It was a good weird, the kind of discomfort that came with something like breaking in a pair of shoes, the kind of different that meant something was working. That didn’t make it any less awkward. “So, what ride are we going on first?” asked Jason, to break the ice as we exited the cab. “The Ferris Wheel. Definitely,” I said, putting on my sunglasses, ostensibly to protect my eyes, but in reality, so that Jason wouldn’t catch me taking glances at him surreptitiously, or looking away from him when I got embarrassed. I still wasn’t used to feeling vulnerable, even to someone who had seen me naked. I didn’t want to take down that final layer that would make me emotionally naked in front of him. My body was one thing, my soul was another. And we did. The first ride we went on was the Ferris wheel, and from up in the air, everything looked so small, so...insignificant. “You know what’s weird?” I said to Jason as we looked out over the sprawling buildings. “What?” he said, squeezing my hand, and that’s when I realized he hadn’t let go of my hand since he’d picked me up from Starbucks, not for more than a few seconds, to switch to holding a different hand or to using a different hand to hold mine.
