Chapter 3: The physio
The dating chronicles: Adelaide edition
I met the physio in February of this year at a mutual friend’s birthday. She’d spoken to me about him previously, even going as far as attempting to set us up months prior. He’d followed me on Instagram, I’d followed back, he’d attempted to instigate conversation with me, but I just didn’t have it in me. It was nothing against him – I didn’t know the man – I just wasn’t in a place where I was particularly flush for energy to give to a stranger.
When I arrived at the venue for her birthday dinner, I wasn’t too sure where to put myself. I knew some of her friends but only from a moderate distance, and the remaining guests were strangers whose names I was only vaguely familiar with from Instagram posts or anecdotes.
I decided to put myself at one end of the two long tables with some of the more familiar faces, settling into different versions of ‘how have you been?’ and ‘what’s new with you?’ and ‘you look great!’.
It wasn’t until we were nearing the end of dinner that I spotted him, facing the opposite direction to me on the other table of birthday goers. We held each other’s gaze very briefly and exchanged small, fleeting smiles before I was pulled back into a conversation with the people either side of me. When I looked back a few moments later, he was gone.
Seats were growing rapidly empty as people flittered between tables and towards the POS, moving in clusters that had naturally formed over the course of the evening before heading to a neighbouring venue for drinks.
When I arrived at our next destination, everyone was littered about in the back room, with bodies continuously shuffling in and out of the booths to have a smoke, order more drinks, or make room for a newcomer. It’s the adult’s musical chairs: no one person can sit in the same spot for too long for fear of missing out on something that might be happening two to six metres away. It would have been strange if we hadn’t naturally progressed to a close proximity given the speed with which people were exchanging seats.
When we were finally sat together, we mutually dismissed the exchange of introductions – it wasn’t necessary despite us having never met in person. We talked with the familiarity of distant friends and bounced off of the other people around us. Simply put, it was very easy.
After a moderate chunk of time, we’d not only exchanged numbers, but we’d created a Spotify blend to determine how compatible our music tastes were. Hozier, Doja Cat, Kaytranada, Angie McMahon – not bad. We continued talking without the former contributions of the people who had been sitting with us, until I noticed that numbers were again dwindling in the venue. Time stands still for no one – we were moving onto the third and final stop of the evening: someone’s house whose name escaped me.
“I thiiiink I’m gonna head home” the physio said to me with a shred of uncertainty.
“Aw, really? No! You should come too!”
“Agh! Very tempting, but I shouldn’t, I have work in the morning”
Rats. I’d progressively worked up my flirting game, surpassing lukewarm and wasn’t ready for the back and forth to end. I was in a strappy black mini dress and black sharply pointed kitten heels – simple but effective – and hadn’t wanted the outfit to be neglected of more potential hours of flirtatious dallying.
“Are you sure?” I looked up at him, drawing my ‘sure’ out on the pavement outside of the bar before he let out a small groan of exasperation.
“No. Nooo, ugh, stop it” he smirked. “No, I’m gonna go home, I shouldn’t stay out”
“That’s fine, slightly disappointing but, very understandable”
There was a small gap in conversation, before he inched closer toward me.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked.
I felt my cheeks grow warm and my mouth form the shape of a shy smile as we maintained our eye contact, “Mhm”.
It was a very public display of affection, which typically I avoid, but with more cocktails, comes less inhibitions. It was a bloody good first kiss, I will admit.
I gently pulled away from him and felt my eyes dart either side of me to determine who had witnessed the kiss – a sobering experience. A few minutes later we hugged goodbye and as I made my way all of four steps to where my friend was standing, she asked, “ummmmm, excuse me, did you just kiss the physio!?”
“…yes”.
“Awww!”
We spent the next five days messaging back and forth, barely leaving any room for lulls in conversation with the exception of our respective working hours. Even then, we were still making time to pick up the dialogue where it had last left off.
His messaging style was similar to mine, short bursts of sporadic thoughts that were somehow still relevant to whatever we were discussing, with emojis littered throughout the text. It was endearing, not because it mirrored my own digital comms style, but because it was immediately obvious that this was something that he was excited about. It felt refreshing to maintain conversation with a man who didn’t feel it was necessary to conceal any of his emotions, or enthusiasm. It was something that drew me to him immediately – his innate ability to be vulnerable.
Together with our propensity for shit talking, we had also been chipping away at making plans to see each other again. He suggested a mid-week picnic and a walk at Mt. Lofty Botanic Gardens, and I felt grateful toward both the proposal to indulge in something wholesome, and his execution of making the plans.
