Chapter Thirteen
D espite how eager both Aggie and I were to see Everett, after we celebrate her triumph by recording her standing up on her own again and posting the video for her fan club, he leaves so I can get cleaned up and put on a cute dress.
Not that I own much I can describe as cute , given my scant, comfort-first, outdated wardrobe, but surely, I can do better than three-day-old Levi’s, a stretched-out plain white tee that should be relegated to sleepwear by now, and a cardigan with so many holes in the cuffs, I can only put it on by fisting my hands first.
When I stand before my open closet after showering, wearing the only two towels I own that aren’t printed with last season’s trending cartoon characters, I go blank.
This is new territory for me: adult dating.
What does someone wear on what suddenly feels like a capital- D date with a guy who seems to like her just fine when she makes no fuss over her appearance, a guy who might or might not be her boyfriend by now (a distinction to pin for later investigation), and who doesn’t need to be “wowed” but who she kind of, sort of, definitely wants to wow anyway?
Fortunately, it’s not too late to send a cry for help, even with a five-hour time difference.
CAMERON: S.O.S. Date night with E tonight. Attire suggestions?
HANNAH: Whatever’s fun to take off!
CAMERON: Thank you for cranking the anxiety dial to 11
HANNAH: I’m not the one who should be doing the cranking!
CAMERON: Consider me officially disturbed now. Is that a British euphemism?
HANNAH: It’s a Hannah euphemism. Coined today. You’re welcome!
CAMERON: Gratitude politely withheld. Seriously. Help!
HANNAH: I am being serious. Put on whatever makes you feel sexy
It’s obvious advice, but it completely baffles me, leaving me more stressed than ever.
Rather than text back, I call Hannah and she spends the next half hour talking me through my wardrobe and some anxieties I didn’t realize I was harboring about Everett.
He’s so different from You Didn’t Actually See This Going Somewhere Guy and We Should Probably Cut This Off Before My Girlfriend Finds Out Guy.
He’s different from my high school boyfriends, too, and not only because he doesn’t brag about his stellar AP grades at every given opportunity or perpetually smell like onion rings.
I can’t imagine him lying about his relationship status or dumping me as soon as someone hotter and more fun catches his eye, but I didn’t come through those experiences without scars, and apparently, one of those scars is defaulting to doubt.
I end up in a simple black miniskirt and a black tank top that has miraculously escaped being laundered into a soft charcoal gray hue like most of my black clothing.
Together the pieces sort of look like a sexy black dress, and sort of is the best I can do.
Paired with sweater tights, the ballet flats that are the closest thing I own to heels, and a slate-blue cardigan that’s posh-adjacent enough to get by at Loden and Linden on the weekends, I’m no fashion influencer, but I’ll do.
“You look gorgeous, dah-ling,” Hannah says with an exaggerated British accent that makes me laugh. She’s as American as I am, though that might not be true now that she’s lived in the UK almost as long as she lived here.
The quick math on that makes me realize she left Oregon nearly ten years ago.
Ten years , a thought that slams me with a lot of feelings at once.
Gratitude that we’ve stayed close for so long, despite the distance between us.
Curiosity about how my life might’ve unfolded with less loneliness and self-doubt if she hadn’t moved away in eighth grade.
Frustration at my struggles to form other friendships that are even half as fulfilling. Hope that this is finally changing.
Aggie smiles at me from her bed, where she’s chewing on her monkey toy, confident she’s wearing the perfect outfit for any occasion. What a beautiful, wonderful way to exist in the world, even when the world isn’t beautiful and wonderful in return.
“Any last words of wisdom?” I ask Hannah.
“No big earrings,” she says. “They get caught in your hair when you make out. Oh! And hair. Up. Definitely. Show off that neck like the beacon it is. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want, and be clear about what you don’t want.
Choose your playlist carefully, or better yet, keep the music off because the associations will trail you forever, which is great if the sex is great, and if the relationship lasts, but you don’t, like, hypothetically, want to end up popping into Boots to buy a nail file when ‘This Year’s Love’ comes on and some nice lady who looks a little like your grandma asks if you need help finding anything and you can’t answer her without breaking into sobs for the smoking-hot guitarist you were sure would disprove the stereotype about musicians only to leave town with a girl named Samantha the day after you told him you loved him. ”
“Hypothetically,” I say.
