men isn’t staring at an image of your naked body.
“My eyes have been busy doing other things tonight,” he said darkly.
Oh .
When we reached the end of the pier, he stopped and began removing his clothes without explanation. He motioned for me to do the same, and I tried not to look at his thinly athletic body as he took off his shirt.
“Um, explain, please?”
“We’re jumping,” he said.
“Jumping?”
“Yeah, jumping. I’ve done it a million times, it’s fine. You wore a bathing suit, right? I was thinking of going hot-tub-diving later tonight, but this is way better.”
I looked down at my dress. “Um. Yeah. But my clothes, and my phone, and my-”
“Your stuff’s fine,” he said as he stood in his boxer-briefs. “Brenda won’t let anyone else out here. We can walk back out and get it all. It’s fine.”
I stared at him. “You’re seriously trying to get me undressed on our second date, or whatever this is?”
“Of course it’s a date,” he said. “And…wait, why are you looking at me like that?”
The wind whipped between the pilings below us. “Well, it’s just that…um…nobody has ever taken me out on a date before, that’s all.”
His head turned. He wasn’t expecting that, I guess. “Really? At twenty-four?”
I stared at him for what felt like forever, feeling stark naked. Finally he turned, shook his head, and approached the railing. “And fine, don’t take off your clothes. Have fun sinking to the bottom when you are overwhelmed by the weight of soaking wet cotton! Just come on, trust me. I won’t even touch you or look that hard, I swear.”
I hesitated. The thing was, in my haste to get ready, I’d put on a two-piece instead of my usual one-piece, meaning I’d have to show my stomach. But oh well: he was asking for it.
I reached down and lifted up my dress to just below the white tube sticking out of my lower left abdomen and the surgery stars crisscrossing my trunk and lower neck area. The truth was, I was technically disabled, although I had accepted this fact to varying degrees throughout my life. Because being disabled makes you Other, and that erases you, because nobody in the world wanted to be Other. Your genes told you to find a suitable mate, and that meant someone who was strong and capable, someone who carried good genes – not someone defected like me, because I would produce less-than-perfect offspring. So I literally repulsed people on a genetic level – I was logical enough to acknowledge that, and human enough to admit that it broke my heart. But I hadn’t always been like this. By a certain age I’d started trying to hide and deny my disability by doing anything I could to be seen as One Of The Normal Kids. During one particularly pathetic period of denial, I tried to join the track team in high school and then saw my two-week career as a runner go up in flames when I fell on my face during a track meet with the Florida School for the Blind, single-handedly making my school lose the entire meet. Now, losing a running contest to a bunch of kids who could not see was a very specific kind of humiliation that I would not wish on even the most distant of frenemies, but it did lend me a certain humility that I carry with me to this day.
But I was done hiding, if only because I no longer had the energy. So I closed my eyes, took the dress off completely, and waited for his response as I stood there in all of my scarred glory.
“And…?” he finally asked. “What are you waiting for?”
I finally opened my eyes. “This is a feeding tube. I get milk through a tube. I can’t eat, Cooper. Like, at all. Anything. It makes me barf. Just so you know.”
He just stared at me and then grabbed my hand, pulling me to the edge of the pier. “Summer, if you wanna scare me, you’re gonna have to pull some hidden tentacles out of your bra or something. My mom’s in a wheelchair, so a little health issue or two is nothing for me. Anyway, you
“My eyes have been busy doing other things tonight,” he said darkly.
Oh .
When we reached the end of the pier, he stopped and began removing his clothes without explanation. He motioned for me to do the same, and I tried not to look at his thinly athletic body as he took off his shirt.
“Um, explain, please?”
“We’re jumping,” he said.
“Jumping?”
“Yeah, jumping. I’ve done it a million times, it’s fine. You wore a bathing suit, right? I was thinking of going hot-tub-diving later tonight, but this is way better.”
I looked down at my dress. “Um. Yeah. But my clothes, and my phone, and my-”
“Your stuff’s fine,” he said as he stood in his boxer-briefs. “Brenda won’t let anyone else out here. We can walk back out and get it all. It’s fine.”
I stared at him. “You’re seriously trying to get me undressed on our second date, or whatever this is?”
“Of course it’s a date,” he said. “And…wait, why are you looking at me like that?”
The wind whipped between the pilings below us. “Well, it’s just that…um…nobody has ever taken me out on a date before, that’s all.”
His head turned. He wasn’t expecting that, I guess. “Really? At twenty-four?”
I stared at him for what felt like forever, feeling stark naked. Finally he turned, shook his head, and approached the railing. “And fine, don’t take off your clothes. Have fun sinking to the bottom when you are overwhelmed by the weight of soaking wet cotton! Just come on, trust me. I won’t even touch you or look that hard, I swear.”
I hesitated. The thing was, in my haste to get ready, I’d put on a two-piece instead of my usual one-piece, meaning I’d have to show my stomach. But oh well: he was asking for it.
I reached down and lifted up my dress to just below the white tube sticking out of my lower left abdomen and the surgery stars crisscrossing my trunk and lower neck area. The truth was, I was technically disabled, although I had accepted this fact to varying degrees throughout my life. Because being disabled makes you Other, and that erases you, because nobody in the world wanted to be Other. Your genes told you to find a suitable mate, and that meant someone who was strong and capable, someone who carried good genes – not someone defected like me, because I would produce less-than-perfect offspring. So I literally repulsed people on a genetic level – I was logical enough to acknowledge that, and human enough to admit that it broke my heart. But I hadn’t always been like this. By a certain age I’d started trying to hide and deny my disability by doing anything I could to be seen as One Of The Normal Kids. During one particularly pathetic period of denial, I tried to join the track team in high school and then saw my two-week career as a runner go up in flames when I fell on my face during a track meet with the Florida School for the Blind, single-handedly making my school lose the entire meet. Now, losing a running contest to a bunch of kids who could not see was a very specific kind of humiliation that I would not wish on even the most distant of frenemies, but it did lend me a certain humility that I carry with me to this day.
But I was done hiding, if only because I no longer had the energy. So I closed my eyes, took the dress off completely, and waited for his response as I stood there in all of my scarred glory.
“And…?” he finally asked. “What are you waiting for?”
I finally opened my eyes. “This is a feeding tube. I get milk through a tube. I can’t eat, Cooper. Like, at all. Anything. It makes me barf. Just so you know.”
He just stared at me and then grabbed my hand, pulling me to the edge of the pier. “Summer, if you wanna scare me, you’re gonna have to pull some hidden tentacles out of your bra or something. My mom’s in a wheelchair, so a little health issue or two is nothing for me. Anyway, you
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