What We Left Behind

by Robin Talley

  Better to stay quiet. Then Toni would know I was totally fine with it all and we could go back to normal. Whatever normal was.

  TONI

  It freaked me out how Gretchen wasn’t saying anything. I babbled to fill up the silence.

  “I’m actually not really sure about genderqueer as a label,” I said. “It isn’t perfect, but the thing is, no label feels perfect. I hate that our society is so focused on labels, but I guess that’s how things are. Pronouns, too. I’ve already stopped using gendered pronouns. It took some getting used to, but it’s really freeing. You don’t realize how sexist our language patterns are until you really look at how you use language yourself, you know?”

  “Gendered pronouns,” Gretchen repeated. “Like...okay. So you aren’t saying he or she anymore?”

  “Nope.”

  “How long have you been doing that for?”

  “I started trying to do it in my head two weeks ago. It was really hard at first. I’ve only been doing it out loud since Monday.”

  “Wow.” Gretchen looked down at where our hands were clasped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even notice.”

  “That’s okay. That must mean I don’t sound totally awkward, at least.”

  Gretchen didn’t answer. I babbled on.

  “It’s not that I’m, like, completely opposed to the idea of gender,” I said. “It’s just that I want to challenge what society views as ‘normal’ gender. Like, it doesn’t bother me that much if someone calls me she—I mean, okay, it bothers me a little bit—but it bothers me way more if someone calls me a girl. Like when teachers are talking to a class and they say ‘Girls, settle down.’ You know?”

  Gretchen nodded. She got it. Of course she got it.

  But I wished she wasn’t being so quiet.

  “I just know—” My voice hitched. My cheeks felt beet red. “I just know I’m not female. And, so, well, I don’t know what that makes me. Can you wait while I figure it out? Would you?”

  Gretchen nodded but didn’t meet my eyes.

  “So do you still, like.” I laughed to show what a stupid question I thought this was. “I mean. Even with all of this. Do you, you know. Do you still love me?”

  GRETCHEN

  It bothered Toni when someone called her she?

  I called her she. I was doing it right now, in my own head.

  Oh, my God. How was I going to stop using pronouns for Toni inside my own head?

  I didn’t know, but I’d have to do it somehow. Toni stopped using pronouns in two weeks. I could do it for her.

  Oh, crap. Crap crap crap. I couldn’t even not use her for one sentence.

  It bothered Toni that people thought of her as a girl.

  I’d been thinking of Toni as a girl from the day I met her.

  She was a girl. She was my girlfriend. We were lesbians. Together.

  Not anymore.

  Okay. Okay. It was all right. I’d get used to this. I had to.

  I loved Toni. Love conquered all.

  Besides, this wasn’t that big a deal. We read a whole book about it. I knew the basics. I’d even wondered what it would be like to be transgender. Or what it would be like if Toni was. But that had been so hypothetical, and this was so...not.

  Toni was giving me this sharp look. There were tears in her eyes. Oh, crap. I didn’t even have to speak for her to know I was totally screwing up the pronoun thing in my own head.

  Then I thought back a few seconds and realized what she’d just asked me.

  “Yes!” I laughed, a little bit of the tension draining out of me. Maybe it really was this simple. “Yes, of course! I’ll always love you. And of course I’ll wait while you figure it all out. You really thought I wouldn’t? Over something like this?”

  “No. I don’t know.” Toni laughed, too, and wiped at the corner of her eye. “Sorry. No, I didn’t think that. It’s just—you’re the first person I’ve told, that’s all.”

  We were both laughing. God, it felt so good to laugh. I squeezed her hand. Toni’s hand.

  “I mean, there’s no reason anything would be different with you and me, right?” I meant it as a statement, but it sounded like a question. I wanted Toni to say she’d always love me, too. No, that Toni would always love me, too.

  “Right.” Toni leaned her head on my shoulder. The weight of it felt so good. So important. We had to stay as connected as we could. I didn’t know how big this thing was, but I knew it wouldn’t come between us. “I don’t want that to be different at all.”