The morning of, he picked me up and upon arrival at the gardens, we decided on the perfect picnic spot. We unfurled the rugs, turned on the speaker, and he began to empty the contents of his picnic basket out before me: chopped carrots, cucumber, an assortment of fruit, home-made babaganoush, cashews, olives, a bottle of chardonnay, cold water, and two glasses. All I brought was a blanket. But for what I lacked in picnic necessities, I like to think I made up for in excited energy.
About an hour into our scenic date, with Angie McMahon playing on repeat in the background, he asked me the dreaded question: “so what’s your family like?” No, please god, anything but that.
How can you politely tell a near-stranger that your family is in shambles without them asking further questions? I don’t think you can. Instead, I’ve learnt to simplify my response to this question with, ‘my parents aren’t together, I have two sisters, I’m the youngest’. Short, sharp, to the point, and usually only leaves room for questions about sibling dynamics as opposed to nuclear family dynamics. For the most part it worked, until he began to slowly walk me through his own family dynamics, and I was quickly learning that I wasn’t the only party who had endured a dysfunctional upbringing. It was tricky to navigate. On the one hand, was his very vulnerable and transparent self which I recognised myself in, but on the other was my desire to gently shut the conversation down before it steered into heavy, inappropriate-for-first-date territory.
I later discovered that he also has ADHD, and upon learning this, I saw another part of myself in him – the tendency to delve into topics, usually emotional, completely unfiltered without stopping to consider if the context is appropriate. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve missed the social mark on this one, and it is in large, part of the reason why I have implemented a rule to be tight-lipped on the subject of my family with new friends. Sob stories are reserved for intimate relationships, or Substack.
Aided by the space of the gardens, sun, and a tipple of chardonnay, I strategically and successfully side-stepped the family talk. We spent the remainder of the afternoon frolicking short distances to and from the rugs, snacking, hitting repeat on our favourite Angie songs, and smooching (when nobody was around). We had such an easy and fun afternoon, that I invited him back to mine after the picnic, and he stayed the night.
The next day, Amelia messaged me to gather intel about my first date with the physio, as is part of the girl code – not a morsel of information shall go undisclosed.
“Did you go on picnic? How is it!”
“We did yesterday!! it was so gorg”
“omg!!!! how was it xxxx”
“he packed wine, snacks, water, a speaker and made babaganoush. And picked me up!”
“Omg stop it. PICKED YOU UP. THE GENTLEMAN”
“And we came back here, kept chatting outside, bonked twice, he stayed over and we got some Vietnamese entrees and watched Schitt’s Creek. And then we bonked again this morning”.
“TORI”
“I feel very comfy with him, and I know he does too (cos he told me)”
“This makes me so happy! THREE BONKS”
“I feel so calm. I’m like this is weird, I hung out with a man and shagged him and let him sleep over and I didn’t panic about it today”
“The lack of anxious hyper vigilant response can only be a good sign!!”
“I think so!!”
Two days later, it was a Friday, and I saw the physio again for a brief outing, tagging along with him and his friends for some drinks in the city. I ended up running into some friends of my own, seeing the night grow increasingly social, as we flittered from conversations between ourselves, to others. Observing how he navigated socially and externally left me with only positive impressions of him. There wasn’t an ounce of smothering or any attempts at desperate clawing when one of us would leave the other’s side at the table for long periods of time. We’d simply plonk back down in our respective chairs and enthusiastically greet each other as though we hadn’t arrived together. When we eventually called it a night, I took both the physio and a burrito home with me.
That Sunday, I was driving to my sister’s house for my nephew’s first birthday, coffee in hand, belting Taylor Swift songs, and so distracted by my lingering crush that I forgot what was waiting for me when I arrived. Not only were my parents about to be in the same room as one another for the first time since they separated (years), but I was about to be in the same room as my mum, who I hadn’t spoken to since Boxing Day.
We’d had words – if you can even call it that. After so many years of enduring her habitual Christmas cruelties, I’ve learnt to keep the conversation to a minimum when she lashes out, despite years of repressed arguments that I keep to myself. Not even the shower’s walls have heard them, they just swim around in my head for weeks after she’s provoked me, and then I force myself to move on from them, from her. Typically, this coincides with the New Year, meaning that I can convince myself I’m another year older, wiser, and further away from her. As though I’m completely fine with this, as though my mother wound doesn’t grow deeper with every passing year that wedges more distance between us.
