Page 6 of Leaving the Station

We careen through the landscape in the low light of a late-fall afternoon. The café car is fairly empty, and the excitement

of the first few hours of the trip has died down. Now there’s a lethargic feeling; it’s nap time for everyone.

There aren’t many sights to see, nor is there much to do, but I can’t bring myself to fall asleep. I try to read, but that’s

not happening either.

As a last resort, I pull out my phone and turn off airplane mode, only to find that there’s no service. If there was, I don’t

know what my notifications would look like. I might have texts from several people asking where I am and why, or there might

be nothing.

I’m not sure which would be worse.

We’re barreling closer and closer to Ithaca, though the train’s path doesn’t cross through the city. Even so, my hands dampen

at the thought of being back at school.

I’m not there , I remind myself.

So, instead of worrying (which I’m sure I’ll do anyway), I play Tetris until my eyes glaze over. I used to play it so much back in middle school that I would have dreams of the bricks falling into place. I don’t play much now, but being on the train makes me want to return to old comforts.

Maybe it’s also that there was some part of me that understood who I was in middle school. I might’ve called myself a responsible

student, the way my parents did, or a Tetris player.

I don’t know what I would call myself now.

For the time being, I can be a Tetris player again.

I’m about to beat my high score when a voice booms over the loudspeaker.

“Hello, my beautiful train people,” the voice says. “It’s your Snack Conductor Edward again, reminding you that the snack

car is! Still! Open! I’m here for all your snack needs. Chocolate? Check. Nachos? Check. Coffee? Still got it! Come on down....

I’m waiting for you.” He whispers that last part into the intercom.

I’m technically in the snack car, but the area where the self-proclaimed Snack Conductor is selling food is at the opposite end. I figure I’ll

have to meet this Edward guy at some point, so I might as well get it over with now.

There’s a short line, and I stand awkwardly near a trash can so I’m not in the way. Even here, in the snack car, I can’t bring

myself to take up space.

It’s not that I thought I wouldn’t feel this way on the train. I knew I would, but living like this is exhausting.

Edward the Snack Guy is stationed behind a bar with a coffee machine, a fridge, a microwave, and, of course, a variety of snacks lining the wall.

“And here’s your Diet Dr Pepper,” Edward says, overenunciating each word and presenting the soda with a flourish to the person

at the front of the line. The guy nods and walks away with his head down.

“Now, what can I get for you?” Edward asks the next person. “Anything your heart desires—so long as I’ve got it. HA!” He throws

his head back and almost knocks over a cardboard container of granola bars.

He’s working the crowd, and no one’s enjoying it.

“Can I just have a coffee?” I ask Edward when it’s my turn to order.

He gasps dramatically. “ Just a coffee? Not a snack?”

“I’m good.”

“You hear that? This kid is good!” he says to the person behind me in line, laughing like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever

heard. “You sure I can’t interest you in ...” He ducks below the counter and pulls out an array of bars and bags. “Snickers?

Potato chips? Kettle chips?”

I feel bad enough that I agree to the Kettle chips. He grins and hands me a cup of coffee and the bag, and I pass him my debit

card.

“You made me proud today.” He wipes a fake tear from his eye as he swipes it. “Are you heading to Chicago?”

“To Seattle.”

“Even better,” he says. “I’m on the next train too, so we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

I smile politely—if all the coffee on the train is being held hostage by Edward, I at least have to try to make nice.

I slink back to my booth with the coffee and Kettle chips I didn’t want, then stare out the window yet again.

Now the only company I have is myself, who happens to be one of the people I don’t particularly want to spend time with.

Day Eleven of College

Randall handed me a broom. “You know what to do with this, yeah?”

“Pretty much.” I pantomimed sweeping.

He laughed and patted me on the shoulder, a paternal gesture that stirred unwanted emotions inside me.

Sweeping in the greenhouse was a futile effort; once I dumped a batch of leaves in the compost, a new layer would fall. But

it was gratifying for the brief moments in which the floor was clean.