  “So just tell me what you need,” I said. “I want to help. If you want to talk stuff through, or if you just need me to hold your hand, or, you know, anything. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

  “I love you,” Toni said.

  “I love you, too.”

  We kissed. It was the first time we’d kissed after I knew, but it didn’t feel any different. It didn’t feel like I wasn’t kissing a girl. It just felt like I was kissing Toni. My Toni.

  This would be all right. I didn’t understand all the details of this gender stuff, but I didn’t need to. I understood Toni, and that was enough.

  For now.

  9

  NOVEMBER

  FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE

  1 WEEK APART

  TONI

  “Mine started last Monday,” Joanna says. “When did yours?”

  “Monday, too,” Felicia says. “Wait, are we all in sync now? We should ask Ebony.”

  “We could ask—” Joanna says, then stops. They both turn toward me, then turn back again just as fast.

  Good. I’m trying to read, and I can’t focus with them yammering.

  All four of us set up our desks in the common room since our bedrooms are so tiny. Which means I have to listen to Felicia and Joanna’s boring-as-hell conversations all the time.

  I can’t deal with it. Not tonight.

  I have two papers due in the next forty-eight hours, and I’m dangerously behind on the reading for my Supreme Court seminar. Last night I was on video chat with Chris until three in the morning, nodding along to a story about Steven’s latest episode of borderline infidelity. I haven’t slept more than five hours in one night since October. I’ve had the same sinus infection for the past three weeks. I started using they as a gender-neutral pronoun, but it’s harder than I thought it would be. My girlfriend is pissed at me.

  And now I have to listen to my roommates talk about their stupid periods.

  “Do you think she even still gets hers?” Felicia whispers.

  “I can hear you,” I say. “I’m five feet away.”

  Joanna and Felicia giggle behind their hands.

  “Why are you still here anyway?” Felicia asks. “Aren’t you supposed to be at that thing?”

  I rub my temples. “What thing?”

  “For your friend,” Joanna says. “The Korean girl. Or guy, or whatever.”

  “Oh, hell.” I forgot about Eli’s party. I slam my laptop closed and run to the bathroom to fix my hair.

  “What is it?” Joanna calls from the common room. “Is it her birthday?”

  “No, it’s not his birthday,” I call back, breaking my pronoun rule in Eli’s honor. “It’s just a party.”

  Actually, the party is what the guys call a “secular-slash-Buddhist bar mitzvah.” Today Eli started on testosterone. According to Nance, it’s time for Eli to “get down with his bad manself.”

  Which is great and all. It’s just that I’ll probably be looking at an all-nighter after I get back. Well, Eli won’t hold it against me if I only put in a quick appearance.

  I ignore Joanna and Felicia’s cackles on my way out and pull my hood up against the wind. I trudge across the Yard, dodging a hyper-Japanese tour group by the John Harvard
statue, and stepping carefully over slush puddles.

  I can’t believe it’s already this cold in November. Massachusetts sucks.

  I grumble to myself the whole way to the guys’ house, but I manage to smile when I knock on their common room door. Low voices and laughter drift out from the other side.

  Nance opens the door. “Hey. We wondered if you were ever going to show.”

  “Sorry. I fail.”

  “Whatever,” they say. “Come in. We’re playing I Never.”

  The last thing I need is alcohol. “Can I play with Diet Coke?”

  “If you put a big load of rum in it.”

  “Guess I’ll just watch, then.”

  Nance shrugs and points me to an empty couch. Everyone else is sitting on the floor, laughing with heavy-lidded eyes. The game must have been underway for a while. The room looks the same as usual except that there’s a banner with a stork on it that reads It’s a Boy! strung up over the bar and a brown statue of Buddha with a balloon tied around its neck next to the chips bowl.

  “Hey, man,” everyone choruses as I pass. Derek, who seems more sober than the others, looks up and nods at me. I nod back.