“Of course!” She presses a hand to her heart in mock indignation, and I laugh when she laughs, but Hannah has her scars, too, though she’s acing law school, she runs a zillion miles each week, she’s beautiful and funny, and she’ll find someone who will adore her.
I’ve always felt that, even when I’ve been uncertain about my own future, and Hannah feels the same way about me.
This is why we need other people. Because sometimes we’re so close to our pain we only see our scars, and someone who’s standing a little farther away can see us more clearly.
We wrap up the call and I finish getting ready, which doesn’t take long since I’m too hopeless with hair and makeup to get ambitious.
When I’m all set, I feed Aggie and then slump onto the futon and check our latest TikTok, the one with her standing up on her own.
In about ninety minutes, it already has over three hundred thousand views.
Three. Hundred. Thousand. Views. And our first TikTok has over four million.
I wonder if I’ll ever get used to this, the voluntary sharing with strangers of Aggie’s updates, milestones, and daily fun, and the outpouring of response.
It still stuns me at every turn, knowing people are connecting with her story on such a personal level.
The tears they mention shedding. The people who’ve lost their dogs and feel a profound sense of joy at seeing Aggie embrace her second chance at a good life.
The people who have golden retrievers and talk about why they love the breed so much.
The people who respond not because she’s a golden, or a dog, but because she’s a living, breathing being who’s been through an impossibly hard time, and they feel on a bone-deep level that she deserves to have a happy, healthy, love-filled life.
The people who are going through their own rehabilitation journeys, newly inspired to persist.
It’s a single step that reverberates around the world.
I suppose that’s one of the gifts social media gives us: the amplification of a whisper into a shout.
It makes me nervous, knowing not all whispers should be amplified, but the reverberations are also giving me hope.
They remind me that even in this evolving, algorithm-driven space where vile trolls lurk, popularity is quantified, and the overabundance of aspirational posts can be hard to take, at the heart of it, the driving force is a need to feel connected. It’s so human. So universal.
Everett knocks as Aggie’s polishing off the last of her food.
I open my door to find him in his usual corduroys, Converse, and a moss-green cable-knit sweater that draws out the green tones of his hazel eyes.
He looks like he always looks: handsome, boyish, huggable, a little out of step with current times, and kind, but the addition of a collared shirt under his sweater tells me he made an effort, too, and I’m not the only one treating tonight like it matters.
“Hi,” he says when I don’t assault him with a full-throttle embrace this time.
“Hi,” I say back, and before I can get lost in the moment, Aggie shuffle-steps over.
“Look at you, strutting your stuff,” he says, bending down to pet her.
She presses her head into his hand, nose in the air, reveling in his attention.
“Now that she knows she can stand up on her own, there’s no going back,” I say.
“Pretty soon, you won’t need that wagon.” He tips his chin toward where it’s parked by my fridge, the only place it fits, and barely. This apartment was a tight fit for one. For two of us, it’s almost comical. Getting rid of the wagon would be great.
After meeting Aggie’s most immediate demands, Everett straightens up and his eyes linger on my face as he draws me closer and gives me a quick kiss.
“You look great,” he says, and while I pat myself down, holding back the annoying rebuttals and deflections I refuse to let pass my lips, he adds, “I’m glad we can finally do this. Friday night. Dinner out. A real date. Maybe I’ll get up the nerve to tell you I like you again.”
“Would it help if I tell you that you have zero chance of rejection?”
His smile twitches into view, slow to form but eventually dimpling his cheeks.
“You can keep me on my toes a little, if you want to,” he says.
“I don’t want to take anything for granted here.
I think, um...” His neck goes blotchy and he scratches at it, running a hand under his shirt collar as he tries again.
“I think this could be really good. This.” He gestures between us.
“Us. I know it’s early, but it feels.. . right. Or, I want to get it right.”