Page 36 of Leaving the Station

“I ’m fine, I’m fine,” Virginia tells the paramedic that the conductor called as Oakley and I sneak back onto the train. “There’s

no use shoving me into an ambulance.” She swats at him, and the man jumps back like she’s a rabid animal.

Oakley holds in a laugh as we walk past Virginia and Clint and into a seat in the observation car. The cab ride back to the

train was uneventful, except that we were getting dirty looks the whole time from the driver, which may or may not have been

because we were making out in the back of his car.

“I can’t believe that worked,” I whisper to Oakley, gesturing to Virginia and the conductor. Now Clint’s getting involved

too, helping Virginia up and checking her for scratches as he scowls. Either he’s as good an actor as his wife, or Virginia

didn’t tell him what was going on, but either way, they make an excellent pair.

“ I can believe it,” Oakley says. “Virginia was a professional actor for, like, twenty years.”

“What?” I ask, too loudly.

“You didn’t know? She had a major character arc on Grey’s Anatomy in one of the early seasons.”

My mouth is all the way open, and I stare at Virginia, wondering what else I don’t know about her.

But then I shake that thought away, because I don’t need to know everything about this woman. That’s not what’s important;

at the very least, we got to spend time together. I got to speak to someone I never would’ve had the chance to talk to otherwise.

I know about her life on the train, and she knows about mine.

And I’m feeling weirdly okay with that.

Oakley and I sit for a minute, side by side. She reaches out to grab my hand. It’s a small gesture, but it fills me with so

much warmth. I take her hand, and she squeezes.

“Do you want to come back to my sleeper car?” she asks after a minute. The train is up and running again, and people are grumbling

about how we’re set to arrive in Seattle a few hours late. No one seems genuinely upset, though.

After all, if they wanted to get home on time, they wouldn’t have taken the train.

“Definitely,” I say quickly, then follow her back to the sleeper car.

My heart speeds up as we walk there. Once we flop into the seats, things feel hesitant again. We watch Washington pass us

by.

“It’s weird to think that we’ve lived in the same state our whole lives,” I begin, “when we come from entirely different worlds.”

“Is it that weird?” she asks, and I know what she’s about to say will be obnoxiously smart.

“There are more than seven million people living in Washington. We were both raised in minority religions that want nothing to do with each other. You lived in the city and I lived in a small town. It’s a miracle that we’re here at all, together on this train, in this room. ”

And before she can say anything else, I lean forward and kiss her. She grabs my waist, and I crawl over so that I’m on her

seat straddling her. When that position becomes too uncomfortable, she pushes me up so we’re both standing.

We kiss like it’s the last time we’ll ever have the chance, which it very well may be.

The train lurches forward, and Oakley falls into me, pinning me against the wall.

“Should I pull down the bed?” she whispers.

I nod, and we both help transform the space from a living room to a bedroom in record time.

Oakley laughs, and I stare at her.

“What?”

She’s still giggling as she asks, “Should we use the top bunk or the bottom one?”

“I’m not going back on top,” I tell her, realizing how it sounds right after I say it.

I had sex with Alden less than a week ago, and I’m not ready to go through that again, no matter how much I might want to

do it with Oakley.

“Can we try something a little different?” I whisper into her ear, and she nods, pulling me down for a kiss.

We both climb into the bottom bunk and hold each other tightly, making out for a long while.

“Can I take off your dress?” I ask her once we’re both warm from our shared body heat.

“Please,” she tells me, lifting her arms to help me out. She pulls off her turtleneck next, then her bra. She makes a move

to take my shirt off, and I let her, but I keep my sports bra on. It’s what I’m most comfortable with right now.

She’s looking at me like no one has before, like I’m someone special and sacred. I’m looking at her with the same reverence.

Next come my pants; Oakley helps me slide them off, but the bunk is too short for me to stretch out all the way and in the

confusion, she ends up knocking her elbow into my face.

“Are you okay?” she asks, stroking my cheek with her thumb while holding in laughter. I shove her back down on the bed until

we’re both laughing so hard tears are coming out of our eyes for no real reason other than that it’s nice to be this close

to someone you care about.

