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The first ti between clie-streaked li whether to pay 2 for entry to the local pool, so we could use the showers That hen she toldpools—hohen she was younger, groups of children would point at her and yell things like, “Look, Moirls’ locker room!”

She said this with a shtheartedly, that she still had a phobia of public swiuessed—she h the world without evident self-consciousness

I understood it as the accidental cruelty of children But still I could iirl 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 e 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 s area, which we used as our home base The first time we touched, she ainst the baseboard She reached out to hold my hand aardly, as I cried

It was the end of our first trip We’d been to natural hot springs together before, of course, where the atious 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 cli 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 ot in first, sat down As she descended the stairs, I re conscious of mine As she put it, there was tension We both felt it, but we didn’t kno 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 ar, her demeanor confident I hadn’t seen her so exposed before Or, perhaps, I hadn’t truly looked She told ood you are at hiding your body

We’d both been conscious of each other’s energies, e first met, on a shared shift at work I knew I didn’t want to fuck with you, she toldShe associated me with power, too Yet she also told , that I’d been hurt, that entle

I felt the sah her exterior suited her—the leather jacket, the s, the tattoos—it also served to conceal I assuh exterior as a shield, ence, her curiosity, too

We both saw through each other’s acts partially because we both did the sa, in different ways, for different reasons—used the exterior as a way of protecting ourselves Yet even still, ere both surprised by what lay beneath

She and I traveled through so raphies that it blurred—over a third of the US So back, it felt as though we’d been attracted to each other since the rew from there