We say goodbye and cross the street back to the Yard.
“I’m sorry I got crabby before.” Gretchen takes off the witch hat, wraps an arm around my waist and leans her head on my shoulder. I wonder how drunk Gretchen is. I wonder how drunk I am. “I get it better now that Derek explained the thing about genderqueer being classist. He said some people think genderqueer is mainly used as a label just by middle-and upper-class people, but he doesn’t think that’s true anymore, and he said he’s trying to convince you he’s right. I told him there’s no way to convince you you’re wrong about something like that, but he said he’s going to try anyway.” Gretchen laughs.
“You talked to Derek about me?” I have a feeling that will bother me tomorrow. Right now I’m more focused on the physical proximity situation. I put my arm around Gretchen’s shoulders.
“A little.” Gretchen isn’t slurring as much now. “I like him. He really likes you, too. He says you remind him of him when he was a freshman.”
“Uh-huh.” That will probably bother me tomorrow, too.
“Hey, T? T! Is that you?”
“Eb?”
My roommate Ebony is waving to us from the opposite sidewalk, arm in arm with a guy who is definitely not her boyfriend from back home.
“Hey!” Ebony breaks away from the guy and jogs over to us. “Is this the famous Gretchen?”
“Hiiiii.” Suddenly Gretchen’s back to slurring.
Ebony laughs and turns to me. “What have you done to her?”
“No idea,” I say. “She was fine three seconds ago.”
Ebony turns to look at me with unfocused eyes. “Something’s different about you.”
“Oh, yeah. I got my hair cut.”
“Yeah, and there’s more, too.” Ebony squints at my chest. “Ohhh.”
“Ohhhhhhh,” Gretchen agrees. Her eyes are closed. If we don’t move soon, I’ll have to drag Gretchen back to my room. I suspect that would look bad to any passing campus police officers.
“It’s such a shame,” Ebony says.
“Nah, she’ll be okay,” I say. “Gretchen has a really low tolerance. Just needs to sleep it off.”
“No, I mean you,” Ebony says. “It’s so sad. You’re so pretty as a girl.”
A hand tugs on my sleeve before I can think of a response. Gretchen’s eyes are open now. “Time to go home, T. ’S nice to meet you, Ebony.”
Ebony waves and stumbles back over to the guy. Gretchen and I make it to the dorm without any dragging required, but the pleasant buzz that surrounded us before is gone.
“I can’t believe she said that,” I say for the third time. I’m trying to swipe my card to get into the entryway but my hands are fumbling. I keep missing the card reader.
“You’re drunk, T. Your pronouns are slipping.”
“Sorry. It’s just so offensive. I thought people here were more enlightened.”
“I’m sure she thought it was a compliment.”
“Whatever.” I stomp up the stairs to my room while Gretchen follows.
“You can’t be so hard on everyone,” Gretchen says. “Sometimes people make mistakes. Say the wrong thing.”
“Whatever.”
I open the door. Joanna and Felicia are sitting on the couch in the common room, laughing. They shut up as soon as they see us. I go straight to my room. The only reason I don’t slam the door behind me is that I don’t want to hit Gretchen in the face.
Gretchen says hi to the others before following me in. When we’re alone with the door safely shut, I fling out my arm in the direction of the common room.
“You don’t need to talk to them,” I say. Through the wall we can hear Joanna singing one of the dumb songs from the dumb a cappella group the two of them are in. It’s a Michael Jackson medley I’ve heard them sing a million times before. Felicia joins Joanna on the harmony. I flip them off through the closed door.
Gretchen smiles at me. “You’re being such a teenager. It’s cute.”
“It’s not cute.” I sit on the bottom bunk bed and cross my arms over my chest. I hate how tiny my room is. The top of my head grazes the bottom of my bunk bed. It feels like everything is closing in on me.
“Relax,” Gretchen says, whispering so Joanna and Felicia don’t hear. “What’s with you tonight?”
“I...don’t know.”
I really don’t. I can’t remember the last time I felt so many different things in one day.
Seeing Gretchen again was automatically supposed to translate into twenty-four-hour bliss. It wasn’t supposed to be complicated.
Was it like this before? I can’t remember.
Gretchen sits down next to me on the bed. For a minute, neither of us speaks. Gretchen’s arms are crossed over her chest, too. Then Gretchen sighs and turns to look at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I sigh, too. “It really wasn’t a big deal.”
“You told all your other friends.”
“The guys always want to talk about this stuff. It just comes up.”
“I want to talk about this stuff with you, too.”
“I know, but...”