Page 28 of Leaving the Station

“All right, she’s gone,” I whisper-yell to the other people in the observation car. We were waiting for Aya to finish her

conversation with Oakley about the fourth Percy Jackson book. We wound up waiting a long time, but—at least for me—it was worth it to see the joy on their faces as they talked about a series they both love.

The plan was to then have Oakley suggest that Aya rest in her room for anywhere from one to three hours. Nanami was very on board with this idea.

Now Aya’s reluctantly back in the sleeper car, and Oakley and Floor-Sleeper Jeff and Mike and everyone else who usually hangs

out in the observation car and I are in here frantically getting decorations set up.

Oakley tosses Jeff the streamers and he wraps them around every available surface. I distribute party hats throughout the

car, then stick one on my head and hand another to Oakley.

“Put it on,” I nudge her.

She snaps it under her chin.

I lean into her. “You look very cute.”

“I feel like a dunce.”

She glances between my eyes and my lips, but after a moment of nothing, she looks away.

We haven’t kissed since early this morning, and I’m worried it’s because we’re getting closer to the final destination. To

where she has to get off the train and live a life where she pretends to be straight. Or at least where she can’t act on her

queerness.

Oakley and I continue to set up for the party, side by side. We hang a poster that says, “Doggonit, it’s your birthday,” and

has a Dalmatian standing on its hind legs and wearing sunglasses.

We talk as we work, but we don’t broach the subject of Mormonism. I don’t tell her that she doesn’t have to go back, that

she could go to Seattle or return to New York and be in a place that, for the most part, doesn’t believe that queer people

are ruining the sanctity of marriage.

“Guys!” Jeff yells from the other end of the car. “Look!”

At first, I’m worried something’s wrong, but when I glance out the window, I understand. For most of the day, we’ve been staring

at flat plains, at barren land covered with fresh snow.

But now there’s an imposing mountain in the distance, glowing purple in the last gasp of sunlight.

When I’m finally able to turn my gaze from the window and look at Oakley, her eyes are watery.

“It’s so beautiful,” she says, touching the glass as a tear drips down her perfectly upturned nose and onto the floor. “I’m

sorry; this is embarrassing.”

“No,” I tell her, tentatively reaching out to wipe a rogue tear from the corner of her eye. She doesn’t flinch as I do. “It’s really not.”

She continues staring out the window, and as much as I’m moved by the view, it’s more that I’m moved by watching her watch

the view. By the awe she has for this scenery that we get to witness together.

Before I can think too much, I rest my hand on her thigh, and she grabs it, holding me steady.

It feels so natural, so right. I want to see how Oakley reacts to every landscape on earth. I want to hear every thought she

has, which would take a thousand lifetimes.

But I can’t let myself think like that, because it’s almost over.

“Oakley,” I start, wanting to tell her what’s on my mind, to say a million things that I can’t because we’re in a crowded

car on a cross-country journey that’s going to end before we know it.

She squeezes my hand, as if she knows what I’m thinking.

“It’s almost five o’clock!” someone shouts, ending the moment Oakley and I were having, even if it was just in my head.

Five was the time that Aya told us she’d be done with her “rest” (she insisted it was not a nap, and that she would never

fall asleep). I think she knows what we’re planning, but we all still try to hide from her as best we can. We duck under chairs,

behind the steep staircase leading down to the snack car.

“You ready?” Oakley whispers from where we’re crouched next to someone’s backpack.

I hold my breath; my heart’s beating out of my chest, though whether that’s from the anticipation of surprising Aya or Oakley’s presence, I’m not sure.

“Not really,” I tell her. Now that we’re done planning the party, it feels like an ending.

She smiles sadly, then whispers, “We did good,” into my ear.

Instead of responding, I lean forward and kiss her, hard. It’s cramped, but I manage to wrap a hand around her waist, pulling

her into me at an odd angle, hip to hip. When we’re done, she leans her forehead against mine.

Finally, the door between the cars opens and there’s a collective intake of breath as everyone else jumps up and yells, “SURPRISE!”

Two Days before Thanksgiving Break

“Surprise,” Alden said, handing me a small box wrapped in brown paper.

“What’s this?”

We were in the student union, and though I’d lost track of the time, it had to have been around two in the morning. That’s

when the security guard stomped through the building to check student IDs. We presented ours, and he nodded and kept stomping.

