“You got your asses kicked today!” Chris screams to the crowd. “And guess who’s number one in the new U.S. News & World Report? Huh? Huh?”
“Stanford, you loser!” someone shouts back. Chris gives hir the finger.
“You’ve got to get him down from there,” Derek says. “They’re turning vicious.”
“I’ll help,” Eli says.
Eli and I shove our way toward the statue, where a few people are waving their beer bottles menacingly at Chris. It’s slow going since Eli and I are both five-foot-one on a good day, but people take pity and let us pass. I doubt Chris is in any actual danger—Harvard isn’t a beer-bottle-throwing kind of school, game or no game—but it isn’t a good scene either way.
“Hey,” I say to Chris when we’re close enough to be heard over the jeers. “Time’s up, dude. Let’s get out of here.”
“Okay, but first!” Chris holds up a stern hand. “Repeat after me, T. ‘Yale rules, Harvard drools.’”
“I absolutely will not say that,” I say.
Eli reaches up to help Chris down. “They’ll kill you, man.”
“Okay, okay.” Chris takes Eli’s hands and carefully jumps down from the statue. The crowd cheers. Two freshmen immediately climb up to take Chris’s place, holding their Harvard beer cozies over their heads in triumph. I wonder if they’re drunk enough to think we actually won.
“Glad to see you all survived,” Derek says when we get back.
“It was thisclose.” Chris holds up a thumb and forefinger.
“Can we go home now?” Eli asks. “You two are coming with us, right?”
Chris throws an arm around my shoulders. “Can T and I meet up with you guys later? I need to whine to my girl some more.”
Derek and Eli both do double takes at the “girl” thing. I shake my head and they let it go.
Nance hands me a Bud Light from a cooler. Chris and I say goodbye to the guys and go stand on the front steps of my dorm. People are celebrating all around us—it’s very Ivy League to celebrate losing a football game—which means we can talk without being overheard.
“So, what’s happening in your life, Toni, my love?” Chris asks. “Clearly it’s better than mine, since you don’t appear to be a miserable wreck. Of course, you’ve always been good at faking it.”
I hate that Chris hasn’t been drinking. I’ve had two beers already. It makes me feel vulnerable. I pass my beer can to Chris, and ze tries to pry off the tab without actually opening it.
“I’m okay,” I say. “I like my friends a lot.”
“I like them, too,” Chris says. “Very friendly. As friends should be.”
“Yeah, they’re good guys.”
“That they are. Guys, I mean. Is there anything you want to tell me, Toni, my love?”
“Uh, yeah.” This is as good a time as any. At least we aren’t making eye contact. I take a deep breath and start to say, I identify as genderqueer. Or gender nonconforming. Or—something. I don’t know yet. I’m still figuring it out. Is that okay? That I’m still figuring it out?
Instead I say, “I think I have to break up with Gretchen.”
Chris drops the beer. It lands on hir foot. “Ow!”
“That’s what you get when you drop a full can of beer,” I say. I’m trying to sound light, but my heart is pounding. I’m as shocked as Chris that I just said that.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to do for weeks now, but I’ve never actually thought about breaking up. Breaking up has always been the last thing I’d ever want to do.
Now that I’ve said it out loud, though, everything feels different.
Chris hops on one foot. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Sorry.”
I lead us to another section of steps, where it’s a little quieter, and sit down.
“There will be no more of this talk.” Chris sits down next to me and waves a finger in my face. “You and Gretchen are getting married and having little pink-haired babies and that’s the end of it.”
“Chris.”
“You guys have been the relationship model that I’ve aspired to for as long as I’ve known I was supposed to aspire to relationship models, okay? It didn’t work out with Steven and me, yeah, but that’s because Steven sucks. Literally, and often. It’s not because my entire understanding of romance is flawed due to your shortcomings.”
“Chris.” I sigh. “I’m pretty sure this isn’t actually about you.”
“You like someone else, right?” Chris pulls away and looks at me, hard. “It’s that Derek.”
“Chris! No! God!” I can’t believe this. Maybe Chris doesn’t know me as well as I thought. Or maybe neither of us knows each other that well now that we’re off in our own separate college universes. “It’s nothing like that. Derek’s a guy, for starters.”
“Well, I didn’t know if maybe you were into guys now. Those kinds of guys at least.”