What We Left Behind Read online

  “How’s the packing going, girls?” Gretchen’s mom asks. I bristle at the “girls” thing, but I try not to let them see.

  “It’s going great!” Gretchen smiles.

  My annoyance slides away. Gretchen’s smile beams out so much happiness, so much warmth, that sometimes I can barely stand it. I gaze at Gretchen’s bright, open face and wonder for the trillionth time how I ever got this lucky.

  Gretchen’s mom steps aside, and Audrey and Chris poke their heads into the room. Chris is grinning big, but my sister looks pouty. Audrey just turned sixteen and doesn’t have a driver’s license yet, so Chris must’ve stopped by our house to play chauffeur.

  “Hiiii!” Gretchen sweeps forward and grabs them both into a three-way hug. I’m not a hugger, so I stay where I am.

  I’m going to miss them, though. My friends. My sister. Even Gretchen’s parents, who have always been really nice to me.

  It’s not that I won’t ever see any of them again. They’ll be around when I come back for breaks. Except that coming home for breaks also means seeing my mother again.

  My mother, who still calls me Antonia, no matter how many times I say I hate that stupid girlie name.

  My mother, who hasn’t allowed me to get a yearbook photo taken since I turned twelve and finally cut my hair supershort, the way I’d always wanted to.

  My mother, who’d pretended the whole threatening-to-sue-the-school thing wasn’t happening junior year, except to walk around the house muttering about how no daughter of hers should want to go to school looking like a freak show.

  Maybe I should find some excuse to stay on campus for every break over the next four years. After all, it’s not like I need to come back to Maryland to see Gretchen.

  Audrey, though... I’d hate to leave my sister in that house alone for good.

  “Hey, T.” Chris fist-bumps me. Chris has gotten really muscly over the past couple of soccer and basketball seasons. Whenever we fist-bump now, I’m afraid this is going to be the time Chris forgets to exercise self-restraint and I wind up with a dislocated shoulder. “You ready? Starting tomorrow we’re mortal enemies.”

  “I’m so ready,” I say. “When’s the game?”

  “Right before Thanksgiving. Remember, we have to hate each other on game day. It’s the rules.”

  “Are you guys seriously going to the Harvard-Yale football game?” Audrey asks. “That’s got to be the nerdiest event of all time.”

  “Actually I think it’s less about nerdiness and more about drinking cheap alcohol in a field with your buddies,” Chris says.

  “Gross,” Audrey says.

  “Oh, because you’ve never done that,” Gretchen says. Audrey laughs.

  “How are you holding out after yesterday?” I ask Chris.

  “Oh, I’m great. We got back together this morning, actually.” Chris grins big. I sigh.

  Last night I got an epic series of texts about Chris’s latest breakup with Steven. They were on and off for pretty much our whole senior year. They kept saying they were going to break up for good before the end of the summer—they still believe that old wives’ tale about how you shouldn’t start college in a long-distance relationship—but they could never stay apart for long.

  Chris says it’s because their love is pure and true. I say it’s because they’re hormonal teenagers who don’t know how to keep it in their pants. Not that I’m one to talk.

  My friends are always fighting with their boyfriends or girlfriends about the littlest things. My friend Renee, who was my date for Homecoming junior year, realized she was bi and got together with this girl named Liz soon after the dance. Then they spent the entire year fighting about what movie to see that weekend, or whose music to plug into the car stereo, or which of the guys on the lacrosse team was the most obnoxious. Then they broke up. Now Renee’s going out with the lacrosse guy they rated third on their list.

  Gretchen and I, though—we never fight. We take turns listening to each other’s music. We only like dramas or highbrow comedies that don’t have any Saturday Night Live stars in them. I think all the guys on the lacrosse team are obnoxious, but Gretchen thinks that’s only because I never took the time to get to know them. I think Gretchen only thinks that because Gretchen’s too nice to think anything bad about anyone.

  The thing is, who cares what music you listen to on a random Tuesday afternoon? The stuff that really matters runs way deeper than any of that.

