell you something?” she asks.

I nod, then I remember she can’t see me. “Anything.”

Finally, she says, “I’m not going back to New York after Thanksgiving.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask, trying not to sound too interested.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m going to stay in Washington. In Ritzville, I mean.”

“Okay.”

We’re silent for another moment, and then she adds, “I miss it. I miss the community I had there. I didn’t have that in New

York. I might not agree with everything my family believes in, but I love them, and they love me.”

I make a noncommittal hm sound, neither an agreement nor a rebuke.

“I dreamed of having this queer community in New York,” Oakley says, and I have to flip on my side to hear her over the train.

“I know,” I say quietly. “You said—”

“I was sleeping in hostels every night until my money ran out.”

I freeze, and even the train quiets, waiting on Oakley’s next words.

“There are places to stay if you’re a queer person who needs housing, but I couldn’t do that. My family has money, and I didn’t

want to take those spots away from people who really needed them.”

It sounds like she really needed them, like she’s exactly who those places are for—a queer person fleeing a high-demand religion—but I don’t

say that.

“So I stayed with backpackers from all over the world in dirty sixteen-person dorms. I went on dates during the day and I

slept where I could at night.” She breathes deeply. “I thought I’d start in New York, then go to Europe. I wanted to see the

cities I’d only read about in books. But I never made it out there.”

“That sounds hard,” I whisper.

“I’m sure Europe isn’t all that good, anyway,” she says. Then: “Can I tell you what I miss about it? About home? About the

Church?” When I don’t speak, she tells me anyway. “I always think about what Joseph Smith preached.”

I settle in. I know she’s about to talk for a while. And I know I’ll hang on to her every word.

“He was a terrible person. He was a liar and a narcissist with multiple underage wives—but I agree with him on this: he said that salvation can only be achieved through community, not individual actions.” She shifts in bed, and the creaks join in with the cacophony of train sounds.

“That’s what an eternal family is: an interconnected web of people reuniting in the afterlife. ”

“That sounds nice,” I tell her. Because, put that way, it does.

“It’s beautiful,” she agrees. “I don’t know if it’s a real quote, but apparently Joseph Smith once said something like, ‘I

would rather go to hell with my friends than heaven alone.’”

“I love that,” I tell her. “It’s a little queer?”

“Exactly!” She sounds excited now. “It’s an extremely queer idea.”

“But that was Joseph Smith,” I say, staring up at the beige train ceiling that’s too close to my face. “That was hundreds

of years ago.”

“I know,” she says. “Trust me, I know.”

We’re both quiet for another minute.

“Are you asleep now ?” she asks.

I exhale. “No.”

“When I go back to Washington, I’m staying.”

“I know, you said.”

“And I’m rejoining the Church.”

Eight Weeks into College

My hair was an afterthought.

I admired the way some girls could spend hours curling, oiling, massaging, straightening, preening. It seemed relaxing.

But I’d never had it in me to do anything of the sort. My hair was long and thick, and had broken nearly every brush that

had ever touched it.

It had to go.

Alden had asked if I’d wanted to hang out, but I’d told him I wasn’t feeling well. Which was true, even if I couldn’t have

described my symptoms. The closest was probably existential dread, and a deep and abiding sense that something was intrinsically

wrong with me.

But those weren’t chill things you could tell your boyfriend.

He said he’d bring me dinner and we could watch a movie or play cards, but I was running on no sleep and a manic desire to

cut my hair.

I’d spent the past three hours watching tutorial after tutorial from hairstylists. It had started with the query “DIY short

haircut” and had spiraled into an entire playlist on proper self-haircut technique.

When I was confident—or delusional—enough in my strategy, I headed to the dorm bathroom with fabric scissors and a comb.

No one could’ve stopped me from what I was about to do. I had to test the theory that if I gave myself a similar haircut to

Alden’s, I would know once and for all if I wanted to be with him or if I wanted to be him.

After he told me he was falling for me at the orchard, I’d spent nearly every waking hour contemplating those two options.

But I didn’t have to contemplate anymore; I could take action.

I hid in a stall until the coast was clear, then parked myself in front of the bathroom mirror.

The first step was to put my hair back in a ponytail, then cut the bulk off. I wrapped the hair tie around my hair once, twice,

three times. I pulled it taut, then took a breath.

Ten minutes and about a million snips later, the majority of my hair was separated from my body. I thought I’d feel something , but I didn’t even recognize the heavy, knotted mess. It looked like a dead rodent.

From there, I kept cutting, until there was nothing sticking off the back of my head. I’d saved a bit at the front for bangs,

but that didn’t feel right anymore—I needed it all gone.

The scissors were dull, but the sound echoed throughout the empty bathroom.

Some time later, I looked into the sink to find a dark mass of hair clogging the drain.

And then I chanced a look at myself. My hair was sticking up at odd angles—there wasn’t any discernable style, and it certainly

didn’t look like Alden’s.

It was mine, and I loved it. I kept rubbing my hands over my spiky head. It was punk, almost purposefully disheveled.

I took a million selfies, posing at different angles. My screen was now covered in dark brown strands of hair, warping the

photos.

The problem was that I wanted to send the pictures to someone, but I couldn’t do that. The Tees might’ve liked the haircut,

but they were out of the question. I didn’t want Alden to know what I’d done, and my parents would’ve keeled over.

So the photos were just for me.

Back in my room, I played with my hair as I watched YouTube videos of these six guys who did ill-advised extreme sports. They

constructed waves in rivers to surf, they kite-boarded canals in Amsterdam.

One of them, the baby of the group, had a haircut similar to the one I’d given myself. It was a careless style, his blond

hair sticking up when he pulled off his helmet.

The kid was my age, but instead of going to college, he traveled the world with his buddies in order to jump off shit and

give his number to random girls he met on mountains and at skate parks.

I was clearly doing something wrong.

Alden texted me good night, but I didn’t respond. I was imagining my life with these boys, being a little daring and a little

blockheaded and so, so cool.

With my short hair, I could almost taste that life, one entirely different from my own.

To Randall’s credit, he didn’t comment on my hair when I arrived at the greenhouse the next day.

All he did was walk me around the arid plant room and tell me about a cactus that looked like it grew out of a turtle’s shell,

called Dioscorea elephantipes . He said the scientific names of the plants with a level of confidence I didn’t have about anything.

As he gave his spiel, I noticed things about Randall I hadn’t before: the thick muscle of his forearms covered in graying

black hair, his pants sitting low on his narrow hips.

I was noticing boys, noticing men , in a way I never had. At first, it had only been Alden, but now it was any man I came across.

It wasn’t an attraction, it was more a study. My findings were inconclusive with bouncing-leg-girl, but maybe, if I looked

at these men closely enough, I could better understand how they moved through the world.

When I observed them, I could see easily what I lacked, which was more essential than physical. They existed in a way that

didn’t offer a preplanned apology.

When I met up with Alden after work, I tried to hide my hair under a baseball cap, but he noticed, of course. If I was his

observer, then he was mine.

“What’s under there, Zo?” He laughed a little as he pulled my hat off, but when he did, his smile fell and he blinked a few

times. “That’s new.”

I couldn’t tell if he was mad or disappointed or confused. But suddenly, my excitement for my new hair faded, and was replaced

by shame.