Page 23 of Every Step She Takes

Sadie

It’s only a haircut.

There’s nothing profound about it, nothing revolutionary.

Yet I keep reaching up to confirm those eighteen inches are really gone.

I keep catching sight of myself in passing windows and remembering that I left all that hair on the bathroom floor in Esposende.

When I see my reflection, I both don’t recognize myself and feel like I’m seeing myself for the first time, somehow.

I don’t look better, exactly. Mal used kitchen scissors, after all, and the ends are choppy and uneven in places, the slightly crooked bangs loudly announcing that I’m going through something . But I love the haircut all the same. It makes me feel rebellious.

It makes me feel the way it did when Mal forced me to leave behind all the items in my pack that weren’t serving me. I’m lighter, my steps easier, my head clearer.

I don’t look better, but I like how I look better, and I didn’t realize that was possible.

The walk from Esposende to Viana do Castelo is the most beautiful part of the journey so far.

We walk through quiet, cobbled streets on our way out of town in the morning, past lines of children making their way to school, past white churches with terra-cotta roofs and blue tile accents, past lovely town squares that sparkle in the early morning sun.

We all pose for a group picture in front of a blue-and-yellow sign with a dozen different directional arrows (Santiago: 208 kilometers), and then the group falls into its usual walking pattern, with Stefano jogging ahead and then looping back to walk with Inez and Mal at the head of the group, like he’s an overly eager dog that doesn’t want to wander too far from his owners.

Ari bounces between Mal at the front and Vera at the rear, where she always is because she stops every few yards to take pictures of crumbling churches or bird of paradise flowers or random old men sitting on benches.

Ro and Rebecca hover in the middle, keeping pace with each other step for step.

I float between walking with everyone and with no one.

Sometimes I push myself so I can walk with Mal, and we talk about her past Caminos and my home renovations projects.

About how she knew she was gay and about all the times I should’ve suspected I might be something other than straight.

But when my legs get tired, I fall back and chat with the retirees about antiques and upcycling, laughing along as Rebecca’s cheeriness clashes with Ro’s crankiness.

Even with my lighter pack, lighter hair, and Mal’s shoes, my calves and feet still ache by the third mile, and eventually, I can’t keep pace with the retirees, either.

I fall back as we trek along the staggering coastline, trying to soak in the deep blue sky and the hills of bright green and a paddock of fluffy white sheep right beside the turquoise ocean.

Vera stops to take two dozen photos of the sheep, her camera making its signature click, click, click .

“I bet that’s a beautiful one.” I pause beside her to take a drink of water. Vera reviews the photos in her viewfinder and is clearly discontented with what she sees, because she raises the camera again. Except instead of taking more pictures of the sheep, she turns the camera to me.

“Do you mind?” she asks, her index finger hovering over the button.

“Oh, um, no. Go ahead.”

Click, click, click . Vera glances down at the viewfinder again, then looks back up at me. “The hair really suits you,” she says plainly. “You look like yourself.”

Then she tilts the camera so I can see one of the pictures. It’s both me and not me, with a half smile and a patchy sunburn and a dorky hat shoved over my short hair. I don’t look like I’m posing. I’m just… being .

It’s like I’m looking at myself through Vera’s eyes, and she somehow sees me more accurately than I do.

“You’re an amazing photographer,” I tell her.

I take in the whole image of Vera: her big glasses with their beaded chain; her Velma haircut; her moisture-wicking hiking turtleneck.

She looks like a slutty librarian Halloween costume.

Or like Rachael Leigh Cook in She’s All That .

Like she’s waiting for someone to rip off her glasses and prove she was hot all along.

Except Vera seems perfectly happy without Freddie Prinze Jr. and the popular girl makeover.

How does anyone feel that comfortable being totally and completely themselves?

“Thank you.” She repositions her Canon and takes a few more photos of the sheep.

“Can I ask you something kind of embarrassing…?” I start as Vera angles her body back toward the path. “What does aroace mean?”

She swivels toward me with a look of alarm on her face. “Oh.”

“Sorry. Is that a stupid question?”

“No! Not at all. I just didn’t expect it.” We fall into step with each other as Vera considers her answer. “Aroace stands for aromantic and asexual, which means I don’t experience romantic or sexual attraction.”