  And when it comes to the deep stuff—the really deep stuff, the things we can only tell each other, the things no one else could understand—Gretchen and I are golden.

  “Well, good luck,” I tell Chris with a shrug.

  Audrey pokes me in the side. “Chris, please ignore my sister’s indifferent tone. She’s still learning how to function in our normal human society.”

  “Hey.” I flick Audrey on the shoulder. “Don’t call me an abnormal human.”

  “I call them like I see them,” Audrey says, flicking me back.

  “Whatever. We’ll be fine,” Chris says. “I leave tomorrow and he leaves the day after. I’ll be in Connecticut and he’ll be in California. This is why they invented texting and video chat.”

  “I know you two will make it work,” Gretchen says, smiling as big as ever.

  “Thank you, Gretchen,” Chris says. I’m not nearly as sure, and I’m about to say so when Chris adds, “I mean, you guys are doing it, right?”

  “Well, it’s not like that for us,” I say. “We’ll be in the same city. It’ll be a pain to go across town, but we’ll deal.”

  Chris makes a weird face. “You are? I thought—”

  “Actually, hang on.” Gretchen bounds over to where I’m sitting on the bed and grabs my hand. “Let’s go talk outside for a sec.”

  “What?” There’s something going on that I don’t know about. I hate not knowing things. “Why?”

  “Just for a second.” Gretchen pulls me up and through the door. I get a quick glimpse of my sister’s face as we leave the room. Audrey won’t meet my eyes.

  I have a really bad feeling about this.

  We wave to Gretchen’s mom in the kitchen, go out the front door and walk down to the grassy strip on the corner of the block. Someone tied a plastic swing set to a tree root there with a bike lock years ago. The swings are too small for us, but we climb on anyway, dragging our feet on the ground and leaning back so our hair doesn’t get tangled in the plastic chains.

  “What’s going on?” I hate the antsy feeling in my stomach. The idea that Gretchen’s been keeping a secret from me. On our first date, we said we’d always be honest with each other. Since then we’ve always told each other our secrets. I have, at least.

  “I was trying to tell you today,” Gretchen says. “Actually, I’ve been trying for a while. It keeps not being the right time.”

  “I think it’s the right time now,” I say.

  Gretchen’s wide blue eyes are locked on mine. “I’m scared you’ll be upset.”

  “I’m upset already. Just tell me.”

  Gretchen’s chin quivers. I hate seeing that. I take Gretchen’s hand and that seems to help. Gretchen smiles, a small smile.

  “So you know how I applied to a bunch of different schools,” Gretchen says. “Tufts would’ve been my first choice if I’d gotten in.”

  “Yeah, I know. Their admissions office is made up of complete idiots. Your application essay was amazing.”

  “Thanks.” Gretchen takes a long breath. “My second choice was NYU, but they wait-listed me.”

  “NYU?” I shake my head. “No, you only applied to Boston schools. That was our whole plan. We love Boston.”

  “You love Boston, sweetie.” Gretchen’s voice is soft. “You love Harvard. It’s always been your dream.”

  Oh.

>   I love Harvard. Gretchen loves New York.

  New York was where Gretchen lived before the Daniels family moved down here. They had a brownstone in Brooklyn. It sounds like paradise whenever Gretchen talks about it.

  “You got in off the wait list,” I say.

  Gretchen nods and rubs my palm gently. I have to struggle not to pull my hand away. “I found out last week.”

  I close my eyes. “Last week?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t know how.”

  Gretchen isn’t coming with me.

  We can’t just hop on the subway and see each other whenever we want to.

  Gretchen’s leaving me. This is only the first step.

  “Oh my gosh, no, don’t cry, T!” Gretchen squeezes my hand tight. I blink fast against the tears, trying to focus on the orange light of the sunset that’s pouring in through the trees. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner! Look, it’s only for a semester, just to try it out. I can always transfer back to BU after that. I talked to them on the phone, and they said that would be really easy. I only thought—you know, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe we could just sort of see what it’s like. New York and Boston are superclose. We can take the train and be there in, like, seconds.”

