Page 11 of Shy Girl

And then...a picture of him with a young girl, no more than six or seven. Their heads lovingly smushed together, both bright and beaming. I wasn’t mad about the kid itself—I didn’t care. I wasn’t trying to meet it, wasn’t angling to be its stepmother. It was the hiding. That stupid, unnecessary lie. I thought back to and recalled a few times the subject of children came up, and he had never once mentioned he had one. It was like finding a scratch on something you thought was smooth, and you can’t stop running your finger over it, feeling the jagged edge. I felt an overwhelming sense of melancholy when I stopped seeing Joshua. He was the only man who liked watchingThe Golden Girlswith me.

These old broads are funny,he’d say as we settled in for a nightly marathon followed by raucous sex. And he was very good at it—better than most, to be honest.

Before Joshua, there was Matt. Matt was a bad boy with a neck tattoo who worked at the grocery store down the street. He sold weed and talked about golden showers like it was religion, like if he could just get me to pee on him, he’d ascend or something. He was reckless in that way that makes you feel alive and stupid at the

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same time, like jumping off a roof into a pool without knowing how deep it is.

We didn’t last long—maybe three weeks—but for a moment, Matt made me feel like I could be reckless, too. Like I could take things without consequence. He let me steal from his grocery store. He’d scan everything, but the packaged sushi would always slide under his hand and into my bag. That was the only thing I missed about him. Just the free grocery store sushi.

Sometimes I think that’s what all my relationships boil down to—the small, stupid things I miss when it’s over. Free sushi. A good lay. Someone who doesn’t make me feel embarrassed for liking a show about four old ladies cracking jokes. The rest of it is just noise.

I turn off the water and step out, the steam curling around me as I stare at my reflection in the mirror. My skin is red from the heat, my hair slicked back, my face stripped bare. I feel raw, unformed, like a thing still waiting to be made whole. And for a moment, I let myself wonder if Nathan will see that, too.

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I’ve decided tostraighten my hair, and regret has already settled in my chest. The flat iron hums in my hand like a living thing, accusatory in its heat. Each strand of thick, curly hair protests the transformation, the pull of the iron against my scalp feeling tender, raw, as though my hair itself is fighting back. I force it into submission, strand by strand, the tulle-like stiffness of straightened hair falling too heavy against my neck, reminding me with every tug that I’ve made a mistake.

This was my first misstep, and it’s eating the time I’d carefully set aside to prepare. The seconds fall like tiny failures as I watch the clock tick toward inevitability. Each pass of the iron feels slower than the last, and already, I know—I’ll be late. Not by much, but enough to matter. Enough for him to notice. Enough for him to judge. I can picture his face: the subtle downturn of his mouth, the tightening of his jaw. The silent calculation that I’m careless, disorganized, not worth the effort.

My reflection glares back at me from the mirror, wide-eyed and frantic, my trembling hands betraying the tension coiling in my stomach. Maybe I should’ve asked Nathan to meet closer to where

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I live; picked a place I know, a place I wouldn’t have to rush to. But I didn’t. I wanted to seem agreeable, unbothered. Easy.

Now I’m paying for it with an hour-long drive to some café I’ve never heard of. It’s 11:15. I pause, running the numbers in my

head. An hour and forty-five minutes to get there. Subtract the parking. Subtract traffic. Subtract the inevitable eight minutes I’ve already lost trying to straighten one strand of my hair.

The countdown looms.Late. I will be late.

The last strand of hair falls flat against my shoulder, and I click the iron off with a finality that leaves the air buzzing in its absence. My pulse thrums in my ears as I head to my room, each second slipping away like sand. My outfit is simple: black jeans, a white fitted t-shirt. Neutral. Effortless. Not too much, not too little. I glance at the dress hanging in my closet, the one that makes me feel good; confident. A dress meant for dinner, not coffee. A dress for later, if this goes anywhere at all.

I tuck a piece of my newly flattened hair behind my ear, fingers moving on autopilot, and look at myself in the mirror for two seconds—long enough to check my appearance but not long enough to find something I don’t like. The clock reads 11:30. For a moment, relief flickers through me. I might still make it. But I know better than to trust moments like this.

I grab my bag and bolt. The doorframe catches my shoulder as I move too fast, my feet slapping against the pavement with the urgency of someone who’s already late in her mind. The sunlight outside is too bright, the kind of sharp that feels like punishment. And then—a metallic blur. A Buick. The blare of a horn shreds the air, sharp and hot, as I stumble out of its path. I don’t stop to apologize, don’t stop to look back. The car rolls past, its driver’s frustration hanging thick in the air. I keep moving.

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Somehow, I arrive downtown at 12:45. My feet carry me forward, automatic, toward the address Nathan gave me.

O’Malley’s is nothing like I imagined. Not the light, airy café I had pictured, but a pub, dark and polished, with the faint smell of fried food and spilled beer lingering in the air. I hesitate at the door, feeling the weight of the place pressing against my chest. It’s not right. This is not what I prepared for.

I slip inside anyway, scanning the room for a table in the back, somewhere quiet, somewhere I can disappear. The laughter spilling from the bar feels too loud, too much. All the back tables are taken so I opt for a table in the middle, pulling my phone from my bag. I scroll back through Nathan’s messages, the wordcoffeestaring back at me like an accusation. He definitely said coffee. The word is there, clear and unambiguous.

I glance down at my outfit. Jeans, t-shirt, black loafers. All wrong for this space. If I’d known, I might’ve worn the dress. The one in my closet that clings in all the right places. Maybe a red lip, something to assert my presence, to say,I am here, and I am something.

But it’s too late for that now. The air feels heavy, the light too dim, and I sit there, waiting, pretending I don’t feel the sweat gathering at the back of my neck.

Here.

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