“Tell us all the gory details,” Carroll says. “We want a blow-by-blow. Let those of us who don’t have sex lives of our own live vicariously through yours.”
It’s Monday morning. November 1. I’m having breakfast in the dining hall with Carroll and Samantha. Carroll’s been pestering me to tell him about all the supposedly scandalous details of my weekend since I got back from Boston last night, but I don’t want to talk about it.
Besides, sex is the last thing on my mind. The sex was the one part of the weekend I know I didn’t mess up.
Samantha rescues me.
“We most certainly do not need to hear about that,” she tells Carroll. “Not all of us are flaming perverts.”
Carroll clutches his chest. “That was way harsh, Tai.”
Samantha doesn’t get the movie reference, and I’m too glum to explain it. I stir my yogurt.
“Anyway, yeah, I don’t want the real gore,” Carroll says. “Girl parts are gross. I just want to hear about the bodice-ripping, take-me-now stuff.”
“I don’t think she feels like talking about it,” Samantha says.
Carroll rolls his eyes.
I stir my yogurt in tighter and tighter concentric circles. When I’m about to get to the middle, Carroll grabs my wrist. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying,” he says.
“Nope,” I say. “There is absolutely nothing the matter with me. I am peachy keen.”
I scoop out the biggest spoonful of yogurt I can and shove it in my mouth so Carroll can’t make me talk.
“She misses her girlfriend,” Samantha says. “I’d be depressed, too, if I were her.”
“I’m not depressed,” I say through my yogurt blob.
“You mean her boyfriend,” Carroll says to Samantha. “Or didn’t she tell you about that?”
“What?” Samantha looks back and forth between us as if she can’t tell if there’s a joke here she’s supposed to laugh at.
“Nothing.” I swallow my yogurt. “Ignore Carroll. He’s being a dick.”
My phone buzzes to tell me Derek accepted my friend request. Well, at least one good thing came out of that trip. Derek’s the kind of guy I would’ve liked even if he wasn’t Toni’s new BFF. Plus he explained to me why some people thought genderqueer was kind of a problematic word, which was more than Toni told me.
Well, except for all that stuff Toni said really fast at the dance. I could only half follow it. I don’t know if I had trouble because Toni was confused or because I’m just too dumb to understand all the intricacies.
Toni was throwing out all these words—nonbinary and multigender and others that sounded even stranger—and then, in the middle of all of it, like it was no big deal, Toni said, “I lean more toward the male end of the spectrum than the female end.”
Was I supposed to know that already? Toni said it like I already knew it.
This is all my fault. If I’d just gone to school in Boston like we planned, I’d see Toni all the time. We’d tell each other everything the way we did before. I’d know what Toni was thinking before anyone else did.
Toni and I were always supposed to come first with each other.
I gave up the best thing in my life, and for what? A city? What was the point? Half the time I’m too stressed out to even enjoy this place.
“I have an idea,” Carroll says. “Let’s go out tonight. Get you back to being happy, bubbly Gretchen again.”
“It’s Monday,” Samantha says. “Even my friends don’t go out on Mondays.”
“Your friends don’t follow normal human patterns,” Carroll says. “I know how you people feel about direct sunlight.”
“We’re not vampires,” Sam says.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to out you,” Carroll says. “Come on, Gretch, your lesbo friends must be going somewhere. We can tag along.”
I shrug. The only gay girls I really know at school are Briana and her friend Heidi, and I’ve never gone out with them. I just see them around the dorm and classes, and I go up to Inwood with Briana once a week to volunteer.
“Heidi’s one of your friends, right?” Samantha asks. “On our floor? I have her cell number.”
“Fab,” Carroll says. “Text her.”
“I can’t text her,” Samantha says. “What if she thinks I want to go hang out with a bunch of lesbians?”
“Obviously your reputation would be forever tarnished,” Carroll says. “I know how judgmental goths can be. Here, I’ll do it.”
Samantha gives Carroll the number. I dip my spoon in and out of my yogurt. The berries are complete mush by now.
“Hey, girlfriend,” Carroll says into the phone in a high-pitched voice. My head snaps up. I can’t believe he really called her. “No, wait, don’t hang up. Sorry, I’m not a stalker. My name’s Carroll. I’m friends with your friend Gretchen. You know, the hippie chick who wears Birks with wool socks every day despite my desperate pleas?”