Page 24 of Leaving the Station

The sun is just starting to rise, but the train is already awake, alive.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” I say to Oakley as she zombie-walks into the observation car, her hair in a messy bun. She sits

next to me, then flops forward and rests her head in my lap.

I feel like I coaxed a finicky cat onto me: one wrong move and she’ll go skittering under the nearest piece of furniture.

“I’m so tired,” she groans.

“Coffee?” I suggest.

She sits up. “Not happening.”

“Just a little sip?”

“No,” she says. “I’d feel too guilty.”

“Ooh,” I say, feigning shock. “I thought that was just a thing for Jews and Catholics. Nice to know that Mormons experience

religious guilt too.”

“Not a Mormon,” she tells me, then she realizes what she said and backtracks. “Or, not currently, anyway. Not on the train.

Not yet.”

I let her words hang in the air.

“And you don’t own guilt,” she says, filling the gap in conversation.

“My whole life is guilt. It’s literally built into the Church.

Every Sunday, they pass around the sacrament, which you can only take if you’re ‘worthy.’” She rolls her eyes.

“So if I knew I was ‘unworthy’ that week, I had to abstain. And if I hadn’t confessed my sins beforehand to my bishop—who was usually a friend’s dad asking me if I’d masturbated, mind you—then I’d have to choose between either lying to God and taking the sacrament (because I was never perfect) or passing it along to the next person in my row when it came to me. ”

“Then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t try a little coffee,” I tell her. “You’ve tried a little lesbianism.”

She coughs, choking on saliva, and I stand and pat her back until I’m sure her airways are clear.

“Nothing to see here, people,” I say, making a big show of turning to everyone in the observation car, even though no one’s

paying attention to us.

Oakley drags me back to her sleeper car after that. Sometime between when I left last night and now, the attendant put away

the beds so that the room is back to its two-seats-facing-each-other setup.

“Why did we have to leave the observation car for this?” I ask once we’re settled.

She worries at her necklace. “Remember how I said I had never, um, acted on anything that went against the rules of the Church?”

I nod, but she keeps staring at me. “Oh my god,” I say, realizing what she means. “Oh, fuck.” I put my head in my hands. “I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t be,” she says, reaching out to steady my bouncing leg. “ Please , don’t be. This is... It was... nice.”

“But I led you astray,” I groan.

“You didn’t ‘lead me astray,’” she says. “You’re not, like, a biblical concubine.”

I dig my fingernails into my palm. “You’re right,” I say, whining. “I’m worse.”

Oakley knew the whole time we’ve been on this train that she’d be returning to the Church when we made it to Washington. She

knew and she let me kiss her.

And she liked it.

“You’re not worse,” she says after a moment. “Please, don’t think that.”

I close my eyes, hoping that when I open them, I won’t have made out with a girl who’s about to rejoin the Mormon Church.

I wonder what they would think of me in Ritzville.

But that’s not a productive thought, because they’ll never know about me. Maybe Oakley’s family will hear about me as a secondary

character in the story of her cross-country train trip, but I’ll never be the main character.

I won’t be the love interest.

“What happened last night,” Oakley starts again, “it was... so good.”

It was. It really was.

Oakley leans forward and puts her hand on my knee, and I close my eyes.

We stare at the flat, amber landscape for a minute, and Oakley doesn’t move her hand. When she leans back, I want to pull her toward me.

But I don’t, and she sighs.

Yesterday, I would’ve been happy to fade into the background, to be a side character in Oakley’s story. But now, the thought

sends a chill down my spine that I can’t shake.

Nearly Three Months into College

Alden texted me that one of the kids from his English seminar was throwing a party. The boy was a sophomore, he said, and

lived off campus. Would I be interested in going?

No.

Yes.

I didn’t know.

I’d been in college for months and had gone to only one disastrous party.

Before I could respond, Alden texted me the address, along with a heart emoji that felt like a threat. He was reaching out,

and I was slipping further away.

You should come , he told me. I’d love for you to be there , he said.

I’d shoved most of the clothes in which I didn’t want Alden to see me to the bottom of my drawers, but I didn’t have the energy

to dress like the version of Zoe he thought he was dating, not that night and maybe not ever again.

I chose a black beanie, baggy black jeans, and an oversized white T-shirt that I cuffed at the sleeves. I pulled my binder on. I’d never worn it in front of Alden, but... fuck it. It made me not entirely hate myself.

