Chapter Twelve

August 23

The house is dark when I unlock the front door, and it takes me an embarrassingly long time to find the light switch. When

I finally do, I just about have a heart attack. Mr. Grumpy is sitting on the floor right in front of me, tongue lolling out

of his mouth and tail thumping the carpet.

I let my breath out and reach down to scratch his head. “What are you doing up, bud?”

He just yawns and pads after me as I creep down the hall to my room. My mom’s door is closed. I glance at my phone. It’s almost

ten—she’s probably fast asleep.

I wait for Mr. Grumpy to lumber into my room and then I close the door and flip on the light. My bedroom looks exactly the

same as it did when I left for Michael’s, but somehow that just makes me annoyed. Annoyed at the version of me from three

hours ago who was caught up in picking an outfit, like if I wore the right clothes, I could fit right in and slip back into

my friendship with Michael like it had never gone up in flames.

I gather up the shirts and pants strewn across my bed and fling them into my suitcase with so much vehemence that Mr. Grumpy

jumps out of the way and gives me a concerned look.

And then I sit down on the edge of the bed, glaring at the empty spots on the walls where the photos from high school used to be, suddenly furious with myself for taking them down. So what if they made me dysphoric as fuck? Maybe if I had them now, I’d be able to learn something. Maybe if I stared at them for long enough, I’d be able to figure out why I never realized Michael was gay or Liz was queer. Maybe I’d understand something about what happened back then.

I know it’s ridiculous. I know pictures couldn’t really tell me any of those things. I know all they’d really do is make me

feel worse—but maybe part of me wants that too.

I push myself up. Brush my teeth. Change into pajamas. When I turn off the light and climb into bed, Mr. Grumpy immediately

sits up and puts his front paws on the mattress.

“You’re not supposed to be up here,” I tell him.

He whines.

I sigh and lean down, getting an arm under his butt and hauling him up onto the bed. He flops down on my feet with a sigh.

I lie back down, hands under my head, staring up at the ceiling. In this moment, I actually miss the constant background noise

of New York. The shriek of subway brakes. The distant sirens. The hum of traffic or people talking or a neighbor’s TV. Sure,

it was claustrophobic a lot of the time, but at least it also distracted me from my own thoughts.

Here, there’s only Mr. Grumpy’s wheezing and the chirp of crickets outside the open window. I’m painfully aware of my own

breathing. My own thoughts crashing around in my head. A series of why why why .

I lean over and grab my phone off the nightstand. My thumb hovers over the messages icon. But I still don’t know how to reply

to Ian’s thumbs-up emoji. I don’t know how to explain tonight. How to explain Michael. How to explain anything.

So instead, I open Instagram. I want distraction, but more than that, I want to see New York. I want to see my life in New

York. I want a reminder of that noise—a reminder of everything that made me leave New York—so I can stop feeling alone in

this quiet, with only Mr. Grumpy snoring and the crickets to keep me company.

My most recent post is a selfie from Olivia’s birthday party, all of us crowded into the booth while Ian holds my phone because he has the longest arms. I quickly scroll past it. I need something more distant, something farther away that isn’t so raw. I scroll past pictures from Olivia’s stand-up shows—most of them blurry because it was too dark in the cramped comedy clubs for my old phone to focus. I scroll past a selfie of all of us at NYC Pride—Olivia and Joan with rainbow glitter on their faces, Ian in a feather boa and a mesh tank top, and me just wearing a regular old T-shirt and jeans because I was never quite loud enough for anything else.

I scroll faster and faster, past old birthday parties and picnics in Prospect Park and that time we all carved pumpkins in

Ian’s old apartment and then it smelled like raw pumpkin for weeks. Faster and faster until years are rolling by in seconds.

Until, finally, I get to the very first picture I ever posted.

It’s a selfie of me and Olivia in front of the fountain in Washington Square Park. It’s sunny, and I’m wearing my old navy-blue

peacoat and my oval glasses. Olivia’s in a sweatshirt and a puffy vest; instead of long braids, her hair is in short twists.

This picture is from college. Freshman year. I know before I even look at the date on the post, because I lost those glasses

at the end of my first semester. No wonder the picture quality seems a little grainy.

This was before I came out to my mom. Before I started hormones. Before I had top surgery. When the bubble where I existed

as a trans guy was very, very small.

This was back when the only person I’d come out to was Olivia.

I talked myself out of going to that queer meetup at least five times, including when I was literally on my way there. It

was the end of orientation week and Manhattan was still hot and sticky, but at least the half-empty dorms were filling up

as all the upperclassmen started to arrive on campus. I’d spent orientation feeling itchy for classes to actually get started,

because it didn’t take very long for me to determine I was absolutely no good at orientation. I felt behind the whole week.

Friend groups formed while I was still getting lost trying to find my way back to my dorm. Parties happened that I never even

knew were happening until my roommate came back well after midnight and told me she’d been at a party. It was like the beginning

of high school all over again, except with a lot more booze and weed.

Plus, there was the whole thing where rooming with a girl was just making it extra obvious to me that I was not, in fact,

a girl.

