Chapter 5 Miranda #2
Also, I wasn’t a total noob. Growing up, I’d engaged in plenty of outdoor activities.
Hiking and river tubing in the summer and snowshoeing in the winter were part of the Coleman Creek culture.
But my new friends introduced me to experiences on a whole new level.
Canoeing and paddleboarding. Off-trail skiing.
Multiday rafting expeditions. It was exciting and novel enough that I could ignore the hollowness of my connection to them.
I wanted deeper friendships, but I didn’t click easily with people in that way.
Superficial good times I could do. The consequential stuff rarely materialized.
At least no one seemed to find me objectionable. I leaned into that. If they couldn’t truly know me, at least they could like me.
But as the months and years passed, I wearied of never being fully myself, unable to escape the feeling that I was putting on a performance.
A few years into earning my bachelor’s, I finally admitted to myself that my tendency to go along to get along wasn’t serving me.
Despite being surrounded by people, I was lonely.
Wanting to see what the rest of the world had to offer, I strategized ways to make more friends.
I still wanted to spend time with my current group, but I’d done enough kayaking for a lifetime.
My future would include more lazy couch days, nights out dancing, and binge-watching trash TV.
At least, that was my plan.
Then my mom got diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.
She insisted I stay in school and continue my activities, telling me how happy my “adventure tales” made her. Without hesitation, I put all thoughts of changing things on the back burner. I kept having adventures. Fresh stories for her.
My activities and travels became grander. My tales more epic.
Mountain climbing in South America and Cambodia. Six weeks of volunteer tourism building homes in Mexico, cliff diving on the side. A safari in Kenya and beach days in Croatia, taking odd jobs to fund my excursions.
But even as Mom oohed and aahed over photos of me and my friends hiking through jungles in Costa Rica, I didn’t mention her slow deterioration to a single one of them.
And when she died a year and a half ago, they said, “I’m sorry,” but none of them came home with me to attend the funeral.
Before and especially during the years of my mom’s illness, my Instagram page provided an outlet for the artificial existence I’d created for myself.
It was still shallow, but I had control of the narrative.
I invented the persona there. The part I enjoyed most was thinking of it as a business venture—an application of the skills I learned in my classes.
Building up @theadventurousmiranda as a brand sparked my imagination.
Trying to game the platform’s algorithm, dreaming up reels that gained me hundreds of new followers.
I received DMs from start-ups who thought I’d be perfect to hawk their protein powder or hiking boot inserts.
I never tried to make money off my page, but its success helped me feel confident in that marketing skill set, something I’d need to sell myself in a crowded job market after graduation.
After Leo and I began talking, I explained the evolution of the character I’d built online to him, emphasizing that she was far from the real me.
“I sort of got that, Panda,” he’d said. “From our first conversation at Christmas. It’s okay to want to manage how people perceive you as you change and grow, especially when you’re in college.”
“Did you?”
He scoffed. “Definitely.”
“So what were you like back then? Was it hard navigating around all the dinosaurs?”
“Watch it.” He laughed. “I was your basic know-it-all little shit. I’d been an athlete in high school and played rec sports during college.
Did the frat thing. My bachelor’s is in communications, which has been surprisingly helpful in the construction business.
” His tone sobered. “I had a lot to figure out about myself in my early twenties. Same as anybody.”
I didn’t press him to elaborate, knowing he’d tell me when he was ready.
Since my mom died, I’d been pulling away more deliberately from my friends, finding excuses not to hang out.
The result of six years spent in one another’s orbits had turned my group into running buddies and movie dates, but not people I implicitly trusted.
Not people I revealed myself to. The more I got to know Leo, the more I understood the difference.
The shift was already beginning. After finally earning my undergraduate degree—traveling had necessitated stretching it out to six years—I’d rented my own apartment for graduate school.
Thankfully, my mom left us a nice inheritance, giving me the flexibility to navigate Los Angeles’s insane rental market.
After downloading some apps, I’d gone on a few first dates and friend dates.
I hadn’t experienced an instant connection with anyone the way I had with Leo, but making the effort felt like progress.
I looked forward to completing my MBA, holding a stable nine-to-five, and establishing myself on a more traditional path. While I’d still take part in outdoor activities as hobbies, I wouldn’t allow anyone to assume it was my entire identity ever again.
When I detailed this vision of my future to Leo, he’d listened with no judgment and, to my great pleasure, no surprise.
“You don’t have to sell me on the idea that you’re multidimensional,” he said. “I know there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye. But you need to extend some grace. You’re impossible not to love immediately, so you have to forgive people if they neglect to dig deeper.” He winked.
“You did,” I challenged.
“That’s because I know what it’s like to have people decide they know you at a glance.”
Another enigmatic statement. I didn’t push him to break it down because I felt sure I’d get the whole Leo eventually. He’d been giving himself to me in chunks, and I knew the missing pieces would come.
