Page 60 of Leaving the Station
One of them, the baby of the group, had a haircut similar to the one I’d given myself. It was a careless style, his blond hair sticking up when he pulled off his helmet.
The kid was my age, but instead of going to college, he traveled the world with his buddies in order to jump off shit and give his number to random girls he met on mountains and at skate parks.
I was clearly doing something wrong.
Alden texted me good night, but I didn’t respond. I was imagining my life with these boys, being a little daring and a little blockheaded and so,socool.
With my short hair, I could almost taste that life, one entirely different from my own.
To Randall’s credit, he didn’t comment on my hair when I arrived at the greenhouse the next day.
All he did was walk me around the arid plant room and tell me about a cactus that looked like it grew out of a turtle’s shell, calledDioscoreaelephantipes.He said the scientific names of the plants with a level of confidence I didn’t have about anything.
As he gave his spiel, I noticed things about Randall I hadn’t before: the thick muscle of his forearms covered in graying black hair, his pants sitting low on his narrow hips.
I was noticing boys, noticingmen, in a way I never had. At first, it had only been Alden, but now it was any man I came across.
It wasn’t an attraction, it was more a study. My findings were inconclusive with bouncing-leg-girl, but maybe, if I looked at these men closely enough, I could better understand how they moved through the world.
When I observed them, I could see easily what I lacked, which was more essential than physical. They existed in a way that didn’t offer a preplanned apology.
When I met up with Alden after work, I tried to hide my hair under a baseball cap, but he noticed, of course. If I was his observer, then he was mine.
“What’s under there, Zo?” He laughed a little as he pulled my hat off, but when he did, his smile fell and he blinked a few times. “That’s new.”
I couldn’t tell if he was mad or disappointed or confused. But suddenly, my excitement for my new hair faded, and was replaced by shame.
The outfit I’d chosen today was too girly or not enough. My hands were too big but smaller than I’d like. I was all wrong.
I excused myself to go to the bathroom, then sat on the toilet in the women’s room and cried.
There was no reason for me to be sad. The room technically labeled me properly; I was a woman. But if that was true, why did it feel like I was playing a part?
Everything I’d imagined about myself for eighteen years was crumbling. I wasn’t the perfect daughter or the perfect girlfriend.
Because I wasn’t perfect, and I didn’t even know if I was a girl. I was just a mess.
Wednesday, 12:45 a.m., near St. Cloud, MN
“You’rewhat?” I ask, leaning over the bed so I can peer down into her bunk. This is no longer a conversation I can have without looking at her.
“I want to go back,” she repeats.
I sit up then, and of course, whack my head on the train ceiling and yell every expletive I know in the process.
“Are you okay?” Oakley asks, her voice soft yet frantic.
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “My head’s not the most pressing thing here.”
I lie back down and rub my skull as Oakley nervously adds, “Well, they might not have me back. But if they do, I could be a success story.” She laughs awkwardly, her words lacking her usual confidence.
I climb down from my bunk to stand in front of her. “But you won’t be able to marry a woman.” I know it sounds pathetic even as I say it, but she had told me, hours before, how much she wanted love. How much of a hopeless romantic she is.
She hasn’t even been on a second date with a girl.
Oakley doesn’t look me in the eye as she says, “Maybe that’s not the worst thing. I’ll have everything else: my family, my community.”
I shiver, the air colder down here than on the top bunk. She pats the mattress and I hesitantly join her. Then she swivels soshe’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, looking out the dark window. I do the same. It’s like being in a fort, enclosed on three sides.