But even so, when I saw the flyer advertising a meetup for LGBTQ students, all genders and sexualities welcome... I still told myself I shouldn’t go. I told myself I didn’t really know . I told myself I wasn’t sure, and it would probably just be five people and be super awkward, and and and ...

But all genders stuck in my head.

So I went. I walked into one of the student lounges in a building I barely clocked the name of, because I still didn’t really

know where anything was on campus. And it wasn’t just five people. It was a roomful of people. At least thirty. Some sitting

on the couches and chairs in the lounge, some standing, some talking and laughing, and others hovering on the edge and watching,

like me. On one wall was a very handmade paperboard sign: welcome lgbtq students , all in rainbow markers with an abundance of glitter.

I had no idea what a roomful of queer people would look like. A lot of the girls had short hair. Several of the guys were

wearing very low-cut T-shirts. There were definitely more earrings than average for the general population.

A girl with short hair and long earrings climbed onto a chair, hands cupped around her mouth. “All right, everybody, listen

up!” she yelled. “My name is Bree, I’m a junior, and I run the LGBTQ Student Alliance along with Rickie over there.” She pointed

to a tall, lanky guy with light-brown skin and gold hoops in both ears. He waved. “Since this is a meetup, we feel you actually

need to meet people. So I’m gonna ask everybody to get in a circle, and we’re gonna facilitate some meeting . ”

I almost walked out. I’d changed my mind. Meeting people sounded like a terrible idea. There were icebreaker activities coming—I

could feel it. And I hated icebreaker activities. I’d suffered through a round of icebreaker activities when I arrived at

boarding school. It was the worst.

But a circle was already forming, people lining up on either side of me. I’d somehow joined in without even meaning to. And

then Bree was walking around the circle, labeling each of us a “one” or a “two,” and I couldn’t leave without it being really

obvious. And being obvious felt worse than being part of an icebreaker activity.

So I stood there, so anxious I was ready to barf, as Bree instructed the ones to turn to the person to our right and introduce

ourselves.

I was definitely disassociating. My brain felt a hundred miles away when I turned to the Black girl next to me, and said, “Hi, I’m Darby.”

The room was a cacophony of voices, everyone introducing themselves, as she said, “I’m Olivia.”

I bobbed my head, trying to think of something else to say so we wouldn’t be awkwardly staring at each other. “So, are you—”

“I’m bi,” Olivia said.

She said it like it was simultaneously easy and like she was desperate to let it out in the open.

I gaped at her. I’d been about to ask if she was a freshman, since clearly not everyone here was. Maybe she’d thought I said

something else, since it was loud with everyone talking. Or maybe she just wanted to tell me she was bi because it was no

big deal, because we were in New York City, because this was the kind of space where people said things like that easily.

At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter, because now I had to decide what to say back. And either I could make us both

embarrassed by telling her that actually that was not what I was asking at all... or I could share my truth with her, and

try, really hard, to trust her with it.

“I’m trans,” I said, at the same time Olivia said, “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

We stared at each other. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs wouldn’t expand. Had she heard me? Did I have to say it again? Would

that just make this weirder?

Then her face split into a smile. “Sorry,” she said, laughing. “That’s cool. What pronouns?”

Air rushed into my lungs and my adrenaline crashed so hard, I felt dizzy. I’d never once let myself think this far. What pronouns? I’d never even thought about pronouns in my own head. I realized, with an uncomfortable jolt, that I still shaved my legs

and under my arms. I wore a sports bra, and I liked that it helped me look flatter, and the T-shirt I was wearing was sort

of oversize, and the jeans I had on were actually from the boys’ section—but I certainly wasn’t wearing guys’ underwear.

I had no business using male pronouns. Did I?

But I wasn’t a girl. And every time I let myself exist—even just in my own head—as a guy, pretending that was how the world

saw me...

Those were the only times I didn’t feel like a fraud.

“Male pronouns,” I said, and immediately wondered if that was the right way to say it. “He, him, and his.” Was that better?

Olivia nodded quickly, almost eagerly. “Okay. Cool. I just use she and her.”

“Right. Okay.”

We stared at each other some more. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears, louder even than the voices of

the people around me.

I’d just come out.

I’d told this complete stranger that I was trans.

And she’d believed me.

Her forehead wrinkled. “Are you okay?”

No. I felt like I was going to pass out. Or have a full-blown panic attack. I was sweaty, too hot, and my heart was trying

to hammer straight out of my chest. “Yeah. I just... I never actually told anyone that before.”

The wrinkles in her forehead disappeared. “Cool. I haven’t told that many people, either.”

We went through a few other introductory questions, and even though I didn’t think I made friends easily—probably because

I’d spent the last seven or eight months basically hanging out with myself—after coming out for the first time, everything

else felt like a piece of cake. Olivia told me she was from the Bronx. I told her I was from Illinois; she had no idea where

that was. We were both freshmen and even in the same dorm, just on different floors.

She was in the middle of telling me her favorite bagel place close to NYU when Bree got back up on her chair and informed

us that now we were going to turn to the person on our other side, and this time we had to share a dream or a goal we had

for the semester.

