2. Jay
JAY
Jay was nervous as a volunteer guided her down a hallway crowded with fellow students on move-in day.
She didn’t often get that way; her mother joked that she wasn’t hardwired for it, but today she was nervous.
She supposed nervous excitement was normal for freshmen.
She had been prepared for some of the sideways glances and looks, but there had refreshingly been less than she had expected.
If anything, most of them had come from accompanying parents, and they would all be gone soon.
Jay’s parents weren’t able to come. The Blakes’ generosity only went so far, and a plane ticket had only been purchased for Jay.
Her parents had driven her to the airport, and they had hugged and said their goodbyes, her mother hugging her extra tight before uttering one more “Adios, mi amor.” It was a rare moment of her mother speaking to her in Spanish, and that somehow had made her move across the country feel even more real.
It would be the first time Jay was venturing on her own, but her parents had filled her with so much love in preparation that Jay felt them among the sea of parents and fellow wide-eyed freshmen.
She’d checked in, holding her breath while the RA went through her information and handed her the keys.
There was a long pause, during which Jay’s heart rate skyrocketed.
There was nothing wrong with her paperwork at all; she had been upfront about who the government thought she was on everything, because legal documentation was required.
But Jay had seen it on the young woman’s face as she looked up at her — not really anything hateful, but certainly a question.
She had been relieved when the volunteer, Davis, stepped up and enthusiastically said he’d show her to her dorm.
“Alright, so here you are, do you need help with anything? My new buddy and your fellow freshman, Kevin, will be up with the bags you left with the move-in staff,” Davis said as he smiled at her.
He was tall, on the thinner side, though he clearly took care of his physique; Jay could see the lean muscles of his torso outlined beneath his t-shirt.
He had tanned white skin, blonde hair and sky blue eyes—the same color, Jay realized with a jolt, as Diana.
Davis spoke with a cheerful voice that had a bit of a lilt to it, and his smile did not indicate that he found Jay’s presentation strange in any way.
This made the fake smile Jay had plastered on her face melt into a genuine one. “Thank you,” she said, “should I wait out here for him or—”
“Oh no, feel free to go in and take a look if you want. You know, you are super lucky to be living here as a freshman, your room is one of the bigger ones,” Davis said as Jay unlocked the door and opened it to a small hallway.
“Yeah well, I have friends in high places,” Jay said, and the way Davis laughed let her know that it came off as a joke, the way she’d intended it.
She began to close the door when Davis stepped forward, his light skin flushing around his neck and at his cheekbones.
“So listen, I don’t mean to be extremely forward—”
Jay braced herself. Was she about to be hit on? Or worse? Was she going to be asked what she was doing in a sundress?
“Um, so I’m gay,” Davis blurted out, going even redder, his words pulling Jay’s anxieties up short.
For a moment they just looked at each other, Davis blushing furiously.
Finally he gave a small chuckle and shook his head, his perfectly coiffed blonde hair flopping onto his forehead.
“Sorry, that was awkward. Let me try again, hey, I’m Davis, a sophomore, and I work at the Queer Alliance Resource Center.
We have several resources and clubs available—or you could just come hang out with me and my friends, we kinda have a social club, if you’re open to joining us,” he rushed on, “I don’t want to make any assumptions, but just want to make sure you know you’re welcome here and feel safe, and, I am going to shut up now. ”
Jay continued to stare at Davis. There was something awfully confident about him, especially when he had first approached her to help her to the dorm, so it was endearing to see that self-assuredness falter in such a short span of time. He was clearly being incredibly genuine.
Jay smiled and nodded. “I’m Jay, well you know that, and I’m also gay–well a lesbian,” she clarified to further drive home what Davis had obviously picked up on.
“Rad,” Davis said. Jay thought his eyes actually twinkled when he smiled at her.
“It would be super cool to check out the alliance and I would love to meet some people who are, well um,—”
“Cool,” Davis offered, his confident demeanor returning as his flush receded. For some reason, this put Jay at ease.
“Yeah, cool.”
“We meet on Wednesdays, so three days from now, but I would be more than happy to meet up later for dinner tonight. Dining hall at six thirty?”
“Yeah that sounds great, oh, and can I bring my roommate?”
“Sure, bring your roommate or suitemates or whomever. See you then, Jay,” he said with a wink and smile. Jay smiled back and finally closed the door to the suite.
Inside she stood in a narrow hallway with a door immediately to her left.
Opening it, she was met with an ensuite bathroom she silently thanked Mrs. Blake for.
Sticking her head inside she saw it had the basics: a sink on top of a cabinet, a toilet, and a standing shower.
It was small and pretty sterile looking.
But it was clean, Jay discovered at close inspection, though she could feel her mother telling her to clean everything before she used it, so she would.
But first, she really had to pee and was grateful she wouldn’t be too skeeved out while doing so.
Sitting on the toilet, she realized she hadn’t closed the door and prayed that Michaela wouldn’t come walking in. She would have to get used to sharing her space with someone who wasn’t family. Back in Vermont, she and her parents didn’t live large, but she did have her own bathroom.