I skimmed over her last message to me whilst driving, an apology that my sister had forced out of her for both of our sakes and considered my options before sighing out loud to nobody but myself. I had hoped that with enough time, and enough messages from friends stacked on top of her lingering, unanswered apology, I could continue to ignore it. Out of sight, out of mind. It’s a tricky thing, to exist in a constant limbo of forgiving someone and holding your breath for the next blow. It’s a large reason why I keep so much distance between us, and why I now haven’t spoken to her since Easter, self-preservation. You can’t help somebody who doesn’t want to be helped, you’ll only hurt yourself in the process.
But still I had to call her, had to be the bigger person, if you can even call it that. Repeatedly forgiving her never feels like a step forward, only backward, and suddenly I’m a child again, smoothing out the creases so that she can continue acting as though there was never anything to conceal. The conversation lasted for all of five minutes despite both of us having the luxury of time on our hands.
When I arrived, everything was normal (our version of it), and we greeted each other with our usual mother-daughter act only decipherable to us. Drinks in hand, and quickly running out of conversation, she leant on her usual tactic reserved solely for me, “want to hop outside and have a smoke?” “sure”.
We stood side by side, exchanging pleasantries about the weather, not knowing what else we could possibly talk to one another about when she asked me, “so how’s the psychology degree?” “Oh” I said, “I’ve been studying social work…for…almost three years”. “Well!” she started, “maybe if you actually called me, I would know that”.“Mmmm. Anyway, I’ve deferred. I want to pursue writing, instead”. “Righto. Well…you always liked that. Remember when you had that poem published when you were little?” “Yeah, of course I do”.
We are strangers to each other.
I assume that she felt the same level of discomfort that I was experiencing, an amalgamation of hurt and years-long regret that neither one of us knows how to address, because she followed up with the only other topic of conversation that she trusts will relieve us of our inevitable stagnancy.
“So, any men on the scene?” “Actually” I said with an air of excitement, “there is!” I explained how we had met and described in small detail about the execution of the picnic and how sweet it was, skimming over details I knew she wouldn’t be interested in, or would somehow take offence to. Unsurprisingly, she scoffed. That’s the thing with my mum, I don’t think she wants me to be miserable (fingers crossed), but I have always suspected that my being alone has been a source of pleasure for her. A secret aid for her sore spot, finding relief in my seeming loneliness. As though it’s somehow derivative of her own singledom, as though she’s not flawed and can’t be held accountable for being on her own if her daughter is too. Her own flesh and blood.
“Hm” she responded, “well, they’re all shit, the lot of them”. Despite it being the response that I’d anticipated, I wasn’t any less deflated by it. I walked back inside wondering what it must be like to have the kind of relationship with your mum where you can talk, not just about relationships, but about anything. I found my cue to abandon the conversation, and later, the birthday. When I arrived home, the physio messaged me.
“tttttttttttoooooooooooorrrrriiiiiiiiiii”
“PPPHYSIO”
“Hello. I am at home. chilling tf oooout. still hanging with the fam?”
“Hello. Ooh when did you knock off? I have just gotten home, got outta there as soon as the first opportunity presented itself”
“hahaha that is fair enough! I knocked off at 3:45. happy days. ate brekky around 9:30 so I ate a bunch of hummus and bread before I left lol”
“Delicious. Both @ the knock off time and the snacks. My lunch was guacamole and a few pieces of roast chicken. Doesn’t feel right considering how much food there was”
“well!! what’re we gonna do about that!! some dinner perhaps?”
“Yes. Please.”
He came over, we had dinner, he stayed the night. I won’t bore you with the details because outside of that, there isn’t much to say. But the following morning, things took a turn for the strange/sad/weird.
I lived close to work, so I suggested we venture there for a (free) coffee before parting ways as I was headed to Melbourne for the week. We were sitting at the table exuding faux couple energy, talking comfortably, and sipping on our coffees, when out of nowhere the physio’s entire demeanour shifted from sprightly to incredibly solemn. It was as though a light had gone out. “I haven’t heard from my step-dad and that’s really weird because I usually always hear from him in the morning” he said fidgeting with his phone. “Oh, I’m sure everything is fine. Maybe he slept in? Maybe he knows you’re out and about and didn’t want to disturb you?” “No, it’s really strange. I hear from him every morning. I’ve sent him a text, but I haven’t heard anything. I just get worried… he’s got bad mental health…” he trailed off, before turning away from me. A moment of uncomfortable silence passed before the physio heard a notification on his phone. It was his step-dad, he told me. “Is everything ok?” I asked “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine, he just didn’t have his phone on him”. “Are you ok?” “I just need a moment… I think I’m going to take a walk by myself if that’s ok” “Yeah, sure, of course, whatever you need to do”.