My palms turned clammy. I had no idea what my dreams or goals were. Up until this moment, all I wanted was to survive all

my classes and get decent grades, like that would prove I belonged here. But I’d just come out. I’d literally invented a new

Darby—or finally uncovered the Darby that had been there all along.

And maybe it was cheesy, but the world suddenly seemed a whole lot bigger. And I didn’t feel remotely ready to share any of that with a random stranger. Coming out to Olivia was enough for one day.

Did people on the East Coast really get this personal this fast?

Judging by Olivia’s face, they did not. She looked like a deer in the headlights.

She glanced at me. “Hey, you want a bagel now?”

I blinked. “You mean, like, leave?”

She bit her lip and glanced sideways at Bree. “I kind of hate stuff like this,” she confessed. “I just really wanted to meet

someone else queer, but like... this is a lot.”

“Yeah,” I said. Now my heart was pounding for a different reason. For the first time in a long time, I felt excited. I felt

hopeful. I suppose it was probably really sad that I was so thrilled someone wanted to get a bagel with me, but I was. “Let’s

bail.”

So we bailed. I told myself it was fine—we’d taken out a “one” and a “two,” which meant nobody would be left without a partner.

And anyway, Bree didn’t seem to care or even notice that we turned and walked right out of the room.

I guess Olivia and I were both a little stressed out, or a little overwhelmed, or we’d just spent too much time in tiny dorm

rooms desperately wishing it would cool off outside, because we bent over laughing as soon as we were out of the room.

“I don’t even know what my goal would be,” I said.

“Dude, I don’t have goals, I live in the moment ,” Olivia said, still laughing. I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, but in that particular moment, I didn’t care.

I put the phone face down on my chest and close my eyes, thinking back to all the bits and pieces of things that happened

after I came out to Olivia. I stopped shaving. I ordered my first binder online. Ian took me to the barbershop he went to

and I got an actual guy’s haircut. (The barber barely said three words the whole time. It was great.)

All of that was packed into that first semester—the semester that flew by and felt a million years long at the same time.

At the end of it, I went home for Christmas, and I came out to my mom.

And then, when I got back to New York, Olivia and Ian went shopping with me. We went to the big Target in Brooklyn because it was cheap, and I bought a whole bunch of new clothes. From the boys’ section. I was too short for basically everything in the men’s section.

I called the LGBT center and found a therapist I could afford, because I couldn’t start actually transitioning without one

giving me permission and writing some formal letter. To attest I wasn’t just fooling around and going through a phase —like constantly getting misgendered by teachers was a fun hobby.

It was awful and wonderful and terrifying, and even with all of it... I loved New York. I loved wandering around the holiday market in Union Square with Olivia and Ian. I loved taking the subway

with them on the weekends—going wherever Olivia had decided we should go, since she was the only one of us who knew New York

at that point. We wandered around the Met, paying a few bucks because they let students do that. We studied in Central Park.

We bought pizza by the slice and crammed for finals in crowded coffee shops, and it all felt like the fantasy of what New

York was supposed to be.

I rub my eyes. I can’t think of any particular moment I fell out of love with the city. I can’t remember exactly when the

subway stopped being thrilling and started being mundane. Or when my apartment got too small and too crappy. Maybe it was

inevitable. Too many years of barely affording things, getting older and feeling like there was a list of things I was supposed

to be accomplishing. Buy a house, get a solid job that was also supposed to be my passion, own a car, get married, or at least

find a partner...

It started to seem like none of those things would happen in New York. I dated occasionally—a girl in college for a few months,

a guy in grad school for a bit longer—but nothing seemed to really stick. There was always some piece of me that never seemed

to make sense to people.

And I don’t even know if I need the partner, the house, the Dream Job in publishing or academia, or whatever I thought was

my passion. I just know that I’m missing something. Like I spent the last twelve years carefully putting together a jigsaw

puzzle, only to come up one piece short.

My mind wanders back to In Between Books, to the version of myself I saw behind the counter, to the dates on the newspapers and the video store outside the window.

I pick up my phone again. The screen glows in the darkness. Tuesday, August 23, 10:34 p.m.

The breeze filtering through my window suddenly feels chilly.

Today, when I walked into the bookstore, it was August 23—the same date as it is today, in my present. I didn’t check the

newspapers yesterday; was that August 22? And will tomorrow be August 24?

Because if time inside the bookstore moves like it does out here, just thirteen years earlier...

Then maybe I have a chance to figure out what happened to me and Michael, even if Michael—the Michael that’s here and now—won’t

tell me. Maybe I can ask the younger version of me in the bookstore. I can’t ask exactly that obviously. I can’t walk into the store and go, Hey , tell me why you’re about to have a huge falling-out with your best friend .

But I can ask something . Maybe I can learn enough to piece things together, and if I know what made everything crumble between us, maybe I can figure

out how to fix it.

And I’ve walked into the bookstore twice since I arrived in Oak Falls. Both times, I traveled. It seems reasonable to assume

I’ll do it again when I go back tomorrow.

And I’m going to go back.

I have to go back.

I set my phone down on the nightstand. Set my glasses on top of it. And then I close my eyes and repeat it to myself over

and over, like something to hold on to.

Tomorrow, I’m going back.