Page 74 of Try Hard
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Dad dropped me off outside Eve’s gym on his way to work, and I was grateful he didn’t ask too many questions. Instead, he filled the time talking about Saturday morning and how excited he already was to see the rest of the group again this week.
I sent Eve a selfie when I was outside—grateful that it wasn’t raining—but I didn’t expect her to look at it during her workout.
Twenty minutes later, when I was perched awkwardly on a bollard, she appeared from inside the gym.
“Are you okay?” she asked, approaching me, her hands out, hovering in the air as she looked me over.
I nodded. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“That’s not important.” She scanned my face. “You’re really okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Totally fine. Sorry.”
“Couldn’t stay away from working out? I’m sure you’ll be back in the pool tomorrow.”
I laughed, the sound brittle. That was one way to dive into the subject. “I won’t, actually. Not until my period is done.”
She frowned and glanced around. “Do you want to go somewhere a little more… private? Nicer?”
“Let’s walk,” I said, nodding. “If that’s okay?”
“Of course.”
And so, we walked. It took until we were off the main roads and wandering something that looked like a country lane. I wasn’t actually certain where it led out to, but that didn’t really matter. Eve was unbelievably patient, walking along beside me, waiting until I was ready, and her ability to be unafraid of silence, how comfortable she wasnottalking with me, only served to reinforce my decision to tell her.
Still, that didn’t make it easy. I hadn’t said the word in years, and, even then, only to my therapist.
I glanced at Eve. She really was so beautiful, and, impossibly, she was more so on the inside—which was really saying something.
“I have vaginismus,” I said, trying for confidence and just sounding lost. “There are a couple of other names for it too these days, but that’s the one people tend to know, I think."
“Oh,” she said, and I looked at her to see the recognition on her face, the tightening of her brow that meant she knew what it was. At least I didn’t have to explain.
I sucked in a breath. “So, yeah, I can’t swim on my period. Can’t use tampons.”
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”
I waved her off. “It was a fair assumption, and you were just trying to make me feel better.”
“Still.” She paused, reaching out to gently hold my arm and stop me too. “Thank you for telling me.”
I nodded, my eyes bouncing from hers and away again in rapid succession. “It is what it is. I just… haven’t really talked about it in a long time. I don’t really talk about it.”
She reached up slowly, brushing back the loose hairs around my face that had fallen out of my messy bun. “I’m glad you told me, and I’m happy to talk about it more—as much or as little as you like.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I said, shrugging, and knowing that wasn’t true. “It’s been like this for a long time.”
Eve smiled sadly, stepping a little closer. “Something can have been that way for a long time and still be a big deal.”
Panic pressed against my ribs, threatening to stop my breathing. It had been a long time since I’d been so tearful, but the last time I’d told someone other than my therapist about this, it hadn’t gone well.
Whatever Eve was seeing on my face caused her to narrow her eyes, hold out her arms, and ask, “May I?”
I nodded and leaned in readily when she hugged me.
Eve was so strong. There was nothing soft about her physicality, all muscle, butshewas soft. She was warm and comforting and oddly familiar already, the scent of her like a long-held memory. And she’d been right last night when she said she could hold me up. She was sturdy and calming and solid in the wave of fear and uncertainty that came from discussing this.
