Page 81 of Every Step She Takes

I take one more deep breath. “I want to learn how to be sexually intimate withsomeone else. With a woman, after all theseyears of denying my desires and feeling shame about them.” I’m wringing my hands in front of her, and although I’m acutely aware of how embarrassing this is, I say it anyway. “Ineedyou to have sex with me.”

Mal looks at me with her bowed mouth twisted into some kind of hollow grimace. “I think you have the wrong idea about me,” she says quietly. “I’m not Shane fromThe L Word.”

I let out a frustrated huff. “I don’t even know what that means!”

“It means…” Mal’s hands grip her knees. “Sexmeanssomething to me. I’m not into random hookups or meaningless flings. I have sex with people I care deeply about.”

“You seem to care about me,” I tell her quietly.

“Sadie.” She says my name with shocking tenderness and utter exasperation. “I do care about you. But—”

“Then hear me out! The sex won’t be meaningless to me. It will mean everything to me, because it will save me from feeling like an inexperienced freak with the next person.”

“You’re not a freak.” Mal pushes herself off the bed with an equally frustrated huff. “The right person will be so fucking honored to be your first time. The right person won’t make you feel weird or wrong or inexperienced. The right person is going to lose her mind over the fact that you waited for her.”

I cringe. “You mean, like, someone with a virgin fetish?”

“No, Sadie, not…ugh.” Mal tugs at the ends of her mullet, and why do I find her horrible hairstyleattractive? She’s looking at me with so much compassion in this moment, despite this whole misguided proposition, and maybe that’s why. “I mean, like, someone who is a decent human being.”

“Youare a decent human being,” I tell her.

“Sadie.” She says my name with fondness now. She says it with anguish. “I wish I could make you hear me. Sex does not equalqueerness. Sex does not equalnormalcy. Having sex with awoman isn’t going to magically make you comfortable in your sexuality.”

I get all of that. It’s notaboutthat. “But you make me comfortable. I don’t think you understand how rare that is for me.”

Her eyes are full of the same mixture of fondness and anguish. “I think I’m starting to.”

“So then, have sex with me, dammit!” I am joking this time. Sort of.

She puffs out a laugh. “Sadie,” she starts, and this time, she only sounds tired.

I hold up my hands to stop her. “It’s fine. I get it. This—this was a horrible idea. I don’t know what possessed me. I’m so sorry.”

Mal pushes back her hair like she’s intentionally trying to heighten my sexual frustration with her fucking widow’s peak. “It’s okay.”

“I-I’ll go talk to Inez.” I take a step toward the door and away from that widow’s peak. “I-I’ll tell her you need a different roommate, and I won’t bother you with this ridiculous queer adolescent stuff anymore.”

She reaches out for my arm. “Wait. You don’t have to do that.”

I ignore how this simple touch makes me feel like my entire nervous system is composed of butterflies. “I think it’s for the best if we’re not roommates anymore.”

“But… but I don’t want a new roommate.”

I glance down at the slender fingers encircling my arm. I glance up at her worried expression. “Can I ask you one more question…?”

I chew down on my lip as Mal slowly nods. And I know I shouldn’t ask her this, but I do it anyway. “Would you?”

Mal blinks at me. “Would I what?”

“Would you be honored to be my first?”

Silence and stillness and stiflingawkwardcreeps in between us. Then Mal exhales a frustrated growl. “Of course I would.”

Everything melts inside my body like a pasteis de nata on my tongue. I press my forehead to hers. “Then maybe you’re the person I’ve been waiting for.”

TWENTYBAIONA, SPAIN

Mal