  Eli is lying faceup on the floor, eyes half-closed, head lolling.

  “Congrats, dude,” I say as I step over Eli’s spread-eagled form.

  “Is that T?” they say groggily. “Where you been, T? I missed youuuuuu.”

  “Sorry I’m late. Roommate issues.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Eli gurgles. “Sure. Totally.”

  “Yo, Eli,” says Andy, poking them in the side. “It’s your turn, man. Think of something you’ve never done.”

  “This game sucks,” Eli moans. “I’ve never done anything.”

  “Then how are you already so drunk?” I ask.

  “I’m cheating.”

  “He is,” Pete says. “You missed it, T. Nance says she’s never streaked in the Yard, and Eli drinks. Lacey says she’s never had a threesome with two guys, and Eli drinks. Derek tells some long-ass story about masturbating to Madonna or some bull, and Eli—just guess.”

  “Drinks?” I say. “Seriously, you guys?”

  “I wasn’t talking about masturbating to Madonna,” Derek says. “I was saying I didn’t understand her interpretation of sexual empowerment philosophy until the Hard Candy album and—”

  “Whatever, man. It doesn’t matter,” Nance says. “The point is, you could come in and say you’d never grown a mustache and bungee-jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, and Eli would up and drink.”

  “I tried to grow a mustache last year,” Andy says. “My mom wanted me to. She kept talking about how ‘handsome’ I’d look with facial hair. I finally had to break it to her. ‘Mom,’ I said, ‘I know you’re psyched about me taking T because I can finally start to look like the son you always wanted, but mustaches make me look pervy.’”

  Everyone laughs.

  Hold up. I try to think backward in the conversation. Did someone say something about Lacey?

  I glance from face to face. There are a few people from outside our usual crowd—some guys in the UBA I don’t know very well, a girl I don’t recognize at all...and Lacey Colfer, my Foundations of Government teaching fellow. The one who set me up with my internship interview at Oxford. The one who’s expecting me to hand in a not-yet-written paper on the separation of powers tomorrow.

  Derek sees me looking.

  “T, this is Lacey,” Derek says. “She was UBA president the year before last.”

  “Hi, Toni.” Lacey waves at me sheepishly. “Don’t tell Dr. Morris about this, okay?”

  “Deal.” I smile at them. I wonder if this will get me a break on my paper’s due date.

  “Never have I ever,” Eli moans. “Um. Never have I ever used a strap-on?”

  I’m too astonished to hear the words coming out of Eli’s mouth to pay attention to who drinks and who doesn’t. Maybe I should’ve gone for the rum, after all, if this game is already on to sex toys.

  “Am I next?” Inez asks.

  “No, it’s my turn,” Derek says. “Never have I ever. Uh. Hooked up with a bio-guy who wasn’t circumcised.”

  “Ew,” Nance and some of the others say. Then Nance takes a quick drink. Ha!

  “I told you, stop cheating, man,” Andy says to Eli, who’s finishing off a drink.

  “I’m not this time!” Eli says. “I’ve done that. It was disturbing.”

  “Yeah? Well, don’t worry, man. Those days are way behind you,” Nance says. “I’m setting you up with some of my Wellesley friends. You’ll be fighting off the ladies before you know it.”

  “Don’t need to fight ’em off,” Eli says. “Just one girl. That’s all I need.”

  “You sure?” asks Kartik. “There’s lots of girls out there, man.”

  “I’m sure,” Eli says. “Just need one perfect girl. Like Toni’s girl.”

  “Yeah, Toni’s got that part all set,” Andy says. “And T’s not even on T yet. Ha, ha! Get it?”

  “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend, Toni,” Lacey says.

  Too. Many. Worlds. Colliding.

  I wait until one of the others takes a turn (“Never have I ever gone down a girl who lived in Dunster, ’cause Dunster girls are hella gross, y’all!”). While everyone is laughing and drinking, I slide off the couch and tap Derek’s shoulder. “Can I talk to you?”