  I pull my hand out of Gretchen’s grip and turn to stare at the cheap red plastic leg of the swing set. It’s covered in grime from yesterday’s rain. I didn’t notice that before we sat down.

  I can’t believe Gretchen didn’t even tell me. Applications were due in January. That means Gretchen has been keeping this secret for eight months, maybe longer.

  Did I do something wrong?

  I must’ve done something wrong, or else Gretchen would’ve stuck to the plan, right?

  Gretchen doesn’t really want to be with me. There’s no other explanation for this.

  “Toni.” Gretchen’s hand is on my shoulder, gentle. I want to wrench away, but instead I lean into the touch. I always lean into Gretchen’s touch. “We’ll still see each other. It’ll be all right. We can do this.”

  I turn and stare into those blue eyes. I’m looking for anger, but I don’t see it there. I see guilt and something else. Hope, maybe. Hope that I’ll go along with this new plan.

  Well, it’s not as if I have a choice.

  Gretchen’s plans are already made. So are mine. No wonder Gretchen laughed off my question about fitting all that luggage on the plane. They wouldn’t fly to New York. They’d drive. It’s only a few hours north of here.

  Wait. Chris. Chris said something before about us doing the long-distance thing. Chris knew about this before I did. So did Audrey.

  How many others knew about my girlfriend’s not-so-secret plan before me?

  It’s getting hard to breathe. I lurch to my feet, the swing set creaking as my weight leaves it. Behind me I hear Gretchen suck in a breath, but I don’t turn around.

  I’m not used to feeling like this around Gretchen. I love Gretchen. Anger is reserved exclusively for my mother.

  I close my eyes. I can’t let Gretchen see what I’m feeling.

  We never fight. We aren’t like that. Anger and love don’t go together.

  “Fine,” I say. “Fine. It’s fine.”

  Gretchen’s fingers are light on my arm. “Are you sure?”

  “Can we take the train and see each other every weekend?” I ask. “Because I thought I was going to see you every weekend.”

  “Yes, sure, totally, every weekend.” Gretchen lays a soft hand on my cheek. I turn, and our eyes meet. I hate seeing Gretchen look so sad. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” I sniff. I’m such a wuss, crying out here on the street.

  “Oh, crap,” a familiar voice says.

  I look up. Audrey’s standing right in front of us, wavy brown hair streaming over awkwardly folded arms.

  Christ. Now my kid sister is seeing me cry.

  “Are you guys fighting?” Audrey asks. “You guys never fight.”

  I answer quickly. “No.”

  “No,” Gretchen says at the same time.

  Audrey looks back and forth between us. “Chris wanted me to say he was sorry. He’s a total idiot who can’t keep his mouth shut.”

  I don’t react, even though I want to flinch. I can’t believe Gretchen told them and not me. My fingers curl and uncurl, the nails digging into my palm, but I hold my hand down low where they can’t see.

  “Relax,” Audrey says. “It’s just college. Whatever. Afterward you can get married and have your little picket fence and adopt a hundred Chinese babies and be the most boring, stable couple on the planet, like you’ve always been.”

  I try to smile. Coming from my sister, that’s a compliment.

  When we were kids, Audrey and I used to say we were BFFs. The truth is, though, for a long time, I’ve felt much closer to Gretchen than I ever felt to Audrey or even Chris. Gretchen knows me better than anyone ever has or ever could.

  Like with the gender stuff. I’ve never been able to talk to anyone but Gretchen about that.

  Gretchen’s always listened and never, ever judged. When I first said I was genderqueer, Gretchen was so cool with everything, I couldn’t believe it. When I said I wanted to stop using gendered pronouns, Gretchen didn’t laugh once. It was never an issue between us at all.

