They thought very carefully before making their selection. Jessica wanted a small liberal arts college and her parents thought it a wise choice.
It was the picture on the Gibson brochure that really won her. Small and grey and secure in a snowy landscape. Jessica fell in love with it. It looked like a place to study and find peace. They flew up to visit and the labs weren't much but Jessica wasn't planning on science anyway. The library was great and guaranteed to obtain any book available in the web world in a few days. Classes were all small - no more than fifteen in any class. Jessica's father thought of his lower division classes at Berkeley where even the video monitors were too far away for him to see and you had to make an appointment to get help from a TA. He envied his daughter except - except. Those were exciting times.
When she arrived in September she found someone had already taken the bed under the window in her dorm room. Jessica was slightly annoyed. The bed under the window had been in her plans. She dumped her stuff on the bed by the wall and went to check out sheets and towels. When she returned her room mate was sitting at her desk writing. Tall and solid with a long dark braid.
``Hi!'' Jessica said.
``Hi,'' the girl said and went on writing.
In the days that followed they exchanged few words. Jessica found other friends, spent most of her free time in other people's rooms. She met a boy she really liked and they would study together in the library until it closed at two A.M. and she found the love of her life which was French literature.
He room mate's name was Sandy. Sandy seemed alone. No friends. She ran five miles every morning except when the weather got arctic. She played soccer and she sat at her desk in her room and she wrote and what she wrote Jessica did not know and did not try to find out because she was an honorable person.
One early morning when Jessica returned from the library Sandy was sitting on her bed. ``You're doing alright aren't you?'' she said.
``Sure. Aren't you?''
``What do you think? Does it seem like I'm fitting in? The life of the party?''
``It doesn't seem like you try. It seems like you like your own company.''
``Of course I like my own company. Don't you like your own company?''
``Not enough where I don't want to be around other people.''
Sandy reached for her Altoid tin. ``What if I told you my problem?''
``Go ahead.''
``OK. I'm an it.''
``What?''
``I'm an it. When I was born no one knew if I was a boy or a girl. My Mom said just wait and see so they didn't say I was either but they put me on my birth certificate as a girl because they had to put something but my mom wanted to wait to see how I turned out. So I don't know. I still don't know. People say you have to choose. I say why? Why should I choose? I'm an it. There was an it girl once. My Mom says she was very sexy and she was called it because sex was a word they couldn't say. I'm an it girl because I have no sex and don't want any.''
``Or else you are both sexes. I think you are both sexes. Lots of people are like that. They just choose. You shouldn't make such a big deal of it.''
In the dark Sandy was crying. ``I don't want to be weird,'' she wept, ``I just want to be loved like other people are.'' Jessica went to her and put her arms around her ``I'm your friend,'' she said and fell asleep.
For the rest of the term she would go to breakfast with Sandy. Include her when they ordered out for pizza. Some nights they would talk and laugh together and Jessica would laugh until she hurt and sometimes Sandy too would forget enough to let her bad teeth show and laugh like a hyena.
On the Christmas break Jessica got to thinking. ``Its someone else's turn,'' she thought. She called the Gibson housing office and asked for a different room.