She holds me close and kisses my neck as she asks, “What was your idea?”

I bury my face into her shoulder. “Would you maybe want to... like...” I take a deep breath. The worst part will be

asking for it, but then maybe it’ll be good.

Maybe it’ll be the best thing I’ve ever done.

“Could we show each other what feels good? Could we...” I can’t believe I have to say this. That I’m eighteen years old

and so afraid to talk about my own body, about what I want. “We could masturbate in front of each other,” I finally manage

to spit out.

Once I do, I want to spontaneously combust.

When I work up the courage to look at Oakley, she’s smiling. “That sounds good,” she says, reassuring me.

“Good,” I repeat with a hand on my forehead.

It’s cramped on the bottom bunk, but it works. Our legs bump into each other and we laugh and we watch each other’s hands

move and it’s entirely different from how it was with Alden because we’re both in control of the situation.

When we’re done, Oakley grins at me as she lies back on her pillow, and I climb over to her, kissing my way up from her stomach

to her neck to her mouth.

“Was that okay for you?” I ask her.

She nods. “It was perfect.”

Oakley nuzzles into me, and I hold her, and I feel big and small and soft and strong all at the same time. Masculine and feminine

and peaceful. I don’t mind that it’s only for right now, because right now is so, so good.

“Oakley?” I ask after a minute. She turns to me, her head buried in my neck as she makes a hm sound. “I’m not dating that boy anymore. And I wasn’t, really, the whole time we’ve been on the train.” She’s frozen against

my chest, and I’m sure she can feel my heart beating much too fast for its own good. “It was shitty not to tell you before,

but I didn’t know how to talk about it. It’s over anyway. I called him late last night.”

She doesn’t say anything, just cuddles me closer.

“Zoe?” she says after another minute, using the same tone of voice with which I said her name.

“Yeah?” I ask, my mouth against her hair.

“I don’t know if I’m going back.”

I sit up. “What?” Then, because I can’t help it: “Was what we just did that good?”

She snorts, then sniffles, and when I look up at her she’s crying. “I don’t know what I want to do,” she admits, flustered.

“I need more time to think about everything.”

I rub her back and wait to see if she’ll say more. We sit like that for a minute, and then she says, “I know I told you I

felt like I failed at being queer, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Personally, I think you’re very good at it,” I say as I trace her spine from her neck down, down, down, to the small of her

back, with its peach-fuzz hairs. “There’s no way to be bad at it.”

I say this for myself as much as her. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on with my gender for this whole semester,

but maybe it’s not as urgent as I thought. Maybe I’ll figure it out slowly, or not at all.

Thank you , she mouths, and I kiss her while I can, while she’s right in front of me. “I’m going home for Thanksgiving, but then...

I don’t know.”

I nod, like this isn’t the most revelatory thing she could possibly say.

“Are you doing it for me?” I ask quietly.

I don’t know if she heard me, and I’m not sure I want her to.

She shakes her head. “Maybe it would make more sense if I was, but I’m not. I’m doing it for me .”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I tell her honestly. I pull her down with me and wrap an arm around her. “I really, really care about you, Oakley,” I say. “But I want you to make whatever decision feels best for you. And if that means never seeing you again, that’s okay.”

She tilts her chin so that she’s staring into my eyes. “But what if that’s not okay with me? What if I want to see you after

this trip? What if I want to kiss you and cuddle you and tell you fun facts while you’re half asleep?”

“If you wanted that, then I’d want it too.” I squeeze her. “I’m happy with any amount of time you’ll give me.”

She nods into my chest and hugs me closer, like she’s trying to break through my skin.

“You don’t have to know right now,” I tell her. “But maybe we can not know together?”

“That’d be nice,” she says as the train rocks us back and forth in a familiar rhythm. “And I can use any pronouns you want

when I tell everyone about you and this trip, by the way. Because I will be talking about you.”

I grin at that. Oakley doesn’t care that I don’t have everything figured out. She wants to help me figure it out.

“Do you think things will be different when we’re off the train?” she asks after a minute.

“Well, we’d be able to sleep in an actual bed together, for starters,” I tell her, but then I look down and see that she’s

serious.

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “But I can’t wait to find out.”