Being in the greenhouse was an escape from everything else in my life. Randall told me on my first day that I was allowed

to listen to music, but I never did. I loved hearing how the outside world bumped up against the glass.

When I made it over to the corpse plant, I leaned the broom on a bench and examined the future misshapen penis. The giant

pot had a prized spot, one with easy access to the overstory and the sun beyond.

“Hi, little buddy,” I said to the empty pot.

Except it wasn’t empty.

In the center of the soil, barely visible, was a gnarled ball. It looked almost alive—it was a mostly submerged dark green orb covered in stringy white roots.

But it was there—what could’ve been the first sign of a bloom. An event so rare that people came from far and wide to see

it.

And that’s when I started feeling so protective of the plant that it made me almost sick with worry. I wanted to watch it

day and night, to nurture it so that it flowered.

But on the flip side, I never wanted it to bloom, because I knew that when it did, it would last for less than a week.

It was a corpse plant no matter what it looked like, but there was only one stage of its life during which people traveled

to see it.

I loved it like this, alone and underground.

I turned my attention to the other plants then, and wound up by the machine that sprayed mist throughout the room. The mister

in the tropical section went off on a timer; it sat next to the vanilla vine and across from the coffee plant.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the warm spray, allowing myself to feel like one of the plants.

“How’s it going in here?” Randall asked as he carefully opened the heavy door into the climate-controlled room.

“Great,” I told him, clearing my throat and sweeping the area around my feet.

He laughed to himself. “It’s all right to take a break. You don’t need to be working all the time.”

“That’s okay,” I told him. “I like it in here.”

“So do I,” he said. “But the plants are hearty. Tea?” He nodded to his office, and I followed him across the hall.

“I like to dry my own leaves.” He filled the kettle and set it to boil. “All the teas in here come from the greenhouse.”

“That’s so cool,” I told him, meaning it with every fiber of my being.

He worked methodically, the same way he did with the plants, weighing the dried leaves and then placing them in the strainer.

When the tea was ready, he handed me a mug.

“So,” he said as he sat at his desk chair with a thermos. “I’m glad you found your way to the greenhouse. You seem to have

a real interest in it.”

“Yeah,” I told him, sipping the tea and letting it sit on my tongue. The flavors were potent and aromatic. “I guess so.”

“Good,” he said, though I could tell there was more he wanted to say.

I hoped desperately that he wouldn’t bring up my future or “career paths” or anything of the sort, because the greenhouse

was the one place where I didn’t have to think about any of that.

Randall sipped his tea, then stood up. “Well, let’s get back to work, shall we?”

I nodded. Maybe he could tell that was what I needed to do, or maybe he had been in my position once, a kid on the precipice

of something beyond them, wanting nothing more than to be surrounded by plants.

“Let’s end the night with the sounds of the stars,” Rex said into the mic at the student radio station. “So sit back, relax, and try not to think about the impending heat death of the universe.”

They hit a button on the soundboard, and chill radio static filled the room.

“You’re about to give the whole campus an existential crisis,” Autumn told them as she spun around in a rolling chair—her

curls were glowing under the color-changing LED lights of the studio.

Rex shook their head. “No one actually listens to this shit.”

They moved from their position in front of the microphone down onto the floor, where Shelly and I were sitting cross-legged,

eating tortilla chips out of a bag that was so large my entire arm fit inside.

I was itching to text Alden, but I didn’t want to seem too eager to hang out again.

“We’re going to Wegmans after this, right?” Autumn asked as they grabbed a handful of chips.

Everyone else agreed that the late-night diner was a good idea, but I was staring at my phone, willing Alden’s name to appear.

“You okay?” Autumn asked.

“Definitely,” I told them, putting my phone away.

I tried to push Alden out of my brain, but I couldn’t do it. I thought about him all the time. Not about anything in particular,

just him.

