Page 8 of Every Step She Takes
In three weeks I’ll have to publicly mourn the man who gave me life and then ruined it.
I’ll have to sit in a church, under the watchful eyes of someone else’s god, and say my final goodbyes.
People will come up to me, want to shake my hand, want to tell me they’re sorry for my loss, even though I didn’t lose anything when he died; I’d already lost it all twenty years ago.
The other end of the phone is silent, and the thoughts swarm like bees. My ribs squeeze against my lungs, and I temporarily forget how to breathe until, blissfully, a man with a cockney accent screams at me. “You gonna pay for that, love?”
My body and brain come back online like a rebooted computer, and I walk my tray over to the register. I pay with my phone, and when I finally respond to Michelle, my voice is even. “Oh, by the way, I drank the last of your oat milk and left you some money to replace it.”
“I don’t give a darn about the oat milk.” She pauses, then clicks her tongue. “Are you referring to the hundred-dollar bill under my Yellowstone magnet?”
“Of course.”
“That isn’t remotely how much oat milk costs,” Michelle says in the disgusted tone she usually reserves for commenting on the contents of her son’s diapers. “You’re doing it again, you know.”
“Doing what?”
“Running away from your feelings. Falling in love with the first pretty girl you see and chasing her halfway across the world because that’s easier than sitting with your thoughts and feelings.”
I gasp indignantly into my giant coffee. “There’s no girl. No one said anything about a girl.”
“There will be a girl soon enough. There always is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I’m temporarily distracted by a head of red curls that flashes in the corner of my eye. I turn, but it isn’t her.
“There was probably a girl on the plane.” Michelle’s voice is deep and dry, like a perfect white wine.
“How dare you? I’ll have you know there was horrible turbulence the whole flight! We almost crashed! We almost died .”
“No, you did not.”
“No, we did not,” I concede. “But if we had died, wouldn’t you feel guilty about these false accusations?”
“I’ve known you for almost nineteen years,” Michelle says pointedly. “Don’t act like this isn’t a thing you do.”
It is a thing I do. If anyone knows my dysfunctional romantic habits, it’s Michelle. She was the undergrad girlfriend who necessitated the three-week Icelandic road trip. She was once a girl who lived halfway across the world, and I fell in love with her instantly.
It was Berlin, spring semester, during a study-abroad program.
Michelle was a college junior studying environmental science at Western Washington University.
I was a twenty-year-old haphazardly accumulating credits in everything from psychology to agriculture to linguistics at an American school in Madrid.
She was a lesbian who loved astrology, reality television, and dancing until four in the morning in faux-leather pants and feather boas.
I wasn’t interested in labels, and I loved loud parties, new beginnings, and her.
I loved her so much, in fact, that when the study-abroad program ended, I followed her back to the tiny Pacific Northwest town of Bellingham, Washington, just to be close to her.
In true sapphic style, we immediately got an apartment together. And our romance lasted a whopping six weeks into our lease before we broke up.
But unlike every other person I’ve impulsively fallen in love with since, I never fell out of love with Michelle.
Our love simply shifted. We became best friends who stayed close, even as I flitted around the country, around the world.
Michelle got into the University of Washington’s Forest Ecology program and settled in Seattle where she grew up.
I took dozens of jobs at dozens of nonprofit organizations around the world and settled nowhere.
Eventually, I decided I liked the label lesbian after all; Michelle met Kwame and realized she’s bisexual. And a year and a half ago, I came to Seattle for Michelle’s wedding, met Kwame’s cousin Ruth, and did the insta-love thing all over again.
Michelle has seen me at my absolute worst. She knows all my annoying habits, all my secret neuroses, all my childhood trauma, and no matter how many times I’ve tried to push her away, she never budges.
She’s the only person I can be my true self with, the only person who never leaves. Michelle is my platonic soulmate.
“You make me sound like some kind of slutty womanizer,” I complain now through bites of sausage roll.
“You’re not a womanizer,” she quickly corrects. “You’re a serial monogamist, and I think you should try being single for more than a day this time.”
I swallow. “For the sake of full transparency, I should probably tell you that there was, in fact, a woman on the airplane…”
“I fucking knew it.”
“It wasn’t my fault! She had freckles .”
Michelle sighs again, and this one carries a potent mixture of exhaustion, exasperation, and a hint of maternal disappointment.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m never going to see her again.”
“Worry about your own damn panties,” she snaps.
“I don’t want you to worry about me, M,” I tell her seriously. “Ruth dumped me, and I’m taking a trip to heal my broken heart. It’s not that complicated.”
“Ruth didn’t have the ability to break your heart,” she says, effortlessly cutting through my emotional smokescreen. “But your dad …”
“I don’t give a shit about my dad,” I insist, “dead or not.”
