“All right.” I stand up again. “How about you take the bed and I’ll sleep on the sofa in the other room?”
“Okay.” I hold out my hand to pull Audrey up. She climbs to her feet, smiling. “Wow, you seem stronger than before. Is this being-a-guy thing making you more buff?”
I laugh. “No. You have to take hormones for that. Or just go to the gym and not eat cheeseburgers for every meal. None of which I’ve been doing this semester.”
“Better watch out or you’ll gain the freshman fifteen.” Audrey chuckles and goes into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
“Don’t forget,” I say through the door, “our flight’s at—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Hey, now that you’re getting a sex change, could you also be less anal?”
“No chance. Night.”
“Night.”
I change and climb onto the couch, pulling a pillow behind my head. I’m exhausted, but I can’t stop thinking.
Do I really want to leave behind everything from my life before?
This weekend was fun. It’s such a rush, having everyone think I’m a guy.
Roller coasters are a rush, too, but I don’t want to ride one every day until I die.
This is a big deal. Everyone keeps telling me it’s the biggest decision I’ll ever make.
If I really do it, I’ll have to tell my mother someday.
No way. I’m not ready for that. I won’t ever be ready for that.
Then what the hell am I doing? What was this weekend even about? Why am I torturing my little sister? Why did I lie to my new boss about my name? Why do I keep switching my labels around? Why didn’t I correct Chris when he assumed I was transitioning?
When will I figure this all out? Why does it have to take so long? Why can’t it be over and done with?
I need to talk this through with someone.
I pick up my phone. It’s 7:00 p.m. in New York. I could call. I could—
No. I stop myself before I push the button.
I can’t. Gretchen hates me after what I did at Thanksgiving. The last thing she wants is for me to call her out of the blue to whine about my new thing. I’ve got to figure this out on my own.
I can do this. I want to—
Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t know what the hell I want.
I fall asleep just as my alarm goes off.
16
DECEMBER
FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE
2 WEEKS APART
GRETCHEN
I check my phone again.
It’s on. It’s charged.
No one’s called me. No one’s texted.
This sucks. Everything sucks.
I go back to sleep.
*
I can’t sleep.
I’ve been lying in bed, thinking, for hours. There’s nothing I hate more than thinking about myself.
Well, no. Getting dumped and left alone to deal with the dumb stuff I do is a lot worse, actually.
Dumb stuff, for example, that may or may not have messed up the one good thing I had here. And just generally demonstrated my vast stupidity.
With every minute I lie in bed, it seems more and more likely that it’s all over now. That everything that once worked in my life has been erased from it. That I have nothing left. At all.
See? Thinking about myself leads to bad, bad places.
*
Someone’s knocking on the door. Crap.
I haven’t seen anyone since I left Carroll’s room hours and hours ago. I don’t know where Samantha’s been since yesterday, but it’s just as well. I can’t face the sight of another human being.
My phone buzzes with a text.
I jump up so fast I knock my phone to the floor. I scramble to pick it up, but my hands are asleep from where I was lying on them and my fingers are trembling. I try as hard as I can to not think about what I want the text to say.
I want the text to say:
Don’t worry, Gretchen, it was all a dream. Toni will call you in a few minutes to whine about homework and find out what you want for Christmas. Carroll will stop by later and ask you to come out for pizza. Your life will go back to being exactly the way it’s supposed to be.
I pick up the phone and click Read Message.
The text says:
r u in your room? We’re out here knocking.
It’s from Briana. I flop back into bed.
“Come in,” I say, not caring if I’m loud enough for them to hear.
I must be, though, because the door opens. Briana comes in with Rosa and Heidi behind her. I guess their drama from that night at the bar, whatever it was, is over.
“Jesus,” Rosa says. “What did you do to your hair?”
“It’s a metaphor for my life in general,” I say.
“Are you sick?” Briana asks. “It, um, kind of smells in here.”
“Yeah, I’m sick,” I say.
The girls hover by the foot of my bed.
“Sorry,” Briana says. “We were just going down to get some food and wanted to see if you ate yet.”
“No,” I say.
“No, you didn’t eat?” Rosa asks. “Or no, you don’t want to come eat with us?”
“No, I don’t want to ever get out of bed again.” I close my eyes.
I turn off my phone and throw it across the room. It lands on a pile of my dirty clothes. It can stay there forever as far as I’m concerned.
“Uh,” Briana says. “Okay. We’ll see you around, Gretch. Hope you feel better.”