What We Left Behind

by Robin Talley

  Toni jumps off the bed. The movement comes so fast, it scares me.

  “It’s just better if—” Toni paces across the room. “It isn’t fair—”

  “What isn’t fair? What are you talking about?”

  “I was right, before. Chris didn’t understand—”

  “What? What does this have to do with Chris?”

  Toni flips on a light switch. I hold my hand in front of my eyes to block out the glare.

  “We have to get out of here,” Toni says, not looking at me.

  I’ve never seen Toni act like this. It’s scaring me.

  “Okay.” I’m woozy from lying down for so long, but I hunt around for my car keys.

  It turns out Toni doesn’t want to take the car, so we walk down the long driveway of the Fasseaus’ house. We follow the subdivision’s wide, curving road to the tiny fake park where no one ever goes. It has a bench, some brown shrubs and a fountain with a cement pool around it where little kids throw pennies in the summer. It’s November, though, so the fountain is drained and silent, the pool just a gray stone hole.

  I have my big coat on but I’m cold anyway. Toni doesn’t even have a coat, but Toni isn’t shivering. Just pacing.

  “You’re freaking me out, T.” I sit on the bench. I’d rather keep moving, but Toni’s pacing is making me anxious. “Is this about your mom? Do you want to tell her this weekend, too? Because I know it’ll be hard, but once it’s done it’ll be like ripping off a Band-Aid. You won’t even—”

  “Stop,” Toni says. “You have no idea what it’ll be like. You can’t possibly imagine.”

  I know Toni’s right, but still. That hurts. A lot.

  “Okay,” I say, “but I can help. I can—”

  “Wait.” Toni sits down next to me and takes both my hands. “Never mind. I’m sorry I said that. That’s not what—can we pretend I didn’t say that?”

  “Okay.” This sudden calm is freaking me out even more.

  We don’t talk for a long time. Toni keeps holding my hands, looking down at them as if they might break.

  “You’re scaring me,” I say after it feels as though hours have passed.

  “I’m sorry.” Toni looks up at me. “We have to stop.”

  “We have to stop what?” I ask.

  “This.” Toni swallows. “We have to break up.”

  No.

  What?

  We have to break—

  “No. No. No!”

  I’m on my feet, but I don’t remember getting up. I blink down at Toni until Toni looks away. Then I run to the fountain. I step over the side and into the dry, empty basin. I need to move. To do something. Something that isn’t listening to this.

  “Gretchen,” Toni says from behind me. “Look, don’t.”

  “Don’t do what?” The fountain has a ten-foot cherub statue in the middle, holding a stone torch. That’s where the water’s supposed to spout from. I stride across the basin and climb up onto the base of the statue.

  Toni’s stepped over the side and is sitting on the fountain’s edge, watching me. I try not to meet Toni’s eyes.

  “Someone’s going to see.” Toni looks from side to side into the darkened neighbors’ houses, at the expensive cars lined up in each driveway, the neat piles of leaves raked up by gardeners and standing along the curbs so the county can come vacuum them up.

  “I don’t give a f—”

  “Shh!” Toni stands up. I guess I must be shouting pretty loud. “Be quiet! Seriously!”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.” I lower my voice and wrap my hands around the statue. “You’ve said enough already.”

  “Believe me, this isn’t what I want,” Toni says.

  “Oh, yeah?” The stone is freezing. I wrap my sleeves around my hands and try to get a better grip around the cherub’s shoulders. “Here’s a thought, then. Don’t do it.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  I can’t see it, but I hear Toni’s shrug. We’ve been together for two years. By now I can hear Toni’s every gesture no matter how far away I am.

  I knew this was coming. I just didn’t want to know.

  “I can’t be in a relationship right now,” Toni says. “I need to figure myself out first. I can’t expect you to wait around in the meantime.”

  “You’re not expecting me to do anything.” I finally get a good grip and swing around to look back at Toni, the statue safely between us. “It’s my decision what I want to do with my time. I want to be there while you figure yourself out.”

  “I’m a terrible partner right now. All I ever think about is myself.”

  “I don’t care! Anyway, you’re not a terrible partner. This is all my fault for not going up to Boston. I’m sorry, okay?”

  I expect Toni to argue with me. Instead Toni just stands there.

  I swallow. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

  “No.” Toni doesn’t sound very convincing. Or convinced.

  “It was a stupid thing to do anyway.” I swallow again. “I don’t know why I even wanted to.”

  “So, why did you?”

  I don’t know how to answer that.

  “I love you,” I say instead.

  I come back around from the other side of the statue. That’s the last time I’m saying it. My last try.

  “I love you, too,” Toni says.

  Something breaks inside me.

  “Then what the hell is the problem?” I’m yelling again, but there’s still no movement in the dim, lonely street. This is why Toni made us come outside. Toni knew I’d yell. That thought makes me angrier. “It’s a damn good thing I never filled out that transfer application for BU for next semester, since apparently you don’t want me up there anyway. Did you even remember that? The application was due November 1. I never sent it in. You don’t even know, because you never even asked me anything about it!”

