It doesn’t go well

Janelle's mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.

"You're... not really a girl?"

The words land like stones dropped into still water. Each one sinks separately. You feel them hit your chest, your stomach, your knees.

Not really. Not really a girl.

You open your mouth but nothing comes out. Your throat has sealed itself shut. The birch trees behind Janelle blur as your eyes fill, and you blink hard, trying to keep everything in focus.

Janelle sees your face crumple. Something shifts in her expression—not anger, not disgust, but a dawning comprehension that seems to hollow her out from the inside. Her hand rises halfway toward you, then falls.

"Oh," she says, very quietly. "Oh. That's why you—" She doesn't finish. She doesn't need to. The dress. The closet. The way you flinched when Priya held up that burgundy wrap and you couldn't explain why you couldn't, why you physically couldn't undress in front of them.

Her eyes are glassy now. Not with anger—with something worse. Recognition of a distance she can't cross.

"I—" she starts, and her voice cracks on the single syllable. She presses her lips together hard, jaw working. Her braids sway as she shakes her head once, twice, like she's trying to dislodge something that's already settled deep.

She doesn't say I can't picture myself with you. She doesn't say this changes everything. She doesn't say any of the things that are clearly written across her face in a language you've spent four years studying. But you're fluent in heartbreak, and you can read every word.

Janelle turns. Not slowly, not with any deliberation—she just turns and walks fast, then faster, her braids swinging, her mustard sweater catching the last of the amber light. She pushes through the fence gate and it swings shut behind her with a wooden clatter. You catch a glimpse of her wiping her cheek with the back of her hand before she disappears into the patio crowd.

The clearing is very quiet.

A truck passes on Route 9, headlights sweeping across the gravel. The cricket in the birch trees has gone silent. The string lights hum faintly behind you, indifferent.

You wrap your arms around yourself. The sage jacket is too thin for this. Everything is too thin for this.

She asked if you were really a girl. She asked that. Like it was a question with an answer she already knew.

The tears come before you can stop them—hot, fast, blurring the world into streaks of amber and shadow. You press your forehead against the rough wooden fence post and let yourself cry properly for the first time since you got on that plane with your rolling bag and your stupid optimism. You cry for Janelle's face. You cry for the way she looked at you before—like you were something she wanted—and the way she looked at you just now, like you were something she had to grieve.

You cry because she's right, in a way. You're not really a girl. Not yet. Not in the way she needs you to be. You're a sketch in pencil where she wanted oil paint.

The sobs shake your shoulders. Your makeup is ruined. Your carefully applied smoky eye is probably running in black rivers down your cheeks. You don't care. You can't care about anything right now except the hollow ache where Janelle's knee used to be warm against yours.

Somewhere behind the fence, you hear Priya's voice rise in confusion: "Wait—where's Janelle going? Janelle!"

You stay where you are. Face against rough wood. Arms wrapped tight. Crying.