Page 12 of Every Step She Takes
“Sadie,” I repeat. Her name tastes like sweet tea. “So maybe a lesbian, huh?”
She groans again. “No. I don’t know. Maybe? Or maybe just queer? Or… I googled something called asexuality, and that could be it. But I just don’t… how are you supposed to figure it out?”
It takes all my willpower not to smile as she works herself into another bluster.
“You could try talking about it with your fairy god-dyke.”
That gets her to snort a laugh. “Seventeen dates,” she says. “I let my sister set me up onseventeendates, and I couldn’t make myself feelanything, and at some point, I felt like I was looking at my whole life through this different lens. I’ve never been attracted to men, but I’ve never considered that there might be another option.”
This particular bluster involves frantic hand flailing, and I’m not sure why I find it so utterly charming.
“But I couldn’t figure out how to tell my sister any of this, so I kept going on those stupid dates until I couldn’t stand it another minute. And now I’mhere.”
I think Sadie is crying again, the way she did when the Property Brothers built that piano alcove before the turbulence. “Why did I spend so many years repressing all of this?” She takes a sharp breath. “I shoved it down to a place so dark and deep, it could never reach me. And now I can’t even think the wordlesbianwithout crying.”
“Because you don’t want to be a lesbian?” I hedge.
“Because if I’m a lesbian, then I tortured myself dating menfor nothing.” She fumbles to hide the evidence of her tears, as if she didn’t draw my attention to them two seconds ago. As if she hasn’t been breaking off bits of her heart and sharing them with me like the other half of a Bueno bar. “I’ve punished myself for not making it work with men. But now… I mean, I’ve never even kissed a woman.”
For one deranged second, I wonder what she would do if I kissed her right now on this airplane.
It’s probably not the right time, on account of the tears and extreme emotional distress. And all the wine.
She sighs. “I guess there’s no point in imagining an alternate-universe Sadie who isn’t starting from zero at thirty-five.” It feels like the rest of the plane has faded away into the white noise of the engine and it’s only the two of us in this intimate little bubble where this total stranger keeps trusting me with her vulnerabilities.
I fumble for something useful to say and land on, “Maybe you can try to forgive yourself for not being ready instead.”
Sadie blinks and blushes and tries so hard to hold back her tears. “Ready?”
“Yeah. Maybe you weren’t ready to know you’re gay.” I shrug. “Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe you’re right where you’re supposed to be.”
Sadie shakes her head in disbelief.
“I’m telling you this as a concerned queer elder: you are not too old,” I say slowly, clearly, hoping she will finally hear me. “Growing up, our heterosexual peers got to experiment and explore and figure themselves out, but thanks to the twin horrors of homophobia and heteronormativity, many of us missed out on that whole developmental phase.”
Sadie twirls her hair thoughtfully, and I watch the red strands wind around her pale finger like ribbons on a present.
“You weren’t able to have a queer adolescence, and that’s not your fault.”
“I don’t really know if… I mean, maybe…” She twirls and twirls. “Maybe I’m not even a…lesbian.” She whispers the last part like it’s a dirty word, and like she didn’t shout it many times when she thought we were all about to die.
“Maybe you’re not.” I shrug again. “But in my experience, not many straight people feel the need to come out in the midstof a near-death experience,” I say, and I watch as she folds in on herself, scrunching up her shoulders again, tucking in her elbows, trying to make herself small in her seat.
“I-I… I’m sorry,” she stutters, “but I’m… tired. Do you mind if I just…?” She points to the paused seat-back screen.
“You can do whatever you want, Sadie.”
She slots one headphone into place, her eyes glued forward. The silence fills my head like old television static, a haunting emptiness my darkest thoughts are all too eager to fill.
“Can I watch with you?” I ask, pointing to her screen.
She hesitates, fiddling with the second headphone a moment before she offers it to me like some kind of olive branch. Sadie with the freckles allows me to share her headphones and her armrest as I lean in closer to watch Drew and Jonathan lament the Soto family’s cramped kitchen, grateful for all the noise that fills my head.
“Do you think they’ll take out that wall and put in an unnecessarily large kitchen island?” I ask her.
Sadie’s jaw is clenched, and after a long stretch of silence, I’m convinced she’s going to ignore me again, even though we’re attached by cheap airline headphones. But then she smiles, just a little bit. Just in the corner of her mouth. “Drew and Jonathan? Never.”
C’est La Vi with Me
