Page 6 of Shy Girl

That was the moment I stopped trying. I stopped waiting for him to be someone who cared enough to show up. Stoppedhoping he’d be more than a drunk with a half-dead conscience. I didn’t

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cry. I just stared at the wall until the nurse came back with discharge papers and a bottle of antibiotics and face that said,you poor miserable girl. Alone in the hospital with an infected pussy and no family to visit. Tragic.

Now, every so often, his messages come through, fragile little offerings that crumble as soon as I touch them. I don’t delete them anymore. It’s easier to let them pile up in my phone, like junk mail.

In my bedroom, I undress methodically. Each article of clothing is folded into a neat square, stacked neatly on the dresser. I sit cross-legged in front of the full-length mirror, adjusting the angle until it feels correct.

I stare at myself, my body, the hollowness of the space between who I am and who I’m trying to become.

I whisper to the reflection, a chant as steady as my breath.Nathan will respond back to me soon.

Again.Nathan will respond back to me soon.

The words are an anchor, holding me in place, keeping me afloat.

FIVE

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My hobbies includecleaning, watchingThe Golden Girls,reading, and crocheting. That’s what I write on my profile. It sounds safe, almost aggressively so, like a porch light left on to welcome someone home. I know it reads like a placeholder for a real person, like the kind of woman who blends neatly into the edges of your life without asking for more. On a regular dating site, it’s probably tragic—one more soft blur in a sea of sharper, shinier options. But on a sugar dating site? It feels like strategy.

It says: I’m simple. I’m boring. I won’t cause drama. I’m the girl you pick when you want the luxury of forgetting someone exists between arrangements. I imagine a man reading it, scrolling past profiles full of curated cleavage and sunlit vacations, landing on mine like a sigh of relief. No neon signs. No fireworks. Just someone who’ll hand him a sandwich and maybe crochet him a scarf before vanishing into the quiet corners of his life.

It’s not that I don’t have more to say. It’s not that I don’t have sharper edges. It’s that I know how to package myself in ways men find manageable. I’ve learned to press myself into neat, soft shapes,

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to smooth over the parts that snag or bite. I’m the woman who

remembers your mother’s birthday, who folds your shirts just the way you like, who leaves before the silence turns heavy.

When I picture Nathan reading my profile, I imagine his eyes skimming over the words with the same kind of ease he’d bring to ordering lunch. Something light, something familiar, something that won’t linger. I imagine him nodding slightly, satisfied.This one,he thinks.She won’t ask for too much.

Right now, I’m working on a sweater for the man who lives in the park. He says his name is Turtle. Turtle has a permanent tan, the kind you get from existing too long under the sun without permission. His hair hangs in dark brown matted ropes down his back, and he almost never wears a shirt. He’s thin but not fragile, with muscles that don’t come from gyms but from the kind of uncalculated labor that keeps you alive. When he plays hacky sack, he moves like gravity doesn’t stick to him the way it sticks to everyone else. I can’t tell if it’s grace or just indifference.

I haven’t seen him for weeks. I figure he’s moved on to another park, another city, the way people like him seem to move without leaving footprints. But today, there he is, right in the middle of the park. The sky is soft and overcast, the kind of weather that makes colors sharper, and he’s barefoot in the grass, tossing the hacky sack into the air like it’s a balloon, his silver arrowhead necklace that hangs off a piece of worn leather bouncing off his glistening muscled chest.

I sit on the park bench a few feet away, the unfinished sweater bunched in my lap, my hook working faster than usual. I am trying not to think of Nathan and what he’ll say to me when he responds— if he even does, so I distract myself with Turtle. I

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watch him kick the hacky sack into the air, his movements languid and swift, and I crochet faster. The sweater isn’t anything fancy—just a simple pullover in a shade of muted green that reminds me

of a Christmas tree. I have no idea if Turtle will even wear it. I can’t picture him in anything that doesn’t expose his ribs to the sun. But it’s something to do. Something to finish.

When the sweater is done, I slip it into a fancy black velvet drawstring bag and walk toward him. My legs feel stupid and mechanical. Turtle kicks the hacky sack with the side of his foot and catches it with his hand as I approach. His eyes are clearer than normal, the color of old pennies, and they scan me without judgment.

“Hey,” I say, my voice too loud, the way it always gets when I’m nervous. “I made you something.”

He tilts his head, his hair swaying like vines. “For me?” he asks, his voice slow, the words spread out like honey.

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