Page 49 of Down My Chimney

And maybe that would have to be enough.

11

Henry

Afunny thing happened when I landed in England: I felt exactly the same.

All those melodramatic thoughts about how going to Europe would require moving on turned out to be just that: melodrama. In the end, it was just as possible to be sad on the east side of the Atlantic as the west.

Or maybe I didn’t feel exactly the same. I was more exhausted, for one thing. First from the jet-lag, and then from the hectic pace of meeting new people, settling into a dorm I would only stay in for six weeks, finding my way to my classes, and boarding a bus every few days to visit some obscure historical site.

I was quieter, too. Vernon had gotten accepted as well, but all the other students were strangers to me. Everyone wanted to go out at night, to explore London and go to shows—to do exactly what you were supposed to do in a program like this.

I let myself be dragged along. I smiled in the right places. Laughed at the right jokes. But I talked even less than I did over the summer, which was saying something, and whenever we were out in a big group, I drifted to the edges, watching and wondering if everyone was as happy as they appeared.

I spent more time in my own head than I did over the summer too, and that wasreallysaying something. Maybe it was just because everyone seemed determined to take up so much space, to be as loud as possible, but I found myself doing something I hadn’t done in a very long time: feeling invisible.

I actually kind of liked it.

My heart still ached, of course. Missing Blake. Wondering what he was doing. Resisting the urge to check his Instagram on a daily basis. Composing and deleting countless texts.

It wasn’t like I needed a carrier pigeon or a telegraph to get a message to him, but texting from overseas made me feel too naked. Like it exposed how not over him I was. Like no matter what words I sent, the real message would be,I still miss you. I still want you. It hasn’t changed for me. Has it changed for you?

I wasn’t sure I wanted an answer to that.

Late at night, that was the question that tortured me. In May, Blake had said he didn’t want things to end, but maybe now he’d finally realized he could get any guy he wanted. Maybe now, he’d finally realized just how much he was settling with me.

It twisted me up inside, wondering if maybe Blake wasn’t thinking of me at all.

I was feeling very dramatic when I packed for the semester, so I’d brought every piece of black clothing I owned. I’d had visions of myself wandering through foggy London streets, penning morose poetry on chilly cemetery benches, possibly dying beautifully of consumption and leaving Blake to mourn my tragic passing.

In reality, I spent most of my time in our raucous student dorms and the cheap, brightly lit cafes that didn’t charge for WiFi, but I did have an odd experience the third week of the program.

Vernon, a girl named Anoush, and I were studying in a coffee shop one afternoon. Anoush was like the human embodiment of champagne—she had long, curly blonde hair and was so bubbly, I thought she might float away. She was always giggling at something, and when I pointed to a Corgi wearing banana-print pajamas on the other side of the window, she lost it.

“He’s a banana corgi!” she squealed. “A banorgi! A canorgana! Oh my God, I love him!”

She laughed so hard she started to slide out of her seat, and grabbed onto my wrist to steady herself. She was loud enough that a woman across the shop turned to look at us. Her gaze flicked down to Anoush’s hand, then to mine. A knowing smile blossomed across her face. She turned away, chuckling, and I knew without her saying anything that she thought Anoush and I were together.

I’d never passed as straight before. Never even tried to. I hadn’t been trying this time either, but evidently black clothing and chipped black nail polish counted as straight, at least in this particular coffee shop on this completely unfoggy, unseasonably warm Tuesday afternoon.

It was super weird, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, plucking at the memory like a loose thread in a sweater.

We were supposed to keep journals all semester, and I drew spirals in the margins of mine that night, trying to figure out what bothered me about the woman’s assumption. It wasn’t the heteronormativity, or the stereotypes, or any of the usual things I’d be annoyed by.

It’s because you liked it.

The thought appeared in my brain like a lightning bolt. Like it came from somewhere outside of me. But the minute I thought it, I knew it was true.

And somehow, I found myself writing to Blake in my journal.

Did I ever tell you the story of the Tinker Bell wings?

I feel like I probably didn’t.

I don’t think I had the right words for it at the time, and afterwards, I just tried to shove it to the back of my mind. But I’ve never forgotten about it, and I’m going to try to tell you now.

It starts at a thrift shop in Ventura. We’d gone camping farther up the coast, and on the drive home, we passed this absolute wonderland of a thrift store, the kind with beaded curtains in the doorways, where everything smells like perfume and old leather, and the hallways curve in on themselves in ways that defy the laws of physics.

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