Page 96 of Leaving the Station

“Well, exactly,” Randall says, like it’s obvious. “I don’t know if this would’ve happened if you hadn’t been there, giving it special attention all semester.”

I frown, though I know he can’t see me. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a firm believer that you have to nurture plants. They’re living things, after all. They don’t just need water and light and soil; they needlove.” He sighs. “I saw the way you were with all the plants,” he says, and I can tell there’s a smile in his voice. “Everything you did was out of love. TheAmorphophallusis the healthiest I’ve ever seen it, and I know that’s because of you.”

“It is?” I ask quietly.

“Absolutely,” he says. “I should’ve told you more while you were here, but you made quite the impact on our little greenhouse.”

“Oh.”

“I have to go, Zoe,” Randall says. “I left the hose running in one of the tanks, but let’s talk after the holidays, okay? I don’t want you to give up on botany, even if you’re not working in my greenhouse anymore.”

“I won’t,” I tell him, a promise.

When he hangs up, I curl into a ball on my seat and sob.

This time, though, it’s happy tears.

Well, mostly.

I fled campus before I could see the result of all my hard work—the corpse plant’s bloom. Sure, the bloom is known for smelling like rotting garbage, but it would bemyrotting garbage.

And even though I’m not going to see it, Randall told me that I helped make it happen. I made an impact on a living organism. I left a mark on the world, even if that mark is only going to bloom for a week and fade away.

Maybe that’s what’s been missing this whole time, that understanding.

I made myself miserable at school, telling myself that because I didn’t know exactly who I was, I couldn’t be anything.

I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore, so I didn’t go to class. I couldn’t be a girl anymore, so I hid from the world.

But instead of doing those things, I could’ve chosen new classes or experimented with how I presented myself.

There were so many solutions I didn’t see at the time. I could’ve just deconstructed the boxes all together, taken them out to be recycled.

And it’s possible I’ve done the same thing with Oakley. We never promised each other forever. We never even promised each other a relationship, just a few days on a train. And I ruined it because I didn’t know exactly what we were. I worried that if it wasn’t perfect, it couldn’t be anything.

Now Oakley’s going to get off the train somewhere in the middle of the state near Ritzville, and she’s never going to know how much these past few days have meant to me. But I need her to know. I was being so precious about the time we had that I forgot that there was more of it.

We still have a few hours left.

But first, I need to sleep.

So I go back to my coach seat, wrap my jacket around my head to drown out the snoring, and do just that.

Seventeen

Thursday, 5 a.m., outside of Ephrata, WA

Even though I hardly slept for two hours, I’m as close to rested as I’ve been for days. I stretch out, bending forward at the waist and dangling my arms so they touch the train carpet. It feels good to let my head sway, to hand control over to gravity.

When I walk to the observation car, the middle-of-the-night energy is gone and replaced by people slowly rising from the floor, bones cracking from disuse as they prepare for the day ahead, whatever it may bring.

The train has been slightly delayed this whole time, but now we’re chugging along, speeding through my home state. I can’t believe this is the last morning of the trip. That in a few hours, whether I like it or not, I’ll be back in Seattle.

I’m not as worried as I was before, though. Because I know that when I get there, I’ll have plenty to do. The first of which includes explaining everything that happened this past semester to my parents. Maybe I’ll even look for a job working in a greenhouse.

The world didn’t end when I left college without knowingexactly who I am, and it won’t end in Seattle.