A few days before my last day at my job administering a college scholarship program, I’d received an email from someone named Dani. I’d contacted her to make an appointment, but she never showed.
On my last day, as I did one final skim through my emails, I stopped at hers again. I zoomed in on her Outlook profile picture. Half of her hair fell in a cascade of locks the color of honey, while the rest faded into skin the same color as her eyes. Her smile was irresistible.
Just past noon, I headed out to lunch, locking my computer and opening my office door to leave.
And there she was.
She wore a black baseball hat pulled down just above her eyes, a floral button-up shirt and Vans, with a skateboard tucked under her arm. I watched as she investigated the posters on my office walls, the books on my shelf and the pictures on my desk. She had an energy that pulled at me like a bad habit.
“Is this your sister?” she asked, pointing to a picture of me and my partner sitting on a bench holding hands. I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not.
“No, that’s my partner.”
“Oh, how long have y’all been together?”
“A little over two years.”
“Humph.”
She sat down and I tried to dive into the reason she’d come to visit me, but all her questions were about my personal life: Where are you from? How is it that we never ran into each other on campus before today? What do you do outside of work?
I told her I was a poet, and we started vibing about the monthly Slam event we both had connections to. I tried to let her know I’d be at the Slam later that night without it sounding like an invitation. She simply nodded.
That night, as it snowed like the entire season decided to happen all at once, I got dressed for the event then went downstairs to find my partner sitting on the couch, playing Xbox.
“You sure you don’t want to go?” I asked on my way out the door.
Her eyes remained locked on the TV. “Have a good time and be careful driving.”
About an hour into the event, Dani walked in. She hugged me and took the seat next to me. On my way up to the mic, I could feel her eyes follow me. My voice and hands shook as I asked the audience for grace since I hadn’t performed in a couple of years. I looked straight ahead and in my direct line of sight was Dani, urging me on.
Later, she took the stage. Unlike every other artist that night, she performed without the mic. I had never heard anyone the way I heard her that night. And I could tell she knew it.
I met up with Dani at a coffee shop the following week. I told her all about the things in my relationship that were making me unhappy. As we sat across from each other, her eyes reached for the parts of me that she knew weren’t seen very often.
Coffee shops became our thing after that. I’d arrive and she’d be waiting for me with my drink already ordered and her hands and heart out for me to rest my sadness in.
Things were getting worse at home. My partner was emotionally absent; Dani was always there to listen. My partner hardly ever said she loved me; Dani told me I deserved to be loved. The more my partner abandoned me, the more Dani became necessary.
This was dangerous for us both because I had no intention of leaving my partner. I was married to the idea of her, and of us: of our history, our house and our potential for future children. The promise of all that still seemed more realistic to me than running off with a woman who’d just come into my life out of nowhere.
Dani had mentioned to me she was a healer and, about a year after we met, I told her about a longstanding pain in my uterus that had recently gone from tolerable to unbearable. My doctor always said I just had a treacherous menstrual cycle — nothing to worry about. Dani invited me to her apartment for a second opinion.
Her living room was full of plants and golden light that seeped in from the setting sun. I lay on her yoga mat while she lit white sage and Palo Santo, tracing my body with the smoke. She held my hand and asked me to trust her. I watched as she closed her eyes and rubbed her hands together, placing her palms on my belly.
When she opened her eyes, she told me to revisit my doctor and to ask about uterine fibroids.
I went back to my doctor the following week and asked her to check for fibroids. After she scheduled an ultrasound and did a proper exam, she identified my fibroids, some of which were the size of tennis balls.
Dani had been right.
I fell in love with her at that moment of diagnosis. I’d been stuck chasing a fantasy version of my relationship but Dani was the one who made me feel real and alive.
Yet I still couldn’t leave my relationship. I’d taken too long to wake up.
Before she left my life, Dani sat with me in the middle of her floor, my hands resting in hers. She told me that I was her favorite person and that she just wanted to love me the way I deserved but she knew I still loved my partner too much to leave her. She told me that she couldn’t keep breaking her own heart even if it meant helping me to mend mine.
Shortly after that, she was gone.
I eventually moved out and left my partner, who honestly seemed happy to have the out. As I sit here now, feeling more alone than ever before, I wonder why the love I had that was painful had such a strong hold on me, while the love Dani offered that was healing was the one I kept at bay.
My surgery to remove the fibroids from my uterus is now just a few weeks away. I realize that, when Dani left my life, the magic I was coming to know went with her.
I’m still not sure how I will heal without it.
