Page 117 of Things We Hide from the Light
“The beautiful woman with the very long legs has a point,” Sloane said. “How tall are you anyway? Let’s measure!”
I nudged her glass of water closer. “Maybe you should give the shots a break.”
“Let’s follow this train of thought,” Stef announced. “You went through a shit time as a teenager, which thanks to puberty is already horrible.”
“Fair.”
“Stick with me here,” he continued. “So you grow up, move away, become fiercely independent, and take a dangerous job. Why?”
“Why?” I repeated. “I guess to prove that I’m strong. That I’m not the same weak, helpless girl I used to be.”
“You are a badass,” Stef agreed.
“To badasses,” Naomi said, hefting her nearly empty wineglass.
“Save the toast, Witty. I’m about to blow your minds,” Stef insisted.
“Blow away,” Sloane said, resting her chin in her hands.
“Who are you proving yourself to?” Stef asked me.
I shrugged. “Everyone?”
Stef pointed at Sloane. “Make the buzzer noise again.”
“Errrrrrrr!”
Half the bar turned to look at us.
“I take it you don’t agree?” I prompted Stef.
“Here comes my brilliance. If your family doesn’t know what you do for a living, they are unaware of your professional badassery. And if your colleagues don’t know about your history, they have no idea how impressive you really are because they don’t know what you had to overcome to get here.”
“What’s your point?”
“The only one left to prove anything to is you. And if you don’t realize what a strong, capable badass you are, you haven’t been paying attention.”
“That felt a little anticlimactic. But he’s not wrong,” Naomi said.
“Not done yet,” Stef said. “I think you aren’t actually trying to prove that you’re a badass. I think you spend all your energy trying to smother any hint of vulnerability.”
“Ooooooh! And Nash makes you feel vulnerable,” Sloane guessed gleefully.
“So you sabotage any chance at real intimacy because you don’t want to be vulnerable again,” Naomi added. “Okay.Thatwas climactic.”
Stef gave a mock bow. “Thank you for appreciating my genius.”
I’d been vulnerable before. Flat on my back on that soccer field. In all those hospital beds. In that operating room. I couldn’t protect myself or save myself. I was at the mercy of other people, my life in their hands.
I shook my head. “Hang on. Vulnerability isweakness. Why would I ever want to be weak again? Back me up here, Joel.”
The bartender’s gaze flicked to me as he sent two shot glasses sliding down the bar to a customer with a pink mohawk.
“Being vulnerable doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you trust yourself to be strong enough to handle the hurt. It’s actually the purest form of strength.”
Sloane wiggled her fingers at her temples and made an exploding sound. “Mind officially blown,” she slurred.
“That was fuckin’ beautiful, Joel,” the biker with the mohawk said. The man mopped at his eyes with a drink napkin.
