THIRTY-NINE

I spend my last weekend in New York before the runway show with Tessa and I’m emotional about leaving to the point where I may or may not have shed a tear when I stepped off the downtown 1 train at 14th Street for the last time. In a much better headspace after our talk, I worked on my project pretty much nonstop from the comfort of Gertie. Tessa made sure I ate real food and took regular breaks. During those breaks, we talked—about school, about life after my parents moved me to Massachusetts, about our mental health.

We felt like sisters.

At Tessa’s I wrote and rewrote my safe thrift-flip proposal, but I couldn’t get my original idea out of my head. So when I get back to my dorm, I’m reunited with my button-up, a bomber jacket, and a decision to make.

I lay both pieces side by side on my bed.

The jacket symbolizes everything that If the Shoe Fitz currently is.

But the button-up is who I could be if I give myself the chance to grow and change… and potentially fail.

I don’t know what to do.

Do I play it safe?

Or reach?

I know Mal will be disappointed if I don’t pivot back, but the jacket is finished and flawlessly executed. The button-up presentation is a half-sewn work in progress. Originally, I wanted to design a unique textile with enough material to create a button-up with matching pants. Obviously, I don’t have time to do that. But maybe I have enough time to make matching shorts?

I can try.

I think about how incredible it felt the first time I tried it on.

How clothes have the power to make people feel like the best versions of themselves.

I want to tell that story.

Even if the execution isn’t perfect.

So I sit with my sewing machine and choose to reach for my stash of textiles. I search my thrift haul for patterns with shades of green and cream to complement the potted-plant print that still speaks to me, and I deconstruct the button-up that feels like me because in order to make a matching set, it needs to grow a few more yards and transform into something new. Headphones on, I blast Harry Styles and get to work cutting fabric into patches and experimenting with the placement until it feels right.

I’m terrified, liberated, every conflicting feeling all at once. Instead of pushing away these feelings, I sit with them. Sit with how many people this summer have straight-up called out these intrusive thoughts.

You put so much pressure on yourself, Fitzgerald.

I didn’t want perfect.

Perfectionism is a trap.

I know everyone is right—that the pressure I put on myself is unhealthy. But it’s one thing to know it and another thing to address it. To change. It’d be so much easier to end this summer as it began, aiming for perfect pictures.

But maybe I should just… not.

Maybe instead it ends with rushing to finish this design, then calling Tessa to ask her more questions about therapy.

“Hey.”

Em’s unexpected voice pulls me out of my clothes zone. “Hey! I thought you left.”

Their creative writing course ended on Friday and I came home this morning to find their side of the room emptied. I didn’t think much of it, Em leaving without saying goodbye, considering the combination of us not hitting it off and seeing them holding hands with Dani resulted in a summer spent avoiding them as much as possible that eventually evolved into quietly coexisting.

They open their desk drawer. “Forgot my AirPods.”

“Right.”

“Bye, Fitz. As far as roommates go, you were adequate.”

“I was barely here.”

“Exactly.”

Home is Pennsylvania for Em, where they’ll return for their senior year like me. Also like me, Em hopes to be back in the city next year for college. I follow them on Instagram and despite my still-complicated relationship with social media, I’m glad that it will keep us in touch, even if it’s just in a mutuals way.

“Bummer Levi hasn’t been around. I wanted to say bye to him, too.”

“Oh. We’re…”

Em nods. “You two are due for a ‘Can we survive long-distance?’ panic.”

I snort. “Bye, Em. See you next year?”

“Probably not.”

I nod. “Probably not.”

Even if Em and I both end up back in New York? It’s a big city.

We’re not friends.

And that’s okay.

My headphones back on, I settle into a zone that I haven’t experienced since I arrived. I forgot that this is supposed to be fun. So much fun, I don’t even realize until hours after Em’s goodbye that my headphones are on but not playing any music. I can be alone with the clothes and my thoughts without background noise.

I’m on the right track.

I can do this.

Without overthinking it, I snap a few photos of my work in progress to send to Levi—because even after everything, he’s the person who I want to share my victories with. Our disaster of a conversation on a stalled subway hurt, but I don’t want that one awful moment to be how we leave things for another seven years. I want to tell him how much this summer meant to me and that the universe didn’t put us on the same downtown 1 train just for us to end like this.

I want to at least say goodbye.

So I send the photo.

And type:

at least all of the faking it turned into something real?

2:02 PM

I hope he answers.

I hope he knows I don’t just mean the shirt.

His text bubble appears and disappears but I don’t want whatever he does or doesn’t say to derail my progress. So I power down my phone and focus on the hypnotic rhythm of my sewing machine’s straight stitch, losing the entire afternoon to my work.

It’s only when I smell pizza that I stop.

I power on my phone.

Levi hasn’t answered.

I try not to let the disappointment suck all the air out of my diaphragm.

Dani knocks on my door. “Do you want pizza?”

My stomach screams in response, so I nod and follow her into the common room.

We started this summer with Mamoun’s in the park and now we’re ending it with 2 Bros. Pizza and the pro-shot of Legally Blonde: The Musical. We’re the only two remaining in our dorm and it’s hilarious because that would’ve been a dream until it would’ve been a nightmare and now it just… is.