“Wouldn’t it be fun if we all lived together next year?” Rex asked as they bit into a chip.

“One of the sophomores in Fabrics lives in Loving House,” Shelly began, “the queer res house.”

“We should apply!”

I wanted to be as excited as them, but the more they talked about it, the more I felt like I was an inconvenience, like I

was tagging along on their big plans.

I’d been so sure of my identity as a lesbian in high school. Girls were pretty, and I liked them and wanted to kiss them,

but I never had the chance to actually do that.

But now, when I thought of kissing someone, the only person who popped into my head was Alden.

It clicked then, in a way it hadn’t before: I liked Alden. The feeling of wanting to be around him all the time—that was a crush.

A crush on a boy.

Monday, 9:30 p.m., Somewhere in Ohio

“All right, folks, just a reminder that it’s lights-out in coach at ten p.m. So get all your rustling and fussing out of the

way now.”

I haven’t been back to my seat since I dropped the pretzels off, partly because I don’t want to deal with Guy Fieri, but also

because I can roam free in the café car. The coach seats are spacious enough, but I’d rather not annoy my seatmates by getting

up to stretch my legs every five minutes.

The sun set hours ago, and now the only view through the large window is my own face reflected back at me.

Before I went through puberty, I liked the way I looked.

People would compliment my long straight-ish brown hair, my rosy cheeks, my quiet but polite little-kid demeanor.

But then I turned twelve and my hair curled, my cheeks became a breeding ground for angry red pockets of acne, and my mood soured.

It’s also when I realized that I liked girls.

I shouldn’t have been exposed to the general public while I was going through puberty, growing into my body Hulk-style; I

was absolutely miserable.

Not much has changed, except that my hair is cropped and my parents don’t know yet.

And, well, a few other things too.

I was such a good little girl—that’s what my parents would tell their friends. I spent more time with adults than with anyone

my age, and they complimented my maturity and lamented the fact that their own kids acted like, well, kids, rather than whatever

I had going on.

I finish the last of my already-stale Kettle chips and stare at my face in the window until the whole is lost to the parts—all

I see is my large nose, my dark eyes, my down-turned mouth. My short patchy hair that I should’ve let a professional cut but

chose instead to hack with a pair of fabric scissors in the middle of the night.

And then it’s almost lights-out, and I figure I should at least try to sleep, so I head back to my coach seat. Luckily, Guy Fieri’s already fast asleep under a Chicago Bears blanket.

Most other people have pillows and blankets, but I didn’t have the foresight to bring either, so I grab my jacket from my

bag and ball it up behind my neck. The seats recline, and there’s a little footrest, and it’s not horrible. But after tossing

and turning for half an hour or so I pull out my phone and open Tetris.

I manage to beat my high score three times, until a woman with fuzzy socks and a fleece wrapped tightly around her taps on my shoulder.

“Excuse me, miss,” she whisper-yells. “Could you turn that screen off, please? It’s interrupting my REM.”

I quickly put my phone face down on my lap. “Sure, sorry.”

She walks away without another word. A few people around us stir, looking dazed. I have to imagine that her shuffling down

the aisle and reprimanding me was more disruptive than me silently playing Tetris on my phone, but now I’m too embarrassed

to stay here.

So, I grab my book, earbuds, and phone and return to the café car. It’s nearly midnight, but there are a few people still

sitting in the booths, bleary-eyed and restless.

This time nearly twenty-four hours ago, I was in my dorm, frantically packing my things. That feels like it happened in another

lifetime. Yesterday.

Mere hours before that, I was with Alden.

I play Tetris to stop myself from thinking about school; the falling blocks become meditative the longer I watch them. Maybe

there are Tetris competitions—I could do that. I’ll be a Tetris vagabond, going from tournament to tournament. I make a mental

note to look up whether competitive Tetris is a thing once I have service again.

“You have to do a T-spin,” a voice behind me says.

I turn around, startled.

There, peering over my shoulder, is Oakley.