Page 59 of Every Step She Takes
Her gaze snaps back up to my face, and she looks truly petrified. I would feel guilty for teasing her if I slowed down enough to feel anything at all.
“Yes, Freckles, with a woman. Isn’t that what you want?”
Her splotchy blush begins to bloom across her throat, her cheeks, the whites of her arms, like a hundred flowers opening in the sun. Almost like the sunrise this morning, painting everything in pink.
“Yes,” Sadie croaks. “Yes, that’s what I want.”
Dinner is at a sidewalk restaurant with a view of the water, and I guide Sadie to the far end of our communal table so we can have a little privacy. “When you were dating men,” I start while she surveys the menu, “did you ever make the first move?”
Sadie shoots an anxious glance down to the table, and I follow her eyes to where Inez is ordering a few pitchers of sangria for the table. When her gaze returns to me, she keeps her voice low. “Do I look like I’ve ever made a single move in my life?”
Sadie looks like she doesn’t even know what a moveis.
“Men always made the first move, then?” I ask, matching her almost-whisper. It’s unnecessary: Ari is telling a loud story about the time she met K.D. Lang and Stefano is doing burpees, much to the ire of the restaurant waitstaff, and much to the delight of a table of fit young men across the patio.
“On dates, you mean? I guess, yes. I’ve always waited for men to initiate the kiss. Mostly because I never wanted to kiss them,” she grumbles. “But beyond that, moves have never really happened… like, a man has never tried to initiatesexwith me.”
She only mouths the wordsex, and I wish I didn’t find it so damn charming. “I find it very hard to believe that a man has never tried to have sex with you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re very beautiful, Sadie.”
She winces at the compliment. I brace both hands on the table. “Do you believe you’re beautiful?”
“I know I’m beautiful.” She shakes out her shortened hair, and I’m so utterly and hopelesslycharmed. “I just… I have a complicated relationship with that word…”
“With the wordbeautiful?”
She winces again as the server puts a giant pitcher of sangria between us. Apparently, Inez ordered a liter for every two people.Sadie fumbles with the heavy pitcher and sloshes sangria into her glass.
“The thing is, whenever someone tells me I’m beautiful,” she says as she gives herself a generous pour, “there’s always this hint of surprise in their voice. Like they can’t believe I’m beautiful. Like I’m beautifulin spite of.”
“I truly have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Sadie is unequivocally, inarguably pretty, like the requisite freckled redhead in a J.Crew ad. She’s even prettier right now than she was the first time I studied her face on the plane, with her spunky short hair and her sunburned face and her freckles sneaking through her makeup. “In spite ofwhat?”
She takes a gulp of sangria and almost chokes on a chunk of peach. She makes a little sweeping gesture over her torso. “In spite of how fat I am.”
“You’re not fat!” I say, perhaps a little too loudly. Ari’s story cuts off midsentence, and everyone turns to stare at our end of the table.
Sadie groans. “Damnit, Mal. That’s literally theworstpossible response.” She becomes a human face-palm emoji. “I thought you were better than that.”
“How… how was that the wrong response?”
She slams back another drink of sangria like it’s a tequila shot. “Fat is not a bad word,” she says firmly. “It’s not an insult. It’s not positive or negative. It’s just a fact about my body.”
“But you’re not eventhat—” I try, but she cuts me off with a fiery glare.
“I’m midsize, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’m really sorry,” I say, and Sadie picks up a dinner roll from the basket in front of her and chucks it at my head. Everyone at the table laughs.
“You’re still not getting it!” Sadie snarls post–bread projectile. “Don’t besorry! There’s nothing wrong with being fat. There’sonly something wrong with how other people view my fatness— what they assume it means about me.” She picks up another hunk of bread from her basket and takes an unapologetic bite.
Someone at the table grunts, “You tell ’em, kiddo.” I think it’s Ro.
Sadie sits up straight in her chair, looking poised and regal. “When people tell me I’m beautiful, it’s always in this infantilizing way. Like,no, Sadie, you’re so beautiful. Like they deserve a fucking medal for seeing my beauty through the ugliness of my body.”