“So, you don’t date or… have sex?” I hear how the question sounds as soon as it’s out of my mouth. “Wait. Sorry. That was really invasive. Don’t answer that.”

“That was an invasive”—she laughs at me—“but I actually don’t mind answering it.

” She pauses again, this time to take a photo of a hawk drifting across the placid blue sky.

“There are aromantic people who date, and there are asexual people who have sex, but no, I don’t do either of those things.

I don’t feel any need to do those things. ”

Her words feel like a splash of cold water trickling down from the crown of my head. I’ve always hated dating, always run away from the possibility of sexual intimacy, never even felt the desire to have sex with anyone.

There was this time, senior year of college, when I decided I wanted to have sex, just to get it over with already.

His name was Josh C., only ever Josh C., because we already had a Josh in our marketing seminar study group.

One day, I misguidedly feigned interest in his lengthy tirade about Zack Snyder’s Watchmen adaptation, and he invited me over to watch the director’s cut with him.

Just the two of us. He made that part very clear.

Everyone else in the study group agreed. This was obviously code for sex.

I absolutely did not care about Watchmen , but I figured Josh C. was my chance to lose my virginity. So, I waxed everything, bought a new bra, wore a low-cut shirt and did some light googling. I went to Josh C.’s dingy apartment off the Ave and braced myself to have sex.

And… he genuinely just wanted to watch the director’s cut of Watchmen .

The closest we got to anything physical was when I said I was cold, and Josh C. put a blanket over both our legs.

Afterward, when I debriefed the night with the girls in my study group, I couldn’t make sense of what I’d done wrong. Why didn’t that horny twenty-two-year-old want to touch me? I blamed myself, assumed there was something wrong with me.

Only now am I starting to wonder if Josh C. didn’t touch me that night because he could tell I didn’t want him to.

Men have kissed me goodnight, and I’ve had my fair share of unwanted, drunk tongue on a bad first date.

The occasional boob-honk or ass grab. But no one has ever kissed me like they want me , no one has ever touched me with passion or longing or a burning need.

But I’ve never had a burning need to touch someone else, either.

“Can I ask you another question?” I turn back to Vera. “How did you figure out you’re aromantic and not just someone who hates dating?”

“Well, I’ve never dated at all, so I don’t actually know if I hate it or not.

” She shrugs as we stop again. I’m not even sure what she’s taking a photo of this time.

“But I don’t need to date to know I’m not romantically attracted to people.

It’s never appealed to me. I could never understand why my friends wanted to hold hands with boys or why our friendship wasn’t enough for them. I can’t imagine needing any of that.”

I think about all the times I’ve told Vi and my mom that I don’t mind being single, that I’m okay focusing on work, that I don’t want a relationship. I’ve said it so many times, I’ve convinced myself it’s true. But is it?

“And, um… the asexuality thing?” I mumble. “How did you, uh… how did you know that?”

“It can be tricky, because people often confuse asexuality with a lack of libido or sex drive, but I have a sex drive. It’s just not directed at anyone.

” Vera stares at me through her camera. “Are you questioning if you might be asexual?” She asks it so plainly, so devoid of judgment.

Maybe it’s because I feel like I’m talking to a black lens, but I find it easy to speak plainly too.

“Sort of, yeah, actually.”

Vera takes another photo of me, but she doesn’t speak. Her silence is like a door that’s been left ajar. I step through it.

“I feel like I’m too old to be questioning, like I should have the answers already.”

“Why?” she asks, still behind her camera. “Are you going to be tested on it later?”

I sigh. “No, it’s just… I’ve only ever dated men, and I’ve never been attracted to any of them,” I confess to her camera lens. It click, click, clicks. “So I could be asexual, but I could also be…”

Vera lowers her camera and asks the next logical question. “Have you ever been sexually attracted to a woman before?”

“No,” I answer quickly. Because I haven’t. Not really.

Sure, I’ve had celebrity crushes, and I’ve had unusually intense friendships with other girls that in retrospect may have been crushes. But I’ve never looked at a woman and imagined touching her.

I’ve never let myself look. I never let myself imagine.