Vanessa had said she would be in the American Express balloon, but Joan couldn’t quite make out which one that was. And so, as they all began to take off, Joan felt thrilled by each one lifting, all of them potentially holding Vanessa. If she was not exactly sure where Vanessa was, then Vanessa was everywhere.

“What’s so funny?” Joan asked. “This is dangerous,” Vanessa said as she handed Joan a towel. “Those hives of yours might just be the most romantic moment of my life.”

Bravery, Joan suspected, is almost always a lie. Courage is all we have.

mean, joking aside, if it does come down to you versus me, or me versus that guy Griff, or whatever—I hope I don’t do it with both elbows out, knocking everyone down. I hope I wait until I fully earn it instead of trying to steal the chance out from under someone. I want it bad, but still, I hope I do it right.”

She was trying to prove that she could be just like a man to all of them. To Jimmy. To Lydia. Because the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan’s experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being

Joan had had no idea how quickly you could learn another’s body. How swiftly their legs become your legs, their arms your arms. She was no longer Joan, or no longer only Joan. She was also part of this larger body, this larger self. That could only exist when they were together. And yet, when she was only Joan, that had changed, too. Joan’s body

Joan nodded, although she was tempted to shake her head. Frances wasn’t the lucky one. Joan was. It felt so good to love Frances. Joan’s love for her had not been Joan’s gift to Frances, but Frances’s gift to Joan.

Joan tried to remind herself that when Frances had been younger, she had held Frances’s little hand every single chance she got. When Frances had been a baby, she had smelled her hair sometimes for whole minutes at a time. She had been present for all of it. Didn’t that mean that she would not grieve its loss, since she had voraciously and

Vanessa didn’t quite understand either side of it—the betrayal of someone or the forgiveness possible. But Steve had said that over time, she would understand both. Once she’d loved someone long enough, she’d understand that anything is possible, that she was capable of worse and greater acts than she knew.