  Derek smiles, gets up without a word and leads me into one of the tiny bedrooms. From the number of baseball caps hanging off the dresser, I suspect it’s Eli’s. We close the door and sit down across from each other on the creaky hardwood floors.

  “What’s up?” Derek asks. “Oh, and before I forget, you should call Gretchen back.”

  “The hell? How do you know about that?”

  “She messaged me. I think she thinks you’re mad at her.”

  Wow. I do not need those two teaming up against me. I can’t talk to Derek about Gretchen if they’re always going to take Gretchen’s side.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” Derek says. “What’s the matter? Is it what Andy said?”

  “No, there’s something I’ve been thinking about, and I wanted to ask you—wait, which thing Andy said?”

  “Oh, you know what I mean. His little pun. With the ‘yet’ at the end.” Derek takes a drink and smirks at me. “By the way, I’ve heard him say that sober, too.”

  Oh. Sure, that bothered me. I don’t want to admit that, though.

  “No,” I say. “I’m just crabby. Plus, I’m sick. Plus, I have too much work to do. Plus, it feels like my universe is collapsing in on itself more and more every day.”

  Derek grins. “Welcome to Harvard.”

  “It isn’t funny.”

  “Never said it was.”

  “I don’t want to call Gretchen back.”

  Derek stops grinning. “Why?”

  I shrug. “Every time we talk now, it’s—tense.”

  “Since when? Halloween?”

  “Yeah.” I pull a stuffed lion off Eli’s bed and hold it in my lap, looking into its furry face so I won’t have to meet Derek’s eyes. “It’s weird. It never used to be like that. We didn’t fight once in high school.”

  “Then that was what was weird.”

  Derek was supposed to reassure me. Not make this harder.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Everyone fights sometimes. It doesn’t matter how great your relationship is. There’s never perfect harmony because there are always differences of opinion.”

  That doesn’t make any sense. Maybe Derek doesn’t really know that much about relationships. I mean, Derek’s never been with anyone for more than six months. Except Nance, but that doesn’t count because Nance is...Nance.


  “Gretchen and I’ve had differences of opinion before,” I explain. “We just don’t fight about them. Back in high school, if we disagreed about something, we’d talk about it and then laugh it off and not talk about it again. Now we’re still doing that. We’re just skipping the laughing part.”

  “So maybe you and Gretchen are finally starting to be normal now,” they say. “Not the other way around.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way at all. It feels like what’s happening now is...” I don’t know how to explain it. There’s just this weird feeling that crops up every time Gretchen and I talk. It’s like the tickle I always get in my throat right before a really bad cold comes on. “Like it’s not a good thing. At all.”

  “Oh.” Derek frowns. “Well. That sucks. Anyway, you’ll figure it out. You guys are perfect together. Avoiding her isn’t going to help, though.”

  I sigh. “Avoiding them is my only option.”

  “Them?” Derek frowns. “Wait. Are you using they pronouns now?”

  “I’m trying it out.” I shrug. “It’s hard to get used to.”

  “Yeah, I tried it once and hated it. I think the new pronouns people have come up with, like ze and hir, are easier. Then it’s as if you’re just speaking a different language. Like you’re permanently in French class.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” I shift. Talking about pronouns feels a little too...close. I still haven’t mentioned what I really wanted to ask Derek about. I’m not quite ready to go there. “So, how’s it going with Inez?”

  Derek grins. “She’s awesome. Last night we went to see that musical theater version of The Bourne Identity they’re doing at the Agassiz, and we stayed up talking for four hours about whether it was ethical to sleep with a guy who had amnesia and didn’t remember what his type was.”

  “It took you four hours to decide that?”

  “Well, we hooked up, too.”

  I laugh. “Are you two officially together now?”

  Derek shrugs. “We’re taking it slow, you know? We’ll stay casual until we decide for sure if we definitely like each other enough to make it an actual commitment. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Casual” is a foreign concept to me. I’ve only ever been in one relationship, and it’s been many things, but casual was never one of them.