On New Year’s, his urgency in asking to be friends had surprised me. I’d been feeling the same pull toward him, although I hadn’t articulated it quite as clearly in my mind. He’d done us both a favor by putting it on the table the way he had.
When he’d offered to let me stay with him, I’d thought maybe he felt something romantic between us.
I’d certainly been drawn to him. But in his apartment that first day, when I stood in my towel and our eyes met, he hadn’t crooked a finger or leered.
Nope. He’d simply admired me, the way someone would with a painting or a fancy restaurant meal.
Leo sent classic mixed signals over those initial days.
But he seemed so oblivious to his own behavior that I couldn’t fault him.
I’d tried to figure out where his head was at by throwing out a few feelers—lingering glances, snuggling into him, letting him wrap his arm around my shoulders—but his responses were never more than friendly.
Yet he also wasn’t pushing me away or discouraging those touches.
He appeared to revel in our closeness. Where most guys would interpret my knees bent into their thighs or my head on their shoulder as an invitation, Leo seemed to stop processing beyond, man, I really like having your head on my shoulder, or it’s so cool how comfortable I am with my arm around you.
He said he didn’t have many friends. Maybe he was just bad at knowing where typical boundaries lined up? Or maybe I was wrong, questioning whether exchanging cutesy nicknames and being so touchy-feely signaled something more than platonic vibes?
I’d spent those days in his apartment wondering and was grateful that his ultimate request had been definitive.
We should be better friends.
Just friends.
Now, over two months later, our relationship was more intimate than any other friendship I’d had. I’d even told him things I’d never told Maureen and Marley.
And I felt certain it was the same for him.
He texted me about his job, how he sometimes experienced moral panic over renovating homes in wealthy neighborhoods when unhoused people lived in tents blocks away.
He watched a lot of cable news, listened to a ton of podcasts, and worried about the state of the world.
I reassured him that he had the right to earn a living, that his concern was a sign of decency, that he wasn’t alone in his worries, and that he shouldn’t feel guilty about enjoying life.
As I dusted my already spotless shelves, I thought about how Leo radiated light and goodness, despite his fears and misgivings. We had that in common. The difference was that when we were together, neither of us had to pretend to be cheerful.
We fit together naturally. Made each other better.
Because I wasn’t a plastic doll. And he wasn’t a superhero.
Leo arrived late at night. He’d driven straight through from Tacoma, his truck rumbling in after one in the morning.
Before I’d even had a chance to show him around my small apartment, he took one look at the pull-out and barely kicked off his boots before crashing out.
He would be here for three days, and we’d be able to spend all that time together since I’d taken the time off from my part-time job at a retail shop near campus.
He was still sleeping when I checked on him before taking a shower the following morning, but I came out of my bedroom after getting dressed to find him sitting up, rubbing his eyes.
The blanket pooled around his waist. He’d taken his shirt off during the night, and I felt a very not-platonic stirring in my belly at the sight of his pecs flexing as he groaned and stretched his arms above his head.
His pink nipples were quarter-sized, covered with a mat of hair that matched the dirty blond on his head.
I peeked lower to see he still wore his jeans, top button undone.
I gulped down my reaction. He wasn’t trying to be sexy. He really wasn’t. There was only one of us in this room who realized how hot it was for a built guy with bed head and hooded eyes to stretch and roll his shoulders, forcing all that toned, tanned muscle to bunch and ripple.
Jesus. I needed to stop.
“Mornin’,” he said, scratching his stomach lazily before following it up with, “Disneyland?”
Huh? “Disneyland?”
“Mm-hmm.” He smiled.
“As in, that’s what you want to do today?”
“Yep. If you want to, of course.”
“I mean, you’re the out-of-town guest. Therefore, you get to run the show.” I leaned against the archway to the kitchen, folding my arms. “You’ve never been?”
“When I was a kid, but I’ve always wanted to go again. I know you live here, so maybe it’s old news, but I thought it might be fun.”
I tapped my lips thoughtfully. “I think it’s still early enough to make it worth our while. Let’s go see Mickey.”
“As long as you’re really okay with it. I got the idea in my head around hour sixteen of my drive, so it’s possibly just a crazy thought fueled by gas station donuts and sleep deprivation.”
The more he hedged, the more I warmed to the plan. I hadn’t been to Disneyland in ages. Partly because it wasn’t an on-brand thing for @theadventurousmiranda. I’d spent too many days in service to that version of myself. This was for Leo and me.
“I actually haven’t been in a long time,” I told him. “Now that you’ve suggested it, I’m excited.”
“Cool.” He stood and walked nonchalantly to the hall bathroom, his button still undone.
As I got down two bowls for cereal and downloaded the Disneyland app to my phone, it occurred to me that Leo and I had completely skipped past any awkwardness that might have been expected considering we hadn’t seen each other in person for months.
Nope. He fell asleep on my couch and woke up asking to go to Disneyland. No stops in between.
I chuckled, pouring the Strawberry Shredded Wheat I’d stocked up on for him.