She seems fragile in a way I wasn’t able to see before, not when she and I were in the coffee shop or in any of the stuff she posts online. I see now what should have been obvious, that she was lost and looking for a way to understand it all—him, herself, what he did, and why it still means so much despite it being so seemingly small. I can hear Strane asking, impatient and impenitent, the question that must still ring through her head: When are you going to get over this? All I did was touch your leg.
Taylor looks to me. “At least we’re trying, right?”
It feels like this is the moment when I’m supposed to open my arms and embrace her, to start thinking of her as a kind of sister. Maybe that could happen if our stories were closer, if I were nicer—though it seems absurd to expect two women to love each other just because they were groped by the same man. There must be a point where you’re allowed to be defined by something other than what he did to you.
Before she leaves, Taylor gives Jo another scratch behind the ears and me an embarrassed little wave.
I watch her walk away, not a rumor but a real person, a woman who used to be a girl. I’m real, too. Have I ever thought that about myself so plainly before? It’s such a small revelation. Jo tugs on the leash and, for the first time, I can imagine how it might feel not to be his, not to be him. To feel that maybe I could be good.
With the sun on my face and a dog at my side, I have so much capacity for good.
There’s nothing else to do but start from here, with the gentle pressure of the leash in my hand, the clink of metal and click of toenails on brick. Ruby says it will take a while to feel truly changed, that I need to give myself the chance to see more of the world without him behind my eyes. I’m already starting to feel the difference. There’s a clearness, a lightness.
Jo and I arrive at the beach, empty in the off-season, and she lowers her nose to the sand.
“Have you been in the ocean before?” I ask, and she looks up at me, ears pricked.
I unhook the leash. At first she doesn’t realize, doesn’t understand, but when I pat her back and say, “Go on,” she takes off across the sand, down to the water, barks at the waves lapping her paws. She ignores me when I call, doesn’t yet know her name, but when she sees me sit on the ground, she bounds over, tongue out and eyes wild. She flops down at my feet, panting happy little whines.
We walk home under the pale winter sky, and back in my apartment, she checks all the rooms, inspects every corner. She’s still getting used to it, the freedom and space. I lie on the couch and she eyes the empty spot alongside my legs. “You’re allowed,” I say, and she jumps up, curls into a tight circle, and sighs.
“He’ll never meet you,” I say. It’s a hard truth, carrying within it grief and joy. Jo opens her eyes, doesn’t lift her head as she watches me. She’s constantly taking in my face and tone, noticing everything about me. When I start to drift away, her tail thumps against the couch cushion, like a drumbeat, a heartbeat, a rhythm of grounding. You’re here, she says. You’re here. You’re here.