I hate being mad.
“You’re lucky you can eat that crap.” Ebony takes the bananas and gestures to my tray, stealing a french fry at the same time. “You’re so skinny. What do you weigh, ninety pounds?”
“More than that,” I say. Five pounds more than that.
Ebony whistles. “I know girls that would kill to look like you.”
Yeah.
Except for the part where I don’t want to look like a girl. At least, not most of the time.
Like, for example, I have this enormously complicated relationship with my chest.
I’m told most people have complicated relationships with their chests. My sister reads Cosmo and Marie Claire, so I’ve absorbed via osmosis the insecurities you’re supposed to have about different body parts. If you have breasts, they’re either too big or too small. They stick up too much or they hang down too far. Your nipples can be too pointy or not pointy enough. There are so many ways your breasts can be weird that I doubt anyone thinks they have normal, acceptable breasts.
I can’t relate to any of those problems, though. My problems are more like...sometimes, I wish my breasts weren’t there.
It isn’t as if I hate them. Sometimes I almost like them. I usually don’t want anyone else to notice them, though. Most days I wear loose-fitting tops and sports bras and try not to think about it.
It’s worst in the summer, when there are pool parties and water parks and trips to the beach and all those other torturous hot-weather activities. I’ll do whatever it takes to avoid wearing a bathing suit in front of other people. It’s creepy, when you think about it, that people will strip down in front of complete strangers just because it’s warm out. I’ve always found air conditioning vastly preferable.
There are things that can be done about breasts. There’s chest-binding. And then there’s top surgery.
Surgery just seems so...extreme. So permanent. My chest is part of me. It’s bizarre to think about getting rid of a part of myself, forever.
Except—people get rid of parts of themselves all the time. Isn’t that what shaving is? Cutting your hair? Getting your ears pierced? It’s all costume. Fitting in to what society expects. Gender’s no different.
It’s exhausting, thinking about all this. It’s easier to talk it through. But Gretchen is the only person I’ve really talked to about this stuff so far, and even Gretchen can’t totally relate. My girlfriend’s great at listening, but I can never tell how much Gretchen really understands.
“T? T, are you there?” Ebony’s been calling me T lately. It makes me homesick. “Are you listening?”
“Oh, sorry.”
“You always get that look on your face when you’re missing the honey,” Ebony says. “Is it that bad?”
I shake my head. “I can handle it,” I say, though I’m not actually sure that’s true.
We didn’t get to talk last night. Chris and Steven are having issues again, so I spent hours online with Chris instead. I resisted the urge to say I told you so. Instead I read over drafts of the long email Chris was planning to send explaining why open relationships weren’t a good idea. I also listened patiently and tried to offer helpful tips while Chris ranted about some hot freshman interloper at Stanford who had the audacity to be named Elvis. (Seriously, only Steven would find a guy named Elvis attractive.)
It’s been a week since Gretchen and I last saw each other, though, and I hadn’t realized how lonely it would feel. Even with how complicated everything’s gotten, I still wish I could see Gretchen. I wish we could touch. I need someone I can be honest with. Someone I don’t have to act around.
I thought talking on video chat would help. We were used to that since we talked online every night back home. But it’s completely different, talking from my dorm room to Gretchen’s dorm room instead of talking from one house to another.
Back home, I knew Gretchen’s room almost as well as my own. When we talked I could see Gretchen stretched out on the bed, ankles crossed, lips twitching into the camera. I could pretend I was right there, my arm around Gretchen’s shoulders, my lips moving in for a kiss.
When we talk now, Gretchen’s dorm room looks wrong. Alien. White painted cinder block walls and brand-new Target sheets on the bed, still showing the wrinkles from their cellophane wrapper. I’ve never leaned back against those walls or felt those sheets against my skin.
I can’t imagine being in that room. I can’t imagine seeing Gretchen in my tiny bedroom, either, with the ancient bunk beds and the obnoxious roommates cackling on the other side of the door.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s not about our dorm rooms at all. But I don’t want to think about what else it might be.