My tea goes cold as I wait for her. The place is mostly empty except for a barista with wireless earbuds and a group of students in the back corner huddled over a laptop.
When she arrives, Hayden walks in as if she belongs here, her arrival announced by the bell over the door. Confident, cool. Hershort, ink-black hair falls to one side of her head in sharp, jagged layers over her harsh undercut. She’s wearing an oversized denim jacket patched with logos and slogans I half recognize. There’s one from a coffee place. A charity that supports LGBTQ+ youth. ASchitt’s Creekreference. One sleeve has been hand-painted in a wildlife scene, all trees and birds.
She’s not trying to make an entrance or be noticed. She seems like the kind of person who’d never waste the energy caring what anyone thinks. She carries gravity, a magnetic pull like a thunderstorm gathering in the sky.
She spots me immediately, I guess, never taking her eyes off me from the moment she enters the café. A flicker of something passes over her face as she draws near—not warmth, necessarily, but something familiar. Like we share something unspoken. And, I suppose, we do.
“Hey,” I say, standing too quickly.
Hayden gives a look that seems to say,You don’t need to perform for me,then sits without comment. She sets down a messenger bag covered in buttons and stuffed with flyers, and a reusable water bottle covered in political stickers.
Her hands are paint-stained, eyes patient but not indulgent. I get the feeling this will be a quick meeting.
“My pronouns are she/they,” Hayden says. “Either one is fine with me. Yours?”
I swallow, incredibly intimidated by how cool and entirely herself she is. “She/her.”
She eyes me. “You look like shit. No offense.”
I let out a sharp laugh before I can stop it. “None taken.”
“You want to talk about Ralston, I’m guessing. You’re attending Ralston Week?” Hayden leans back in her chair, watching me. She slings one arm over the back of the chair, clasping her hands together in front of her chest.
I give a small nod. “Not as a fan. I’m…I’m working on something. A statement, maybe. Or an article. Something public, for whoever will listen. Maybe a newspaper. Maybe I’ll just take it online. Or social media. Or—well, I don’t know. I’ve been?—”
She puts up a hand. “Hang on. Take a breath.” When I suck in a slow breath on command, she lowers her hand. “Now, go on.”
“I want to call her out. I want to tell people what she did to me. And to others. Maybe…maybe to you.”
Hayden’s mouth twitches, but it doesn’t become a smile. “Ah. Gotcha. So, the reckoning is finally fashionable.”
“What do you mean?”
“You think bringing her down will do something for you. Make youviralor whatever.”
My throat goes tight. “That’s not why I’m doing this.”
She lifts her water bottle, taking a sip, and I stare at one of the stickers.Caring about people is not political.
“Then why are you?” she asks finally. “Doing this?”
When I glance out the window, a drizzle has set in, the grayness seeping into my bones. I had an answer prepared, obviously expecting some version of her question, but the entire conversation has thrown me off.
“Because our stories matter. Just as much as hers. She doesn’t get to hurt people and get away with it.” I watch her face change just slightly, still unreadable. “She stole my stories. My words. And she made sure no one believed me when I tried to speak out. I’m guessing you have a similar story?”
Hayden grins from one corner of her mouth. It’s sad. Distant. “I went to Ralston with the idea for a LGBTQ+ writing group. I thought it would be a good way to make sure people felt less alone, to give us a space to tell our stories without judgment. She said she wasn’t sure. Then a few months later I heard it was happening.Hadhappened. Without me.” She shrugs. “I didn’t care about the credit, but it still stung, you know? And thenwhen she mentioned the group on a panel later, she called it ‘a lesbian group.’ I corrected her in front of everyone.”
Laughter fills her expression, even without the sound.
“She must’ve hated that.”
“Eh, she spun it around, like she does. Turned to the audience and said something like, ‘Kids these days are always teaching me new things.’ Like we were a TED Talk, an anecdote, rather than people.”
She doesn’t say it with any bitterness, just fact. A memory recited like an entry on a spreadsheet.
“I trusted her because she was supposed to be one of the good ones, you know? An ally who really cared. That’s how they sell her, isn’t it? The next semester, the group was told our usual meeting space in the library had been booked. They moved us to some musty room in Piper Hall. We ended up just meeting in the dorms instead. It was clear Ralston had some part in it. Even though she bragged publicly about how we’d worked together to reform the campus for LGBTQ+ students, we never really spoke after that. I found out later she’d had a hand in making sure I didn’t get accepted to the Master’s program. And that was that.”
“And she just got away with it,” I say softly. “Because that’s what she does. Because no one has stopped her. I came before you. I tried, but not hard enough. I wanted to trust her. I thought she cared about me, but I was just material she could use.”