Michelle’s tone abruptly shifts to cartoonish placating. “That was a nice, big fart, baby boy! Yes! Yes, it was! Get that gas out of your cute little belly!”
The tension of our conversation dissipates into wild laughter as Michelle continues to celebrate her baby’s flatulence.
Sometimes, I think Michelle puts me on the same level as her colicky, constipated newborn.
And maybe that’s fair. She has a PhD and a postdoc position at UW.
She’s doing critical research on forest resiliency and global climate change.
She’s a world-changing Aquarius, and I’m just an aimless Gemini who doesn’t know the cost of oat milk.
“I’m not Cedar,” I tell her when the laughter stops. “You don’t have to take care of me.”
“Of course I’m going to take care of you.
That’s what friends do.” Michelle’s voice goes soft, but no part of her is babying me.
“Just like how you’ve always taken care of me when I’ve needed it.
Whether you want to deal with it or not, your girlfriend dumped you the same day your dad died and left you this massive, unexpected inheritance, and if you don’t deal with that grief, you’re going to—”
“How can I grieve someone who never accepted me?” The words stop Michelle’s tirade in its tracks. I wish my tone was flippant, but I’ve never been good at staying flippant with Michelle.
The memory roars in my ears, in my heart.
The first time I fell in love with a girl, I held nothing back.
I was seventeen, and I believed Prithi was the one .
We were roommates at our boarding school in Scotland and started dating in our final year before university.
We even made plans to attend Oxford together.
I was positively bursting with love, and I desperately wanted my father to know about it.
I wanted to shout about my love for the whole damn world to hear.
So, the summer before Oxford, I decided to come out to my father.
I should have known better than to trust Valentim Costa with my real feelings.
“Grief isn’t logical,” Michelle finally says.
“Look, I’m going to miss my flight if I don’t—”
She sees through this lie and barrels on.
“I know it’s tempting to distract yourself with something—or someone —new, but maybe you can spend some time alone with yourself on this trip…
” Michelle tries in the soft voice she uses for Cedar.
“Spend some time reflecting . You’re the most generous, most loving person I know, but you tend to lose yourself in relationships. ”
“No I don’t,” I argue. “When have I ever done that?”
“Well, when we were dating, you pretended to like Battlestar Galactica …”
She’s got me there.
“And I love that about you! You’re selfless to a fault. But maybe on this trip, you could be a little selfish. Focus on yourself.”
I know she’s right about everything. She always is. On the plane, I used Sadie as a distraction, and if she’d given any indication that she wanted me to, I would’ve easily abandoned my planned trip to follow her on the Camino. I would’ve spent two weeks falling in love with her.
And then I would’ve fallen out of love, because that’s what I always do, and I’d be right back where I started: with a dead dad who didn’t want me, and an inheritance I don’t want, either.
In three weeks, I’ll have to go to my dad’s funeral and finally decide what to do with the legacy he left me. I don’t need distractions. I need some fucking clarity.
But I’m not going to admit this to Michelle with any sincerity.
“I get it,” I say dismissively. “I will have adult feelings and make adult choices. No Romeo antics. No love at first sight, no following strangers to second locations, no getting carried away by fleeting delusions of true love. This will be a romance-free trip.”
“Mal!” she shrieks, and Cedar echoes with a bleating cry.
“What? Do you want me to find true love or not? You’re sending me mixed messages here, M.”
“No, Mal!” Michelle’s voice almost trembles with rage into the phone. “Why are there sandy seashells in my metal colander?”
Oh, right . That’s where I put it.
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cestlavi
Guest Blogger Introduction Post!
Hey Nomads! As you can see, I’m not Vi. I’m the other, more boring Wells sister, Sadie, and I’ll be taking over this spot for the next two weeks as I complete the Portuguese Camino with @Beatrixtours.
I’m sorry you’re stuck with me while my sister heals from her injury.
This is my first time traveling abroad or doing anything even remotely adventurous.
I’m nervous and excited, and I hope you will stick around to see how it goes. Thanks for reading, and sorry again.
#cestlaviwithme #travelblog #broadsabroad #travel #portugal #spain #caminodesantiago #solowomentravelers
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: a white woman with long red hair wearing a black zip up and white crop top posing in front of a window at Heathrow Airport
Comments
beatrixtours
We can’t wait to meet you and have you as part of our Camino family!
mollymacdougalwells
I am so incredibly proud of you, my girl. Get out there and see the world. Your mama loves you!
zaraisavegan
Whoa you look exactly like your sister just much older
jonassalt
r u even queer tho?
thegregorygraham69
my thick goddess! You do not need to be single any longer. I will love you forever. Check your DMs!