Actually, for the first time in a while, I liked the person I saw in the mirror, especially with my short hair.

When I got to the party, Alden was tipsy, which was a state in which I’d never seen him. He handed me a beer in a tall glass

bottle, and I felt good holding it, like I had at the other party.

I felt even better after drinking it. I hadn’t had anything to drink at all this semester, but here, it felt right.

The apartment was dingier than Mischa’s, with a college student–inhabited charm that made it tolerable. People were spread

over the floor, lying on top of each other, smoking weed and drinking from various cups and bottles. It was more adult than

I’d imagined.

I went to the kitchen to grab another beer even though I hadn’t finished my first, and when I did, Alden came up behind me

and kissed my neck. He smelled like a mixture of alcohol and body spray, unfamiliar scents.

I opened the beer by leveraging the cap against the counter—my hottest skill, and one that felt extremely queer—then I put

a hand on his waist and directed his around my neck. I wasn’t doing it to placate him. I wanted to kiss him.

I was wearing black boots with a small thick heel, and for the first time, I was taller than him.

I don’t know what came over me—maybe one beer and a lack of caring. The kiss was nice. When we broke apart, he was grinning.

“Let’s dance,” he said, taking my hand.

So we did. We stepped over everyone who had taken up residence on the carpet and joined the small group of people dancing

in the living room.

I pulled him closer, and someone whistled. I didn’t know what they saw, but it felt like being perceived on my own terms.

We made out a little on the dance floor, and I held on to his hips, leading the movement.

It felt—and there’s no other word for it—queer.

“Come back to my dorm,” Alden whispered to me after a few songs. He had to crane his neck slightly to reach my ear, which,

more than his words, is what sent a shiver through my body.

I nodded. “Okay.”

We didn’t hold hands on the way back to campus. It was a cold, early November day that foretold winter. I stayed a few steps

ahead and held the door open for him when we got to his dorm.

All we did was make out, but it was better than anything we’d done before. I had woken up feeling especially masculine that

day, and I wanted him to understand that. I wanted to transmit this feeling to him through the way I kissed, the way I bit

his lip, the way I tugged at his shirt but kept mine on.

I don’t know if he knew what changed or if he felt it, but he was definitely into it.

After we’d kissed for a while, I pulled away. “I’m going back to my dorm,” I told him.

I liked what we’d done, but it still didn’t feel right.

Feeling in control and feeling right were two different things, I’d learned.

“Why?” he asked, pouting. He was sitting with a pillow in his lap, shirtless, small. I leaned down and kissed him. I imagined that he was a girl. I imagined that he was queer, that I was queer in the same way as him.

Maybe this was how queer boys felt, the desire, the hunger.

It was the first time I was pulled to him in this way.

“Stay,” he said. He begged.

I shook my head, opened his door, and left.

In the morning, I had no idea what had happened. I remembered everything perfectly; that wasn’t where the confusion came from.

I didn’t know what had possessed me, what had allowed me to feel so comfortable in my skin for one night.

When I woke up the morning after, I didn’t feel as masculine. I washed my face, put on a real bra. It felt right for that

day; it was what my brain was telling me I wanted to look like at that moment.

But if I had been feeling this way the night before, I knew I wouldn’t have wanted to hook up with Alden. It would’ve felt

too... straight.

That’s what he was, though, wasn’t he? Straight?

Even if I wasn’t a girl, he didn’t know that.

I didn’t know what I was or who I wanted to be.

I didn’t know anything.

Wednesday, 8:30 a.m., outside of Rugby, ND

We’ve been playing Spit with Oakley’s deck of cards for the past half hour. She is, of course, extremely good at it. Maybe

better than Alden.

“So,” I say, my palms almost too sweaty to move the cards to the spit pile. Oakley doesn’t look up.

I need to tell her how I’m feeling, even if I don’t know completely myself. “You know how I told you I was having thoughts

about my gender?”

She freezes midstack, then collects all the cards into a pile, putting them away and giving me her full attention.

“Yes,” she says calmly, as if she might scare me away. “I remember.”

“Can I tell you some of the thoughts?”

“Of course,” she says.

I take a few deep breaths.

“It’s like this: sometimes I feel fine. I’ll wake up and I’ll feel good about the body I’m in and the way people perceive

me. But other times...”

I’ve never had to put this into words before.

I try again. “Then there are other times where I want to be a boy, full stop, and it feels bone-deep wrong for anyone to suggest