Page 122 of Every Step She Takes

“Stop.” Vi holds up a hand. “I don’t care about that. How was thedate?”

“Tell us everything about her!” my mother squeals in excitement.

“Boundaries,” I remind them.

My mom lowers the enthusiasm level. “I mean, if you feel like sharing with us, we would love to hear about your date last night.”

I’ve been working on being more open with my mom and Vi, and they’ve been working on respecting my boundaries around my love life. It’s a steep learning curve for all of us.

“The date was fine. She was… fine.”

Vi smacks the counter. “You got to give us more than that! Now that you’re finally dating women, we needall the details!”

There aren’t really details, but I tell them what I can about Skye, the performance artist Ari set me up with. It was a beautiful, late-August evening, so we met at Green Lake Park, andeventually walked to Bluebird for ice cream. Skye told me about her upcoming one-woman show,When the Pussy Calls, and I showed her photos of my furniture. At the end of the night, I promised to buy tickets to her show, and she said she was going to buy one of my bathtub garden beds as soon as my Etsy page was up. Neither of us brought up the possibility of a second date.

Skye was my fourth first date since I got home from the Camino. None of them have been amazing, but it’s shocking how different they’ve felt compared to dating men. I don’t need a bet with my sister to cajole me into putting myself out there. I never check the time, never use excuses to end the date early if I’m not feeling it. I don’t force myself to make it work, and I don’t force myself to feel attraction.

On my first date with a woman, when I realized I wasn’t attracted to her, I didn’t feel suffocating shame about it. Just a flicker of disappointment.

Because I know when it’s meant to work, it will work.

“Skye was cool and interesting,” I try to explain, “but she wasn’t—”

“Mal?” Vi interrupts with accusation in her eyebrows.

I roll my eyes. This isalwayswhere these conversations end up. “No, that’s not—”

“Sadie. Darling.” My mom gives me her most pitying mom-face. “I’m worried that you’re wallowing, and that you won’t be able to move on from this heartbreak.”

“I think you might be projecting a little bit there…”

“You always have some weird excuse about why it can’t work with these women,” Vi points out in a well-executed mother-daughter double attack. “Just like you used to do with men.”

“Always? It’s been four women, and one of them was a former nun, so…”

“See? Excuses. You’re not over Mal.”

“I swear, I am.”

“Oh yeah? Then explainthis.” Vi comes around the counter and yanks open a drawer hidden below where the register used to sit. She pulls something out, then slams it in front of me like it’s damning evidence. Peanut the Elephant stares up at me.

“That,” I say calmly, “is a Beanie Baby. You’re probably too young to remember, but there was a time when people collected these because they believed they’d be worth money someday.”

“I know what a Beanie Baby is,” Vi huffs. “What I want to know is why you’ve been carrying aroundthisBeanie Baby for the last three months?”

“Oh, well, you see, this one actuallyisworth money.”

Mal’s Hokas, her toe socks, her container of Vaseline—those are things I stole from her accidentally. But Peanut… Peanut, I stole with intention that night in Caldas de Reis. While she was in the bath, I snuck Peanut out of her pack and I hid him under my pillow.

I wanted one physical reminder of therealMal—the version of herself she showed me at the vineyard. And now my sister is using Peanut as proof that I’m not over whatever it was between us.

“Peanut is a souvenir.”

“Oh, Sadie.” My mom also comes around the counter to wrap me in her soft, yet patronizing arms. “After your father left, I would sleep on top of a pile of the clothes he left behind. I understand.”

I attempt to wriggle out of her suffocating embrace. “This is nothing like that.”

I truly am over Mal. Sure, there were a few days in the beginning when I couldn’t say her name without crying, a few nights when I slept with Peanut pressed against my cheek. There were times when all I could do was replay every conversation we had,wondering what I could’ve said differently to change the ending. There were times I would touch myself while thinking about her, the ache in me almost too much to bear.