He wiped his eyes and removed himself from the table, leaving me wondering what on earth had just happened, and how a quick coffee had turned into repressed tears at a café.
As I sat on my own, I observed that the café was quickly filling up, and pre-empting the busy wave that was about to hit, I gathered my belongings and began my search for the physio outside. I eventually gave up, hovering at my car not knowing where he had gone, when a few moments later he approached me still looking completely distraught. I didn’t know what to make of it, I’d just wanted to have a coffee with him before I left Adelaide for the week. I asked him if he was ok, but all he offered was a handful of words and a limp, sad goodbye. I got in my car and felt immediately guilty.
Less than an hour later, I saw a text on my phone from the physio apologising, explaining to me that he can’t discuss these particular worries without having a strong emotional reaction. I reassured him that it really was ok, and before I realised, I was apologising for having ‘poked and prodded at the wrong time’. Hang on a minute, had I? poked and prodded? Or was I merely a witness to his echo chamber of voiced anxieties?
“you didn’t know so that’s okay” he told me “you didn’t know what direction that conversation was heading in. I should have tapped out earlier. I’m good now. Listening to some bangers and I’m cleaning and drinking beer. Life is good” It was 11:15am. “I definitely did not know the conversation was going to head in that direction, and I appreciate that it’s a really sensitive and hard topic to accidentally broach. If we ever start to head towards a conversation topic and it makes you feel ways, just let me know and I can divert”.
He ignored the message. Suddenly, I didn’t feel guilty, I felt perplexed. Not only had he instigated the conversation himself, pulling me into his unforeseen and inappropriate bubble of sad, but he had accepted my completely unnecessary apology, and then left me hanging. Not entirely confident in where I stood after the very sad coffee, I consulted in Jess, a close friend/roommate/psychologist who confirmed that it was in fact, bizarre behaviour. I spent the remainder of the day frantically packing and chronically puzzled.
The week away in Melbourne helped, (said the wife who had been married for a decade, not the woman who had been dating a man for a fortnight). We organically stepped back into our regular rhythm of messaging, sending frequent photos and updates as each of our days progressed. We even talked on the phone, which is so far outside of my comfort zone, I considered that it could only be a good sign. Look at me! Phoning someone! This crush is real and safe! We made plans to see each other the night that I got back to Adelaide, but coming off of minimal sleep, a delayed flight, a Taylor Swift concert, and the stress of transit that becomes a whole-body experience (despite the short distance), I knew better than to proceed. I have a habit of convincing myself that if I can’t be 100% on, then nobody will enjoy my company, particularly men. I know it’s unfounded and not rooted in any real logic, but my experiences of men getting bored with me very quickly has seen me develop a mechanism whereby if I don’t feel that I can be my full self, I’ll isolate to avoid repeating conversations in my head, later kicking myself for what I did or didn’t say, or how I did or didn’t behave.
He touched base in the afternoon to confirm the time as he was coming from work, and I explained to him that I was regretfully too tired to proceed with our plans, to which he was very understanding. I laid in my bed for all of ten minutes before quickly deciding, to hell with it! this man likes me! this man might even like me when I’m tired and not very charismatic! I called him and without explaining my honest reasons for cancelling, asked if he would still like to come around. I don’t know if it’s rational, but I really was expecting him to say, I’m turning the car around, I’ll see you soon! And then I would remain wrapped in my sheets, tired, but giddy at the prospect of him inching closer toward me as the minutes rolled over. Womp womp. He told me that I had made my bed, and I should lie in it. The irony is, that I already was.
When we ended the call, I turned both my phone and my body face down, once more kicking myself for the things that I had said, and the ways that I’d behaved. I felt like a dejected, sleep deprived, loser.
Following a surprisingly good night’s sleep considering the anxiety hole I’d cornered myself into, I decided to refrain from exposing him and his unnecessary comment to anyone in close proximity to me. I’d once more convinced myself that my inability to emotionally regulate and side-step my insecurities was solely a ‘me’ problem. GET A GRIP, I told myself. We continued messaging over the weekend and at his suggestion, made plans to see each other for a beach sunset on Monday evening. The same day that I had a tarot reading with my favourite (only) psychic booked in. If only she could have shed a slither of light onto what was to come.