  I couldn’t imagine telling anyone else about that. Audrey was out of the question, because what if Mom overheard? I couldn’t tell Chris, either, because Chris was the ultimate joiner—a member of every sports team at the guys’ high school and half the clubs, too. Chris would’ve founded an interschool Transgender-Cisgender Alliance and ordered trans and nontrans folks to hold gender-neutral-themed softball tournaments and car-wash fund-raisers. And that would’ve been the final straw that made my mother officially disinherit me.

  Back in ninth grade, when I first came out about liking girls, my mother told me I was in a “rebellious phase.” As far as Mom was concerned, this was yet another attempt on my part to torment my family. It got so bad I had to leave home and stay at a friend’s house for a week. I can only imagine what my mother would consider my real motive if I announced that I wasn’t even a girl in the first place.

  So when I needed to talk about that stuff, I needed Gretchen.

  I still need Gretchen now. It’ll take a lot more than a couple hundred miles between us to change that.

  It’ll take more than a couple of lies, too.

  Gretchen’s chin is still quivering. I put my finger in the dimple there, and Gretchen laughs. Only a small laugh, but it’s something.

  This will be okay. If I just keep telling myself that, it’ll have to be the truth.

  “Hey, this way we get to prove that the urban legend about long-distance college relationships is dead wrong,” I say.

  Gretchen’s smile is almost too bright this time. “That has always been my number-one goal in life!”

  I laugh, but now I’m actually thinking about it kind of seriously.

  I’m pretty sure that rule—the don’t-go-to-college-with-a-girlfriend-back-home-unless-you-want-to-get-cheated-on-and-break-up-immediately rule—is just about casual relationships. Once they’re in different places, people in relationships like that probably get distracted as soon as someone new and shiny shows up in their dining hall. None of that has anything to do with Gretchen and me.

  Plus, we’ll only be apart for a semester. After that, Gretchen can transfer back up to Boston, and college will be just like we always pictured it.

  I squeeze Gretchen’s hand. The quiver in Gretchen’s chin has been replaced by that smile I love so much.

  I lead us back toward the house, trying to think of a nice way to tell Chris and Audrey it’s time for them to go.
r />   Gretchen and I still have tonight.

  A few more hours until our world is scheduled to turn upside down.

  2

  AUGUST

  FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE

  1 DAY APART

  GRETCHEN

  I’m in New York now. So I have to do New York things.

  There’s no point thinking about other stuff. Especially not about the car ride up here. About crying quietly in the backseat while Mom and Dad droned on about meal plans and registration. About how I wouldn’t let them help me unpack and basically shoved them out of my dorm room as soon as we got here. About how now I’m sitting on a bare mattress surrounded by boxes and laundry baskets full of towels and a suitcase full of jeans and old stuffed animals, waiting for the tears to start again.

  There’s no point thinking about Toni up at Harvard. Being all smart and wearing wool scarves and doing whatever else it is people do up there.

  Being mad at me.

  Because, yeah, Toni’s mad. I’ve never seen Toni as mad as I did last night.

  It’s all my fault. I lied. I spent a week acting like I was going up to Boston even when I’d already made up my mind. I spent months not mentioning I’d even applied here.

  I just couldn’t do it. Tell the truth. I tried and tried, but I could never say the words.

  Toni was so excited about college. About finally getting away from all the crap back home and living the life T had always dreamed of. I didn’t want to ruin that.

  Instead I made it a thousand times worse.

  I’ve got to find a way to make this up to Toni.

  It seemed so important before. Coming here. Coming home.

  Now it just seems stupid. How am I going to make it through a whole semester until I transfer? I can barely make it through a single day without Toni.

  No. Thinking about that won’t help. I need to focus on fixing this. Making Toni forgive me.

  I looked up the bus schedules from New York to Boston in the car, and I sent Toni a long email with a list of times I could go up there this weekend. Today’s Thursday, so I figure I could go up on Saturday morning. That way we’ll have had only two days apart, which seems like a good way to start. I figure for the first few weeks I can go up there instead of Toni coming down here. It’s the least I can do. The very least.