I decided it this afternoon, on the street, outside the restaurant. Because some waitress called my friends and me “ladies.”
I don’t want anyone to ever call me a “lady” again. That’s the only thing I know for sure.
Oh, my God.
This isn’t theoretical anymore. This is happening. I can’t turn it back.
Is this what I even want? Did I just make a huge mistake?
Yes. I did.
I just told my mother I was a man.
Since when? Three weeks ago I wasn’t even using gendered pronouns.
No. Wait. Maybe what I just did wasn’t a mistake. Maybe it was the best decision I’ve ever made.
How the hell am I supposed to know for sure? How does anyone ever know anything for sure?
I told my mom I wanted to start hormones. Where did that come from? Sure, I’ve been thinking about taking testosterone, especially since Eli’s T party. Did I at some point subconsciously decide I definitely wanted to do it? Or did I just say that to freak out my mom?
Why is it so hard to understand what’s happening inside my own damn brain?
I don’t know what I want. I don’t know how to figure this out. I’m not ready. I’m not ready.
I stop walking. I can hardly breathe. I sit down on the sidewalk and put my head between my knees.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
What the hell did I just do?
Did I just lie? And if I did, what am I supposed to do now? Go back in the house and tell my mom, “Whoops, I changed my mind, I’m an idiot, please ignore me?”
WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST DO?
I can’t do this on my own.
I can’t go from point A to point B. I couldn’t find either on a map.
I need help. I need someone who knows me better than I know me.
Telling my mother might have been a mistake. I don’t know yet.
But I already made another huge mistake this year. I can fix that, at least.
I go to the convenience store and get in a cab. When I get to the airport, I go straight to the US Airways counter and change my flight.
Then I get on the next shuttle to New York.
18
DECEMBER
FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE
3 WEEKS APART
GRETCHEN
My phone buzzes.
I don’t look up. I’m in the groove.
It’s ten-thirty on a Monday night. My middle school debate team has their final competition this week, so I’ll be spending all day tomorrow in Inwood helping them get ready. I’m going over the kids’ speeches now. They’re actually really good—for a bunch of seventh graders who rolled their eyes at me when I first said the word research to them back in September, they’ve done a ton of work and put together some really cool arguments—but they still need help. I’m trying to figure out how to explain gently that they shouldn’t make references to Disney movies in a speech about climate change, no matter how well they think the movie plot works as a metaphor for international environmental policy, when my phone buzzes again.
At first I ignore it, but then Samantha yells from across the room, “Gretchen, if you don’t check your daggone phone, I’ll throw my daggone computer at your daggone head!” So I check my phone.
At first I think I’m reading it wrong. The From line says Schnookums. That was how I programmed Toni’s name into my phone more than two years ago.
I haven’t gotten a text from Toni since Thanksgiving. Even if Toni did text me, there’s no reason Toni would say: I’m downstairs, come get me?
But that’s what this text says.
I show it to Samantha to make sure.
“Yes, that’s what it says,” she snaps. Sam is writing a paper, but she isn’t enjoying her work as much as I am. “Your girlfriend is downstairs. Go get her before she texts again.”
“My girlfriend can’t be downstairs. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Okay, well, unless someone stole her phone and is playing an incredibly lame joke, you’d better go down. Just don’t bring her back up here. I don’t have time for lesbian drama.”
I’m on the elevator, still looking down at the text to make sure I didn’t imagine it, when someone shouts, “Could you hold it?”
I stick my hand out. The door bounces back open.
Carroll’s standing on the other side.
For a split second I start to smile. I want to tell him what’s going on. He’d appreciate the oddity of this moment.
It would be so easy. He’d sidle in next to me in the elevator as if we were going to grab a snack. I’d tell him about Toni, he’d chuckle and things would be normal, just for a second.
Except they can’t be. “Normal” between Carroll and me means something else now. Because he can’t deal with what happened. And that’s his problem, not mine.
No one can be perfect all the time. I deserve friends who don’t expect the impossible from me.
Carroll’s still standing outside the elevator doors, staring. His face has gone completely white.
Then he backs up until he’s against the wall. “Never mind. I’ll take the next one.”