Chapter 3 #2
When I was diagnosed with vaginismus during my freshman year of college, the gynecologist told me working with a pelvic floor therapist could help me.
“Your vaginal muscles seize up when they come into contact with anything,” she’d explained, “and I know you don’t feel like you have any control over it, but physical therapy can help.
” I was willing to do anything to make it better, so I made the appointment.
Afraid of what I’d find, I refused to google what pelvic floor therapy involved in advance of my first appointment.
When I arrived, everything started fine.
Great, even. We chatted for a bit. We did some stretches, which she recommended I start doing regularly to “open the pelvic floor.” We looked at a diagram of the reproductive system.
And then she asked if we could try manually stretching, and I said yes (because I was willing to do anything!), and then she put on gloves and put lube on her index finger, and then it hurt like hell, and she stopped, and that was all we accomplished during the first appointment.
She sent me home with a pack of four dilators so I could try manually stretching on my own.
They ranged in size and color and came in an austere wooden box.
The smallest one, the size of my pinky, was lavender.
The largest was a bright blue. I named her Cobalt, and she and her big attitude have lived rent-free in my mind ever since.
The second largest, Key Lime, is the one that always haunted my nightmares, though, because you think she’s not going to be that large, since she’s not the largest, but when you look at her alone, she’s an absolute monster. I hate her.
Take me out of this moving box and we’ll fight, then, Key Lime says to me in my mind.
Joke’s on you, I say. I didn’t appropriately label any of my boxes, so I don’t know where you are.
You can never escape us, Cobalt says.
I lock them away in the back of my mind. Not the Fantasy Corner, though, because nothing about them is a fantasy, given the destructive impact they’ve had on my dating life.
Harrison doesn’t finish his statement about not hating me, so I prompt him. “Well, you certainly looked like you’d been shot yesterday when I tried to give you a hug.”
He freezes, then frowns. “Listen,” he says.
He doesn’t continue, and I raise my eyebrows.
“Listen,” he says, letting out a sigh that I feel in my soul.
“We can’t just act like the last five years haven’t passed.
I’ve spent five years trying to forget what it’s like to have you in my life.
Do you have any idea what that’s like?” His voice shakes slightly.
“Do you have any idea how much I resented you?”
Maybe I should be alarmed by this statement, and part of me definitely is, but another part of me hangs on to the past tense of his final question.
“I know,” I choke out. “Harrison, I know. But five years have passed, and we’re both different people. Think about how happy eighteen-year-old Emma and Harrison would be if they knew we were neighbors again at age twenty-seven. They’d think that was the best thing in the entire world.”
Harrison closes his eyes and lets out a pitiful sigh. He’s not saying it, but the expression on his face shows he’s conflicted.[*2] He doesn’t like that he feels this way. And if I can be responsible for making him feel better, for lifting this weight, then I have a moral obligation to do so.
“Tell me about your life,” I suggest. “Tell me what you’ve been up to for the last five years, and I’ll tell you what my life has been like, and you can start to replace that anger with something new.”
Harrison gives me a tight smile. “I’ve spent so much time wondering what you were up to, but I never thought I’d actually get to find out. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know, to be honest.”
“Would you prefer that?” I ask. “To not know?”
He’s silent for at least twenty seconds before responding, and even when he responds, he’s hesitant, as if he wasn’t ready to speak but felt pressured into it because of the awkwardness of this silence.
“I think I need more time,” he says. “I just…don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to know you. I don’t know.”
Not even to know what I’ve been up to, but to know me. Generally. Awesome.
Is it because he has a girlfriend? Is it because being around me is too painful?
Does it matter why?
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Okay.”
We don’t say another word for the remaining eight minutes of our walk. Instead, I stare at our feet as they take step after step after step. He is not wearing the orange-patterned socks today.