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* * *
The first time I felt protective of her was in Wyoming. We were relaxing between climbs—no other people in sight, just orange-streaked limestone. We were discussing whether to pay $2 for entry to the local pool, so we could use the showers. That was when she told me about being laughed at in public swimming pools—how when she was younger, groups of children would point at her and yell things like, “Look, Mom, there’s a boy in the girls’ locker room!”
She said this with a smile, without bitterness, while saying, lightheartedly, that she still had a phobia of public swimming pools. Had she not told me, I wouldn’t have guessed—she moved through the world without evident self-consciousness.
I understood it as the accidental cruelty of children. But still. I could imagine the sting. I wished, for the sake of this girl in front of me—whose spirit is beautiful, whose exterior is beautiful—that she could’ve been accepted as she was.
* * *
The first time she felt protective of me was when we met up in Utah. I’d just visited my mother in Colorado. I tried to act normal—to suppress my hurt, as I usually did—b
ut I couldn’t. We’d rented and shared a small room for the month, with an attached sitting area, which we used as our home base. The first time we touched, she moved to sit next to me on the floor, our backs pressed against the baseboard. She reached out to hold my hand awkwardly, as I cried.
* * *
It was the end of our first trip. We’d been to natural hot springs together before, of course, where the atmosphere was meditative, nearly religious. But the vibe was different in the indoor hot tub of an airport hotel, plastic cups of homemade Manhattans in hand. It felt both trashy—in the way of airport hotels—and also celebratory. Politeness inevitably wears thin on climbing trips, when nearly every minute of every day is spent in each other’s company. Yet on this trip, chemistry had been effortless.
I took off my shirt and got in first, sat down. As she descended the stairs, I remember being conscious of her body, as well as of her being conscious of mine. As she put it, there was tension. We both felt it, but we didn’t know how to locate it. We both, after all, identified as straight.
I had the excuse of looking at her tattoos, which drew my eye. Words curved over each hip, and a husky covered nearly her entire upper leg. I was surprised, too, by how delicate she was. Her arms are whip-strong, her demeanor confident. I hadn’t seen her so exposed before. Or, perhaps, I hadn’t truly looked. She told me, too, that she hadn’t fully realized until then how good you are at hiding your body.
We’d both been conscious of each other’s energies, when we first met, on a shared shift at work. I knew I didn’t want to fuck with you, she told me. You’re intimidating. She associated me with power, too. Yet she also told me that she could tell I was hiding, that I’d been hurt, that my spirit was gentle.
I felt the same way about her. That though her exterior suited her—the leather jacket, the messy hair, the piercings, the tattoos—it also served to conceal. I assumed she projected a tough exterior as a shield, meant to protect a sensitive spirit. I could read her intelligence, her curiosity, too.
We both saw through each other’s acts partially because we both did the same thing, in different ways, for different reasons—used the exterior as a way of protecting ourselves. Yet even still, we were both surprised by what lay beneath.
She and I traveled through so many geographies that it blurred—over a third of the U.S. Somewhere along the way, we fell in love. In looking back, it felt as though we’d been attracted to each other since the moment we met. We just hadn’t admitted it to ourselves. It grew from there.
* * *
We parted ways in mid-August. I dropped her off in Chicago’s Union Station; she burst into tears on the train. She flew back to LA, where her bandmate had flown out for an intensive week of recording music with her and her boyfriend.
She and her boyfriend shared a three-bedroom house in LA, backyard overflowing with avocado, mango, grapefruit, and Meyer lemon trees. They’d poured love and sweat equity into their home, in exchange for cheap rent.
I had meant to arrive at grad school orientation focused, eager, and ready to write fiction. Instead I spent the entire time filling my notebook with confusion about and longing for her. She wrote lyrics about us, recorded them Laurie Anderson–style.
You’re in love with her, aren’t you, her boyfriend said, able to see it before she could admit it to him. I’d be less hurt if you left me for a woman. Look, I get it. She’s a climber, she’s an intellectual. She’s all the things I’m not.
* * *
She and I existed outside of space—we were always travelers together, rather than rooted solidly. She had someone anchoring her. I felt guilt, then and now.
As long as it’s not hurting anyone, what’s the problem? she said often, about her openness to various ways of being.
The problem was, our relationship was hurting someone—her boyfriend, each of us.
He is, undeniably, a good man. Their house was filled with love. He didn’t deserve to have his life thrown into chaos.
The situation was a departure, for both of us. Had either of us been male, we wouldn’t have let down our guard, wouldn’t have formed the emotional intimacy that we did. Neither of us had ever cheated on anyone.
She and I would talk for hours. He knew when we were talking. That period of indecision was torturous. We discussed every option; she wanted to find a compromise, in which we could all be happy. She wanted to love both of us and hurt neither of us—an impossibility.
I could understand how she could love him and me simultaneously, and I also couldn’t. I couldn’t because she was enough for me, and more. The same seemed true for him. I wanted to be the same for her. I wanted to be enough.
* * *
Before we began, she made paintings inspired by us, based on electricity, in which graphite lines snapped and sparkled, shone with energy. The lines are dense and tangled, as our relationship was—many different forces colliding. They’re yours, she told me. I made them for you, about you. I knew what she meant, because I was also making work for, and about, her.