Basking in the remnants of sun at Henley Beach together on our towels, I reached for the bottle of wine we had purchased when I spied the cups that he had brought. They were tiny, stainless steel, coloured camping cups that came in their own equally small, zipped neoprene bag.
Facing him on my side, I said, “these are cool, where did you get them?”
He sat looking out to sea with his knees up to his chin explaining that the cups belong to his mum, that his parents were first generation immigrants and had a hard time getting rid of unused belongings. He looked devastated, and I observed as he brought his fingers underneath the gap in his sunglasses to wipe away tears. I was perplexed, again. I’d just wanted to know where he got the cups from. I tried my best to be understanding but the entire thing felt so strange considering that he’d planned the evening and brought the drinking vessels. It felt almost pre-ordained.
I attempted to steer the conversation away into something more appropriate for a fourth date, deciding to lean on the tarot reading that I’d had done just hours before. I was animatedly sharing small details, offering anecdotes, and describing this woman’s brilliant demeanour when I realised that everything that I was saying was falling onto deaf ears. Still sitting upright with his body facing toward the ocean, he dismissed everything that I’d said and instead began talking about something trivial and completely unrelated. And then I noticed as he wiped his eyes dry again. “Are you… are you ok?” I asked. “Yeah… I’m just… I’m just feeling a lot tonight”. It all felt so reminiscent of young adulthood, bordering on the early teenage years, the same way that you’d post a Facebook status with lyrics to a sad song waiting for someone to ask you what was going on. Except I refused to bite any further than asking after his general and immediate well-being. There’s a time, a place, and more importantly, a person. And a date on the beach with a woman you’re getting to know hardly meets the criteria for any of those three things. Despite the general air of discomfort and our repeated swings and misses, the night, along with us, gradually found a steady pace. We spent the remainder of the evening laying on our backs counting stars as they slowly began to appear in the sky before it got too dark, and we packed up our belongings. Once we were back at mine and de-sanded, we crawled into my bed to continue watching Schitt’s Creek together. We were cuddling with my laptop cradled in the space between our legs when, as Meryl Streep in Mama Mia would write, one thing led to another and…“I’m getting close” he said. “Not yet” I responded. At the age of twenty-eight, I’d finally found my voice in the one place I’d never seem able to previously reach it – the bedroom. A few minutes later, his paced had slowed to a stop, and then I heard him say my name. The way it escaped his mouth was drawn out, light, song-like. It held similar inflections to that of admonishing a child with more jest than frustration, “tooooriiii”, he laughed before telling me that he had finished. We weren’t using a condom. My hands still pressed against his shoulders, I stared at his chest in silence, unable to tilt my face up to look at his. I froze momentarily before lifting myself off of him and grabbing my towel hanging from the door of my wardrobe.
I can’t remember if he said anything to me, but with my back turned to him I stepped into the bathroom and softly shut the door. I stepped into the shower, turned the water on and stared at the tiles before crouching down to my knees and biting down on my fist – I didn’t want him to hear me crying. I don’t know how long I was in the shower for, but I’d hoped that when I returned to my room he would be gone. I didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to utter a word to him. But when I entered my room again, he was still there. “Do you want me to go?” he asked coyly. “Yes. I want to be alone” I spoke to the carpet.
I didn’t know where to put myself, which is a strange feeling, being uncomfortable in the one over familiar place of comfort: your own bedroom. I sat on the edge of my bed, still wrapped in my towel, and stared into my wardrobe as he gathered his belongings.
When I heard the front door close behind him my body emitted loud, heaving howls. I didn’t have a moment to determine if it was a rational response before releasing the sobs I’d tried to contain in the shower. A part of me felt like I’d overreacted, that I was being unnecessarily dramatic. Was I supposed to laugh it off with him? Wave the violation of my consent away with an air of, ‘oh well!’ or ‘whoopsie daisy!’ or ‘shit happens!’. The way he’d giggled afterward had certainly made it seem that way. But there was another, bigger part of me that felt a year-old trauma that I’d tried to manage privately suddenly push its way through to the surface. It wasn’t that the experiences mirrored each other, but one got tangled up in the other, and I wondered if I would ever feel safe with a man again. I wanted to scream and vanish at the same time. I wanted the ability to pick at the fabric of time. I wanted to undo it all. Bodies do keep scores, down to excruciatingly finite details.