There were other places we could’ve been, but this one felt like ours.

“It’s nothing,” Alden told me. “I just thought you might...”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. I opened the carefully wrapped package, and inside there was a small

metal key.

“Is this—?”

“A key to my dorm,” he offered, nodding excitedly.

“You’re not allowed to replicate keys,” I told him.

Even after months of not going to class and doing everything in my power to accomplish as little as possible, there was a

part of me that clung to my old goody-two-shoes tendencies.

He shrugged. “If I get caught, it’ll have been worth it.”

“Thank you,” I said, though what I wanted to say was, Why ?

I had my own dorm, and if I wanted to go to his room, he could let me in. The last time I had been there was after the party,

when we had the... confusing hookup.

The only answer I could fathom was that he liked what had happened that night and wanted it to happen again. Maybe he understood

that our dynamic had shifted. Or maybe he just wanted to have sex with me and this was the smoothest way he could think to

bring it up.

Looking in his eyes, it seemed more likely that it was the latter.

“Should we maybe use the key now?” he asked, cupping my kneecap with his palm.

If I’d felt the same power I had the night of the party, I would’ve said yes with no hesitation. But I was curious nonetheless.

“Yeah.” My entire body was clenched. “Sure.”

As we snuck through campus, the whole thing felt as illicit as all of our other late-night escapades. We scanned our student

IDs to get into Alden’s building, then ran up the back stairwell.

The closer we got to his room, though, the less nervous I became. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the running, the scheming.

It brought me closer to myself, to the version of me that Alden made me actually enjoy.

“Use your key,” he whispered as we stood in front of his door.

I pulled the small metal key out of the box and tried to get it to work, but I was shaking and the lock wouldn’t turn.

“Here,” he said, placing his hand over mine and turning the key for me.

“So,” he said, grinning.

“So,” I parroted, trying to keep my face neutral.

He leaned in to kiss me, but when he grabbed my waist, I directed his arms up to my neck. We kissed like that, standing up,

for a while, neither of us wanting to make the move to the bed.

“I have condoms,” he said as he came up for air. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

It wasn’t, but I couldn’t have told him that.

“Cool,” I said, and he took that as confirmation to pull open his desk drawer and rip one off the pack.

We made our way to the bed, and I briefly closed my eyes, imagining myself as someone else. I tried to think myself into a

different body, a boy’s body, or maybe just into Alden’s. He pulled his socks off, and I pulled mine off too.

One item of clothing down, many more to go.

“I’ve never been with anyone like you,” he told me as I sat on his bed. His expression was open and expectant.

I knew from our late-night conversations that he had a high school girlfriend with whom things had ended terribly. He never

told me her last name, but it was easy enough to find her online.

Based on her Instagram presence, she seemed like someone I would’ve gotten along with. She was shorter than me and more feminine. She had two emotional support rats named Mario and Luigi and was working to make computer science more inclusive.

There was no evidence of Alden on her page, except in her tagged photos. There were pictures of them sharing plates of food

at busy diners, of them sitting shoulder-to-shoulder at high school parties. They looked good together. Definitely better

than me and Alden, though we didn’t have any photos together that would have proven that.

“I’ve never been with anyone like you ,” I finally responded after some on-the-bed kissing. It was true but only in that I hadn’t been with anyone. But the people

I had fantasized about weren’t anything like him.

Alden had a belt on over his jeans, and once it became clear we had nothing more to say to each other that would forestall

the moment, I let him take it off himself. After that, we were off to the races. I helped pull his pants down over his nonexistent

hips, and he got in my way as I pulled my T-shirt over my head.

The fewer clothes he had on, the more I wanted to pause and admire him. He was a normal-looking guy, which made me all the

more jealous. His stomach was hairy, and his boxers sat low on his hips, in a way my pants never could because of how wide

my own hips were.

He watched me watching him, smiling. I smiled back, a real one this time.

He never tried to take off my bra—a sports bra that was so tight it nearly cut off my circulation—and for that I was grateful. Other than the night of the party, I had never worn my binder around him, but I still didn’t want him seeing my boobs. I didn’t even know if I wanted to see them.

After that, it was mostly logistics, like getting a condom on and all the things people do to prepare for penetrative sex.