Page 32 of Leaving the Station

I just told him that I was a lesbian, or close enough to it that I wasn’t into dating him. He has to know what that means,

but still, I didn’t have the common decency to have a conversation.

I just left.

And that’s what Oakley’s about to do to me. And I’m going to let her, because it’s not worth it. I began to care for someone

who can never return that care. I am to Oakley what Alden was to me.

Maybe this is my curse, that every time I escape a bad situation, it’ll come back to haunt me in a new way, like a ghost wearing

a hat and a paste-on mustache in a poor attempt at a disguise.

“Zoe?”

It’s Virginia, reading a thick paperback and wearing glasses that have a pink beaded chain attached to them.

I wave but don’t say anything.

The remnants of the party are everywhere: decorations and streamers and plates and rogue slices of pie. But the partygoers have left, or are passed out on the floor. Virginia and I are the only conscious people in the observation car.

“Are you okay, dear?” she asks.

I shrug, but tears come to my eyes. Virginia stands from her seat to move closer to mine. She closes her book and lets her

glasses hang around her neck by the chain.

“You and Oakley looked quite close at the party,” she says carefully.

“We weren’t,” I tell her petulantly. “We’re not. I mean, we never were.”

She tuts at that. “I’m sure that’s not true. The way you two were acting in the dining car... you were peas in a pod; I’ll

tell you that much.”

“We got into a fight.”

She nods thoughtfully. “Well, that explains the moping.”

“But it’s not a fight we can recover from,” I say, comforted by Virginia’s presence. “It’s never going to work out.”

“Now, how do you know that?”

Regardless of what happened or what will happen between us, I don’t want to divulge Oakley’s personal information. So I just

say, “She’s doing something I don’t agree with.”

Virginia laughs. “Clint does things I don’t agree with every day!”

“But does he do things that go completely against your core beliefs?”

“Well, no.”

We’re both silent, and I let the train rock me back and forth.

Finally, I say, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, dear.”

“What do you do when you’re done with your train trips?” I ask, and Virginia looks confused, so I keep talking. “These past

few days have been some of the best of my life. And it’s all going to be over tomorrow.” Virginia smiles sadly, recognition

dawning on her face. “What if the best version of myself was here on the train?”

I was able to keep these feelings at bay for a bit, while I had Oakley to hang out with, but not anymore.

Virginia shifts in her chair and pulls the glasses off entirely. “You know what I think?” she asks, and I shake my head. “I

think that you’ll never know who you’ll be, even tomorrow. I’m in my seventies and I don’t know that. There are going to be incredible and heartbreaking things in my future, if I’m lucky. Probably some

of that will happen on this very train.” She smooths the front of her sweater. “I had to learn that the hard way, though.

I was a people pleaser for most of my life—constantly worried about what everyone thought of me. So I changed myself for them.”

“You don’t feel that way anymore?” I can’t imagine getting out of that headspace. Of not being worried that I’m going to disappoint

every person I’ve ever met or cared about, especially when I’ve already disappointed most of them.

I bought this train ticket so that I could delay that disappointment, with Alden in the East and my parents in the West. But

it was a stopgap measure. I didn’t expect to get on the train and find a place full of people I care about.

“Heavens, no!” Virginia says, answering my previous question.

Some of the people who are sleeping on the floor nearby stir.

“I live for me and me alone.” She leans forward in her seat, pushing a strand of gray hair behind her ear.

“Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about people.

It just means that on the airplane, I put my oxygen mask on before anyone else’s. And I never would’ve done that before.”

The man who stirred on the dirty carpet snores loudly and turns so he’s lying face down.

“All you can do is live right now,” she continues. “And not worry if it’s the best life that you could possibly be living.

Maybe it is; maybe it isn’t. But the best life you can live is the one you’re living right now.” She grins. “That’s it. That’s

the secret to happiness. Easy as that.”

I don’t know how it could possibly be as easy as that. But the way Virginia said it, it sounds like it could be.

“But what if my life right now sucks?” I ask after a minute. I failed my first semester of college, I failed my parents, I

failed Alden.

I definitely failed Oakley.

“That’s the thing,” Virginia says. “Sure, Einstein said all this crap about time being relative, but for my money, it’s not.”

I laugh a little at that, and Virginia continues. “There’s nothing you can compare your present moment to. You can’t go thinking,

‘Oh, well, the other year I did this,’ or ‘Next year Virginia can take care of that.’ Right now is all there is.”

“But there’s the past,” I tell her. “There has to be. There are things I did—some really shitty things—that led up to this

point.”

“Sure,” she says simply. “But you can’t change them. Not everyone agrees with me,” she continues, “but I have an inkling that your brain is a bit like mine. And thinking this way has helped me.”

I don’t want to dwell on the past, and right now I can’t imagine my future, so maybe she’s right. It makes my head hurt but

in a pleasant, tingly way.

“I’m going to try to get some shut-eye,” Virginia tells me. “But knock on my door if you need anything. And don’t worry about

waking Clint; he’d sleep through a tornado.”

Before she leaves the car, I say, “Thank you.” It doesn’t feel like enough.

“Of course, dear,” she says, then waves as the door shuts behind her.

I was living in fear of who I was or who I’d become, but maybe that’s been my problem. I’m grieving a version of myself that

still exists. I’m moving on before the best part has even started.

And this train ride isn’t over.

There are still twelve hours or so to figure things out. To live in this moment and not move on to the next one. To not live

to please my parents or Alden. And especially not Oakley, now that she doesn’t want anything to do with me.

Even if it’s just for half a day, I can live my life for me, whoever that is.

The Night before Thanksgiving Break

The Cornell shuttle bus was chrome on the outside, reflective and bright. As the driver took my bag, I caught a glimpse of myself, tired and confused. But there was something else—something almost cheerful.

Something like hope.

As the bus traveled south from Ithaca to Manhattan, I felt free. Or, at the very least, I felt disconnected from the version

of myself that had brought me to this point.

I could’ve said it was the campus that had been making me feel so terrible, but that would’ve been an excuse.

I was at least partially to blame for my own suffering, even if I couldn’t admit it at the time.

Either way, I was leaving everything behind, the good and the bad.

I’d been gone from home for only three months, and yet I would’ve been unrecognizable to the Zoe who walked onto campus in

the oppressive humidity of an East Coast August. Part of it was the change in appearance—my hair, my clothes. But it was more

than that.

I went to college as a lesbian premed student and left as a dropout who had a boyfriend. It was ridiculous.

A laugh, loud and sharp, bubbled out of me. I covered my mouth and looked around, but no one was awake enough to have heard

me.

I tried to hold it in but the more I attempted to keep the laughter at bay, the more it wanted to erupt out of me.

So I let it.

I had four days on the train to figure out what I was going to do—it wasn’t enough, but in that moment, I let the humor of my predicament wash over me. Because it was funny, in a sad kind of way.

Once I got to Penn Station, I bought an iced coffee and a bagel, then wandered through the Amtrak waiting area. No one paid

me any attention.

Maybe no one was ever paying me much attention. It was just me, focused to an unhealthy degree on everything I thought was wrong with my body and

my life.

Around Alden, I’d started to dissect my appearance, my mannerisms, the way I walked and talked. He’d become a twisted reflection

of everything I wasn’t.

I shook the thoughts of him out of my head. I was going to fade into the background on the train, I was going to be a person

no one thought twice about.

And maybe then, I’d be okay.