  “Wait, what?” Toni just stares at me.

  I can’t handle this. Toni doesn’t even think about me anymore. I’m so far down on Toni’s list of priorities it’s embarrassing.

  It isn’t just because of what I did, either. I don’t think it’s even mainly because of that anymore.

  It’s the trans stuff. That’s become Toni’s whole life. I don’t fit anymore.

  “This is about your new thing, isn’t it?” I say. “God, don’t you get it? I don’t care what gender you are or you aren’t! It couldn’t possibly matter less to me!”

  Toni doesn’t answer right away, so what I just said hangs out in the air, the words uncoiling, like a spider slowly dropping from its web.

  “Well, it matters to me,” Toni finally says. “A lot.”

  I shake my head. I should take back what I said—“your new thing,” God, how insensitive can I possibly be—but I can’t. All of this is coming from somewhere outside me. The real Gretchen is hovering over us, watching this play out, powerless to change it.

  Toni and I never fight. Never.

  We don’t get mad at each other. We smile and pretend like nothing’s wrong.

  We’ve been doing it for years. We’re really, really good at it.

  If we hadn’t started fighting, we’d be fine. If I hadn’t gone to NYU, we’d be fine. If Toni would just stop thinking about trans stuff for five seconds, we would be totally fine.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” I can’t even tell if I’m yelling anymore. “I’m sorry I went to New York. I’m sorry I ruined everything.”

  “It’s just—” Toni’s voice is strained. Like it’s hard to form words. “I just don’t get why you lied to me. What was the point of hiding it?”

  “I don’t know!” I climb up higher on the statue. “I don’t know anything, oka
y? Is that why you want to get rid of me? Because I’m so dumb compared to everyone else you know? Am I holding you back?”

  Toni doesn’t answer.

  I punch the cherub in the face. It doesn’t flinch. My hand hurts a lot, though. Toni jumps over the railing into the basin and grabs for my arm. “Christ, Gretchen! Did you break anything?”

  I slide down from the statue and pull my arm away before Toni can touch me. The pain is bringing me back to myself, just a little. “What do you care?”

  “Look.” Toni takes off the baseball cap, revealing a mess of matted red hair. I don’t like Toni’s new hair. “I realized something. Derek and Inez, they just started going out, and they’re taking it slow, making sure it’s what they want. I realized, you and me, we never did that. We just jumped right in. That’s not how it’s supposed to go.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I shout. “That’s all total bull crap! Who cares what works for somebody else? I don’t care about stupid Derek. I care about you!”

  “I care about you, too,” Toni says. “That isn’t the only thing that matters, though, don’t you see? There has to be more.”

  “No.” My chest is rising and falling like I’ve just run a marathon. “I don’t see. I think you’re full of crap.”

  “Do you really mean that?” Toni’s eyebrows crinkle.

  Somehow, in the middle of all this, Toni has managed to make me feel like the guilty one.

  I reach back to punch the cherub with my other hand. Toni grabs my arm before I can swing.

  “Let go of me!”

  I’m crying. I pull my arm free, but I don’t go for the statue again. Instead I reach back with shaking hands and untie the leather cord with the top hat charm from around my neck. When it comes free, I throw it as far as I can. It lands in someone’s backyard.

  “I’m sorry,” Toni says, looking down at the cement. “I think deep down this is what we both need. You deserve better than me.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re a shitty mind reader,” I say. “You don’t get to decide what I need. Only I get to decide what’s best for me.”

  Toni reaches for my other hand, the sore one. This time I don’t pull away. Toni holds my hand carefully, turning it to look at my knuckles.

  “You’re bleeding.” Toni reaches into a jeans pocket and pulls out a tissue.

  I sit down on the cement floor of the fountain, my back against the statue. The cold seeps through my jeans, making me shiver. Toni sits down next to me and presses the tissue onto my fingers. Pieces of it come off onto my bloody skin.

  I’m still crying, but I’m calmer now. I don’t bother to wipe my face.

  “Is that why you’re going to England this summer?” I ask. “Are you trying to get away from me?”

  “No,” Toni says. “God, no. I meant what I told you about visiting.”

  “It’s not the same and you know it.” I lean my head on Toni’s shoulder.

  “I know.”

  “What is it? Why is coming back here so horrible? Is it your mom?”

  “It’s my mom, but it’s also...all of it. Being down here...it’s like I never left. Like I’m still the same person I was when I lived here.”

  “You want to be somebody else instead.”

  “Sort of, yeah.”

  I turn my hand over and lace our fingers together. “I want you to be whoever you want to be.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to hold you back. I wouldn’t.”

  Toni doesn’t say anything.

  “I’m serious,” I say. “Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”

  Toni nods, slowly.

  “Just please don’t leave me.” My voice breaks.

  Toni picks up my hand and kisses my fingers. The bleeding has stopped.

  “This isn’t really what you want,” I say. “I know you think you do, but trust me. I know you. You don’t want to do this without me.”

  “I love you,” Toni says.