While trying to hurry things up, she heard several thuds against the wall of the bathroom she knew it shared with the hallway.
It sounded like luggage, and she panicked slightly at the thought of her worst nightmare coming true.
Finishing up, she was relieved to find soap in a dispenser hanging over the sink and washed her hands.
Using her dress as a makeshift hand towel, she dried them and then went to the front door and opened it.
To her relief but also slight disappointment, there was no roommate there waiting for her.
Only her bags, which she pulled into the suite’s hallway that opened up into a small room with a window and two doors on either side.
It had a couch that looked uncomfortable and a small table with two plastic chairs.
She figured she was looking at what could be a living room or some other common space.
She didn’t have a lot of stuff; all of it fit in two duffles and a backpack.
Leaving the bags in the short hallway, she opened the door on the right side of the living room. On the other side was a simple room with a white linoleum floor and two twin beds on either side with two desks perpendicular to them. There was one window; looking out of it, Jay couldn’t see much.
She decided to check out the other room.
Inside, she found a similar set up, only this room seemed slightly bigger and had two windows.
Ever the sun child, she decided this would be the room she put her bags into.
She had gotten there first after all. And besides, Michaela was also lucking out in rooming with her because they were going to have this place to themselves.
They’d originally been assigned a different room altogether with two additional roommates; however, when they began emailing back and forth, the other two women had decided not to room with Jay and Michaela.
Jay had known why and was glad it had happened via email rather than in person.
Mrs. Blake had made a phone call and gotten them this suite with two extra beds.
The school had mentioned they could get two other roommates should the opportunity present itself.
In the meantime, they had this place to themselves, which meant she and Michaela could have their own rooms while also not being on their own.
Win win.
As Jay began to unpack and set up her room, she thought ending up in separate rooms would be a good thing for Michaela.
She didn’t know much about Michaela’s personality other than what they’d exchanged over the internet, which made it hard to read someone.
She did know, or at least got the sense, that Michaela was very much questioning things and needed space to figure those things out.
Jay hadn’t known what to make of her radio silence when Jay revealed her birth identity, she’d assumed she’d never hear from Michaela again.
The way Michaela had initially described herself, Jay had thought she was talking to a gay man. Jay also thought Michaela had thought that too, that she had been speaking as a gay guy. But Jay had also noticed the name change.
So when Michaela followed up and said she’d be interested in exchanging emails to talk moving forward, Jay had been pleasantly surprised.
She had also been relieved. It was just one tiny piece of proof that Diana and her sister weren’t going to be the only people who could tolerate her.
Maybe she and Michaela would even become friends.
It seemed like Michaela had no one else to talk to about things and since they’d exchanged email addresses, Michaela had been sending her article after article and letting her know about the various professors at Berkeley who were into gender studies and whatnot.
Jay was here to study engineering, but she had found the articles informative.
Maybe they could explore together. As the articles pointed out, there was still a lot Jay didn’t know or understand about herself.
She knew she was a woman, a lesbian, a daughter of immigrants, and a person of color. All things the US had made clear were problematic. This had been her father’s biggest worry when she and her mother told him about who she was: that she was adding one more thing to that list.
“People won’t understand,” he’d lamented.
He himself didn’t understand, not really, but Jay’s mother had been patient and persistent.
Her parents had left Mexico for various reasons, mainly for work before Jay was born, but also to give any children they had a better life.
Her parents felt even more certain of their decision now that they had Jay.
Her parents had sacrificed so much, including aspects of their own cultural identity, which pained Jay.
She knew her parents had done so to “fit in” and help her “thrive”.
And they had been better off than other families in their situation– here she was on a full-ride to college.
Jay didn’t know how to feel other than brokenhearted at the exchange.
Music was the one exception. She clung to it, from her parent’s love of Antonio Aguilar, Juan Gabriel and other Ranchera artists, to Ana Gabriel and her current fave, Selena.
Above all, Jay knew she had been lucky that even in the wake of fear and sacrifice, her mother had said to her, “You are my child, I gave birth to you and brought you into this world, I owe you a life.”
Jay wondered if Michaela’s parents were the same way. She hoped so.
As if on cue, she heard the key enter the lock from inside the room she’d chosen. Dropping a pair of underwear into the top drawer of the dresser, she turned to enter the small hallway just as the door opened.
“Thank you, Davis,” a smooth voice said from just beyond the door. “I will talk it over with my roommate.” A tall Black woman appeared in the doorway, with deep brown skin, her hair up in a ponytail of twists.
“Hi, I’m—” Jay’s voice caught in her throat as the woman turned around. Stunning dark eyes fixed hers, and Jay thought she’d never seen a person so beautiful before. With high cheekbones, a broad nose, and full dark lips, Michaela’s angular face only added to her ethereal beauty.
“Hi, Jay? It’s me! Michaela,” she said. She smiled, and Jay thought, with a shock of certainty, that everything in her life had led her to this moment.