Mid-heave, I heard the handle to my bedroom door twist open. It was Jess. She covered the space between the doorway and my bedroom in the blink of an eye and wrapped me in the kind of hug that enveloped my entire body. “Shhhh” she cooed, “just breathe, just breathe, you’re ok, just breathe”. The immediacy of her comfort was like controlling a faucet – her hand rubbing my back seeing my breath quicken before slowing to an almost normal pace. Safe, safe, safe, I am safe here with her.
Minutes later, when I gently peeled myself out of her embrace, she asked me what had happened. “Oh, Tori. I’m so sorry. That’s so wildly irresponsible of him, and the last thing you needed”. I blew my nose into the tissues that appeared seemingly out of the nowhere and she didn’t leave my side for thirty minutes. It was 2 o’clock in the morning. No matter the time or the place, she is my person.
Before I fell into a deep, defeated sleep, I unlocked my phone to see that the physio had messaged me. “I locked the door on my way out. I never meant to do that to you tori. I am so sorry”. I ignored it. It’s not that I believed that the apology was insincere, it was that the damage was already done. He had both laughed and failed to apologise until he could do so behind the wall of his phone. The entire thing felt shockingly juvenile, and I can hazard a guess that had I responded differently, he might never have been forced to take a step back to understand the gravity of the situation. But did he?
A few weeks after the incident, I was talking to our mutual friend on the phone who told me that she had recently ran into him. “I just pretended I didn’t know anything when he brought you up, but then he walked me through everything. And… he said that it only happened because you were pinning him down”. Pinning him down. His six-foot something body to my five-foot frame. Pinning him down. “…Are you…fucking kidding me?” I sprang up from my cross-legged position on the floor and stood frozen. How many people had he shared this blatantly misinformed version of events with, in an effort to absolve himself? I’m at an age, and a place in my life where I do finally care much less about what people think of me, but that’s hardly the point. He had finessed the details of the experience to convince himself that this was not his burden to shoulder. Twisting the narrative and wiping his hands clean to the detriment of himself, not solely because of this chapter, but because he had pardoned himself from taking accountability, despite previously apologising for his actions. It’s another tired story of a man missing the opportunity to take responsibility to better himself and his ability to empathise. It is both for a lack of wanting, and a lack of trying, and for us as women, it is dire; how quickly a horror story for us can become their version of a mocked, tall tale. How quickly we are willing to look the other way for fear of what they might say, think, do. How devastating the effects are when we feel forced to be meek, silent, complacent women. The kind who can laugh off a man finishing inside of her as though she’ll face no consequences for it. As though she won’t be burdened by the physical, emotional, and financial responsibility of her body, that he saw as just that – a body. I am done with biting my tongue for fear of social repercussions – instead, I will bite the hand that does not feed me.
***
In the lead up to writing this piece, I felt stuck trying to determine if it was worth it, if I could do it. Part of me felt apprehensive about taking all of this and putting it under the microscope, fearing that it would do more harm than good. I wasn’t fearful of the ramifications if he potentially read it, I was more concerned that I’d finish this piece and be left to suture old wounds that he, and others left, that I was choosing to scratch at. Would it be worth it? What was I trying to achieve? When I did decide on proceeding with it, I still didn’t want to go near it. I’d open my laptop and lightly drum my fingers on the keyboard, not actually putting any words down. I’d stare into space and try to piece the timeline back together, only to find an excuse to walk away from my desk. I started feeling angry, again, not just at him, but at so many of them for all that they had taken from me in one way or another. For all of the sleepless nights and self-deprecating thought spirals, for all of the ways that they had made me feel less human, and more shameful, simply for being a woman who had wanted. And then, on my third consecutive day of tentative writing attempts, a friend phoned me with a horror story that echoed this very one. Another woman. Another friend. Another violation of consent. When we later hung up, I marched back to my desk and shut the door, determinedly remembering myself and my intentions for this entire project. Catharsis, healing, a reclamation of power – absolutely – but it’s so much more than that. As I said to the woman who messaged me about the pilot after I’d updated the chapter, I wrote this for me as much as I wrote it for you. With each chapter that I share, I receive more messages from women that I used to know, women who are still in my life, and women that I’ve never met. I am finding hope there, in those small interactions, that all of this, will not have been for nothing.