  It takes all my powers of restraint to keep me from getting up and dancing.

  “Here, I know what we should do,” I say. “Let’s just take a break. Until the end of the semester. Then you can see if this is what you still want.”

  “That’s only a few weeks,” Toni says.

  “It should be long enough to decide.”

  When it comes to the big decisions, Toni either acts totally on impulse or agonizes forever. Most of the time, it’s the agony route. Toni waffles back and forth, makes a decision, then decides that decision was wrong and starts all over again.

  It can last days, weeks, months. Toni thinks through every aspect, makes mental flow charts, considers every possible outcome until it’s been beaten into the dirt.

  It’s something I’ve always liked about Toni. Most of the time, T takes things very, very seriously.

  This time, Toni’s indecision will work in my favor. I’m certain of it. Tonight was obviously one of those impulse decisions. Soon Toni will realize this was a huge mistake. Soon I’ll get a phone call begging me to let Toni take it all back. Pretend this never happened. Maybe it’ll even happen before the end of Thanksgiving weekend.

  I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner.

  “How does it work?” Toni asks. “Taking a break? Do we just not talk until after finals? Or even text?”

  We’ve never gone more than a day without talking. Even in high school when Toni was at Sanskrit immersion camp and wasn’t supposed to have any English communication, we texted back and forth in secret all day.

  I can handle it, though. I can handle anything if that’s what it takes to be with Toni. Besides, once Toni realizes what a mistake this was, we’ll be right back to talking all the time.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I say.

  “Do we...go out with other people?”

  “Sure.” I have to force myself not to laugh. I can’t imagine ever wanting to go out with anyone else. “Then at Christmas, we’ll see how it went.”

  Toni nods slowly.

  I slide over until I’m sitting in Toni’s lap. I wrap my arms around T’s waist. T hugs me back.

  We sit like that for a long, long time. Then I get up and go over to Toni’s neighbor’s fence. Toni watches me but doesn’t say anything.

  I climb the fence and find my necklace hanging from a dogwood tree. I pick it up and climb back over to the other side, but I don’t put it on.

  Instead I stand there, knowing Toni’s watching me. I stare down at the charm as if I’ve never seen it before. Then I slide it into my pocket.

  I’m never letting go of this again.

  Before

  AUGUST

  SUMMER BEFORE FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE

  1 YEAR, 10 MONTHS TOGETHER

  GRETCHEN

  I put down my phone and picked up the letter again.

  I could’ve recited it with my eyes closed by that point. Instead I went over every word on the page one more time.

  I wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. That this wasn’t some mistake.

  Maybe it would turn out I’d misunderstood. Maybe my life could go on just as I’d planned before I ripped open that purple envelope.

  Nope. I wasn’t getting off that easy. The letter still said the same thing it had the first time I read it.

  NYU was delighted to offer me a place in its incoming freshman class if I was still interested. Sorry about the wait-list thing.

  If I wanted to come, I had to send back the reply form and a deposit check. Postmarked today.

  I’d already talked to the Boston University people on the phone. Just dialing the number felt like a betrayal.

  They’d been so nice, though. They just said I should let them know what I decid
ed. Their niceness only made me feel worse.

  My parents had been way too nice about it, too. They’d lose the deposit they’d already made to BU if I switched, but they said that was all right. The important thing, they said, was that I think, hard, and decide where I really wanted to spend the next four years.

  The one person I hadn’t talked to was Toni.

  For almost two years, being part of Toni-and-Gretchen was what I did.

  I played volleyball. I did homework. I read books and watched movies and hung out with my friends.

  I did it all as one half of a whole. I couldn’t imagine being anything else.

  I still didn’t know how I’d gotten this lucky. I wasn’t anywhere near as special, as interesting, as Toni. But Toni had stuck with me anyway.

  If I put this form in the mail, the shaky grasp I had on happiness would get that much weaker. Would I still be able to hold on?

  I needed Toni like I needed to keep breathing. If I was smart, I’d pretend this letter never came.

  It was just New York. Just a city. Cities didn’t love you back.

  Except. God, I loved New York.

  I loved the rhythm of it. The energy. The sense of possibility you got just by stepping outside your door.

  I loved NYU, too. I loved the crisp way downtown smelled in the fall. I loved the way the students walked with a certainty in their step. Like there was no question in their minds. They were all exactly where they wanted to be.

  Sometimes, when I was walking through the Village, it felt like New York did love me back. It felt like those streets lined with bustling coffee shops and gleaming office buildings and knockoff clothing stores—it felt like they were wrapping their arms around me. Telling me I belonged.

  I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, crushing the letter to my chest. I’d had it for two days now. Every time I’d seen Toni in those two days, I’d laughed and talked and joked around the same as always. I hadn’t said a word about what the letter said.

  If that wasn’t a betrayal, I didn’t know what was.

  I uncrumpled the letter and read it again.

  We are delighted to offer you a place in the freshman class...

  Toni wasn’t the only one who wanted me.

  I didn’t always have to be one half of a whole. I could be whole all on my own. Maybe.