Page 21 of Leaving the Station

The outfit I’d chosen today was too girly or not enough. My hands were too big but smaller than I’d like. I was all wrong.

I excused myself to go to the bathroom, then sat on the toilet in the women’s room and cried.

There was no reason for me to be sad. The room technically labeled me properly; I was a woman. But if that was true, why did

it feel like I was playing a part?

Everything I’d imagined about myself for eighteen years was crumbling. I wasn’t the perfect daughter or the perfect girlfriend.

Because I wasn’t perfect, and I didn’t even know if I was a girl. I was just a mess.

Wednesday, 12:45 a.m., near St. Cloud, MN

“You’re what ?” I ask, leaning over the bed so I can peer down into her bunk. This is no longer a conversation I can have without looking

at her.

“I want to go back,” she repeats.

I sit up then, and of course, whack my head on the train ceiling and yell every expletive I know in the process.

“Are you okay?” Oakley asks, her voice soft yet frantic.

“I’m fine,” I tell her. “My head’s not the most pressing thing here.”

I lie back down and rub my skull as Oakley nervously adds, “Well, they might not have me back. But if they do, I could be

a success story.” She laughs awkwardly, her words lacking her usual confidence.

I climb down from my bunk to stand in front of her. “But you won’t be able to marry a woman.” I know it sounds pathetic even

as I say it, but she had told me, hours before, how much she wanted love. How much of a hopeless romantic she is.

She hasn’t even been on a second date with a girl.

Oakley doesn’t look me in the eye as she says, “Maybe that’s not the worst thing. I’ll have everything else: my family, my

community.”

I shiver, the air colder down here than on the top bunk. She pats the mattress and I hesitantly join her. Then she swivels so she’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, looking out the dark window. I do the same. It’s like being in a fort, enclosed on three sides.

I wait for her to explain herself, but when she doesn’t, I say, “Can I tell you something too?”

She nods, twirling her hair between her fingers.

And then I immediately want to chicken out. Because I haven’t told anyone this. Not my parents, not Alden. I’ve barely admitted

it to myself.

“I’m not going back either,” I tell her.

She turns to look at me. “But the semester’s not over.”

“Correct,” I say, nodding. “I’m dropping out.”

And there it is.

Because the truth is that I can’t handle being at school for one second longer. Sure, there are only three weeks left of the

semester, but I can’t do it.

“So, here’s the thing,” I say after a beat, needing to fill the silence. “I’ve always thought I knew who I was. For my whole

life, I’ve had a plan laid out for me by my parents. I had to get good grades in high school, then apply to the right colleges,

then choose the right major. But the other week I thought—what happens if I keep focusing ahead, ahead, ahead? I’ll be looking

in front of me and never have any idea who I am right now.” I take a deep breath. “That’s the scariest part.”

Oakley reaches out a hand so it’s sitting in the spot between us. I place mine close to hers, and she bridges the gap.

“I’m afraid too,” she whispers. “I’m scared that eternal life isn’t real. That even if I rejoin the Church, I won’t get to be with my family forever just because I’m a lesbian, even though I’ve never acted on it.”

My whole body is jittery, but its movements are concealed by the starts and stops of the train.

“I don’t have an eternal life,” I say quietly, tears forming at the corners of my eyes. “No one ever promised me that.”

She picks herself up so she’s facing me entirely, and I do the same. We’re sitting cross-legged with our knees touching, using

the limited space of the bottom bunk as an excuse.

“Sometimes I think—or maybe hope—that eternal life is just having someone who remembers you,” she whispers. “That it’s having

an impact on the world, no matter how small.”

“I don’t think anyone will remember me.” I tell her, honestly. “I haven’t done jack shit.”

“I will,” she insists. “I’ll always remember this trip.” She leans forward to put a hand on my thigh. “I’ll always remember

you here, like this.”

I want to tell Oakley that she’s starting to feel like someone important to me, that I don’t want her to rejoin the Church,

but I can’t reasonably say either of those things, and especially not the latter.

We both stare at each other, until it’s too much. Until the potential energy turns kinetic.

I lean forward, and she meets me halfway. When I press my lips against hers—warm and soft and delicate—everything else quiets.

We kiss like that, bent at the waist over our crossed knees, for a long time.

I reach forward and push her hair behind her ear, and she presses her hand to mine, holding me there.

When my legs start hurting from sitting cross-legged, I help her lie down, a tentative hand on her waist, then slip next to her.

We’re both facing the top bunk, the one I was supposed to be sleeping in tonight.

“Huh,” she says, nodding and breathing hard.

“Mhm,” I confirm.

Oakley leans over and kisses me again, harder this time. She holds the nape of my neck, and I press a flat palm to her back,

and this is how it’s supposed to feel. My body fits perfectly into hers, pressed against her waist and her stomach and her chest. Even

our legs match, puzzle pieces clicking into place.

We kiss until the train lurches, and our noses bump.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” I press my fingertip against her beautiful nose at the spot where I hit it.

She’s laughing as she wraps her hand around the finger I offered her. “It’s fine, Zoe.”

I smile at that; my name fits perfectly in her mouth. I want her to say it again and again and again.

We fall against the pillow, our sides touching.

“Maybe you can sleep in the lower bunk tonight?” she says. “You know how cold it gets in the sleeper car.”

“Of course,” I say, nodding with mock seriousness. “We’ll need to cuddle for warmth.”

“But I’m the big spoon.”

“Fine,” I tell her, rolling my eyes. But really, it’s more than fine: I want to be held.

I turn on my side, and she burrows her face into the back of my neck.

“I’m glad you’re down here,” she says.

I grin, and she kisses my shoulder, and we fall asleep wrapped together in the bottom bunk of her sleeper car, in a part of

the country I’ve never seen in the light of day.

With no mention of what we’d just revealed to each other.