“Can you just promise you’ll overcommunicate with me? Like, if I misspeak or you need to be alone. Just tell me. I can take it. But I can’t take not hearing anything.” He cleared his throat. “Just don’t disappear on me. I don’t like that.”
He was the most serious I’d ever seen him. All I could do was nod.
“And don’t be so hard on yourself. I don’t want to hear you say mean things about my friend,” he added. I could fly to the moon. He thought we were friends. What would I even do with that information?
“My therapist would make me say five nice things about myself if she heard me say something mean, but thankfully she dumped me, so ha-ha, joke’s on her.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t want to delve into all that.
I quickly stuck out my hand for him to shake and said, “No more running away. Next time, I will tell you before I hide.”
“Next time.” He smiled so big, and I felt myself fall forward into the gravity of it. “I went about this all wrong; I have an idea to try for the next time. If you trust me,” he said.
And I couldn’t help myself. I really did. I trusted Pace more than anybody I’d met, and it boggled my mind because we didn’t really know each other.
“Okay. Let’s try again,” I said.
It would be okay. This was about adapting myself to socializing. It had nothing to do with my growing crush on Pace.
17
Sophie
I vibratedwith a different energy as I got ready for my next appointment with Pace. Yes, there was the usual anxiety of leaving the house and interacting with people—that might never change—but every time my feet froze with fear, I focused only on getting to Pace. And there was a little buzz of a different sort of adrenaline rush. That was all I had to do. Step one, meet Pace. After that didn’t matter.
See, progress. Look at me go.
I sighed and looked at myself in the mirror in my bicycle shorts and oversized tee that read “The Book Was Better.” It only took five outfit changes before I settled on this one. I would never be like the models on social media, but this made me feel the most comfortable. My thick hair looked shiny and lush in its ponytail, my curves looked feminine and powerful instead of shameful, and even my eyes seemed to shine bright with some unidentifiable energy.
My phone buzzed, and Pace said he was on his way. We were meeting at the gym that was almost equidistant betweenus, so I would have to walk partially through town. Only as I was walking up to the gym’s front door did I realize that Pace probably didn’t have a membership here since he had a gym at the station and had mentioned some equipment at home.
Would the girl behind the desk be beautiful and young and look at me with thinly veiled disdain? Or would it be a beefy macho man who would pressure me into buying a membership? Would I need to try to say no to someone and learn to use workout machines in the same day?
It felt like too much. I would never survive.
By the time I made it to the front of the small, nondescript cement building, I had worked myself up into a tizzy. That familiar tingling of my kneecaps and sweaty palms had me debating what, if anything, was the point of all this.
Then I thought of the list being leaked out to the town and Vicky Lambert’s face as she read over my sad demotion from many O’s to a single hot make-out session.
Pace walked out with a wide grin on his face as he flourished two pieces of paper. “Got us two day passes for free. Booyah!”
He came to a stop right in front of me, and I wondered if he, too, had been debating what the best way to greet each other was. Not likely.
“Wow. Great. Thanks,” I said. There was no hint of awkwardness on his side.
Good thing I hadn’t spent the last week replaying every single moment of our previous interaction over and over on repeat. I would have been feeling a little silly right now.
“Any idea of where you want to start?” he asked.
I was equal parts relieved and concerned at his initiative.
I wondered if I should have been the one to go in first and make sure we could use the equipment. Was I too reliant on Pace already? Did it really count as checking things off the list if I used him as a crutch? If I was leaning so heavily on Pace, would I beable to stand on my own when he was gone? There was another voice telling me that it didn’t count with Pace. That, of course, it was easier when somebody was there with me. On the other hand, you wouldn’t begrudge a mountain climber for wearing safety gear.
I was thinking too much.
And the sun was hot.
Inside, the girl at the front desk was pretty and young with long blond hair and fall-themed nails. But she waved to the machines and said, “Feel free to try anything out, and let me know if you have any questions on how to use the equipment.” Her smile was genuine and wide, and after learning a few more of the gym’s perks, Pace and I walked toward the corner where many very intimidating machines sat and then into our respective locker rooms. With my head down, heart banging, and palms sweating, I found a free locker and shoved in my gym bag containing a change of clothes in case I got gross and sweaty, and on the off chance I had the mental (and physical) energy to go somewhere after he taught me how to use the equipment. There were other women changing in my periphery, and I pretended not to notice how they moved so freely in their nudity. I wondered if I would ever reach an age where I didn’t give a crap about people seeing me nakey. It seemed unlikely.
