Page 91 of Leaving the Station
The Night before Thanksgiving Break
The Cornell shuttle bus was chrome on the outside, reflective and bright. As the driver took my bag, I caught a glimpse of myself,tired and confused. But there was something else—something almost cheerful.
Something like hope.
As the bus traveled south from Ithaca to Manhattan, I felt free. Or, at the very least, I felt disconnected from the version of myself that had brought me to this point.
I could’ve said it was the campus that had been making me feel so terrible, but that would’ve been an excuse.
I was at least partially to blame for my own suffering, even if I couldn’t admit it at the time.
Either way, I was leaving everything behind, the good and the bad.
I’d been gone from home for only three months, and yet I would’ve been unrecognizable to the Zoe who walked onto campus in the oppressive humidity of an East Coast August. Part of it was the change in appearance—my hair, my clothes. But it was more than that.
I went to college as a lesbian premed student and left as a dropout who had a boyfriend. It was ridiculous.
A laugh, loud and sharp, bubbled out of me. I covered my mouth and looked around, but no one was awake enough to have heard me.
I tried to hold it in but the more I attempted to keep the laughter at bay, the more it wanted to erupt out of me.
So I let it.
I had four days on the train to figure out what I was going to do—it wasn’t enough, but in that moment, I let the humor ofmy predicament wash over me. Because itwasfunny, in a sad kind of way.
Once I got to Penn Station, I bought an iced coffee and a bagel, then wandered through the Amtrak waiting area. No one paid me any attention.
Maybe no one waseverpaying me much attention. It was just me, focused to an unhealthy degree on everything I thought was wrong with my body and my life.
Around Alden, I’d started to dissect my appearance, my mannerisms, the way I walked and talked. He’d become a twisted reflection of everything I wasn’t.
I shook the thoughts of him out of my head. I was going to fade into the background on the train, I was going to be a person no one thought twice about.
And maybe then, I’d be okay.
Sixteen
Thursday, 2 a.m., Crossing into Eastern Washington
As it turns out, the first thing I have to do isn’t for me. It’s an apology months in the making.
I check my phone without holding my breath, without fear that texts will stream in from everyone I’ve ever cared about, telling me that I failed them.
Because I never failed them. I failed myself.
By some miracle, there’s one bar of service holding on for dear life here in Eastern Washington, which I have to hope is enough for what I’m about to do.
I head downstairs to one of the communal bathrooms. I can’t have anyone overhearing this conversation.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to bring Virginia’s words to the front of my mind. I can’t live my life for other people, and that includes not running away from hard conversations.
“Zoe?” Alden asks when he picks up. He sounds dazed.
“Were you asleep?”
“No.” He clears his throat, and there’s a second of dead air.
I check my phone to see if the call dropped, but he’s still there, his name illuminated on my screen.
