From the writer: Take care of yourself before, during, or after reading any way you need to.

There is this boy who I called The Last Boyfriend.

He helped me discontinue my awkward streak of exclusively kissing philosophy majors. The Last Boyfriend studied Theater, rocked a beanie, and looked happiest when eating omelets. His facial hair grew quickly and I never knew his friends. He introduced me to acting while I worked a job that required no speaking at all, art modeling for drawing classes.

The Last Boyfriend and I were in the same Theater-English cross-over course at Oberlin College. The professor assigned each of us a scene to memorize from a stack of pale blue and yellow paperbacks with the announcement, “And we will all give feedback on your performance.” I signed up for one of the latest slots. The idea of feedback scared me the most. I spoke with no one in the class, and often tucked my head underneath students’ chatter of Brechtian Theory and dramatic irony. I’d listen, drawing misplaced stars in the margins, uncertain of what moments would become the most important.

That afternoon, I saw The Last Boyfriend on the front steps of a building worn from use, beige peeling off like skin. I reached for his shoulder, certain that he would not remember who I was.

I asked in a lowered voice, “Will you help me with my scene? I know you’ve done this before.”

It was my way of asking: How do I be a boy? How do I have a voice? How do I let people witness me? How do you do it?

I immediately trusted him. He had cracked, amber eyes that aged him; even outside of academics, he shared his thoughts with so much certainty it seemed I was destined to learn from him. He smiled, and said, “Of course, what’s your phone number?” I gave it to him and he stepped inside for class.

I went off to my job as an art model and folded my clothes more carefully than usual. I initially decided to sign up for the work as a way to heal from an eating disorder. I wanted to remember that not everyone would see or remember my body the same way that I did. On that workday, I thought about the lines for my assigned scene and left my body completely; back burning against the space heater. I wondered if any of the art students had noticed, if my traveling would be mapped into the portfolios they carried week to week. I rarely told potential dates about this job because most boys would want me for themselves. Over the coming weeks, I kept focus on what I asked The Last Boyfriend to train me to be.

He gave me his weathered grey hat for my performance playing a cheeky Irish boy who grew up too fast. I tucked my hair into its folds and let the room witness me under The Last Boyfriend’s advice. In the end, I don’t remember the room’s feedback, only his. He thought I had potential for more.

I went to his room at Fairchild Dormitory. His white-bricked walls were lined with posters about activism and Russian thinkers. He closed his laptop to my red-lipped, rosy grin stretched across Facebook. I didn’t mind that I caught him looking until he asked, ”Why is that your profile picture?” I pursed my lips with an “I don’t know” and put my backpack down. I wanted to apologize for messing up what he had imagined, trying to remember the time he clapped for me for pretending to be someone I’m not.

The lesson continued — I said no to him that night. I only wanted to kiss. He said that was fine and pushed “I Can’t Wait To Have Sex With You” in between our breaths. He unbuttoned his striped shirt, his six abs bulked like clenched fists. Still, we had only kissed. We kissed again in the morning, not as a charity, but as a feeling I wanted to make a playlist about.

I skipped out of his room feeling held, on his mind, still in his hat and borrowed socks. I bounced my way down the humid halls to the RA’s bulletin board, full of encouraging words for daring sophomores like myself. The Last Boyfriend, a junior, arrived to my side and reminded me, “That’s stupid.” I decided he was right and adjusted the rims of my bold blue and yellow skirt with patches of red as deep as my cheeks.

In the drawing classes I worked for, I mastered holding hour long poses. I learned how to quietly shift my weight between my hips even when onlookers believed I was holding still just for them. I was also doing better in the course I shared with The Last Boyfriend. I took the time to Google “Brecht;” I was learning the right places to put the stars in my margins; I started making an iTunes playlist entitled “Sunday Morning” just for us. The Last Boyfriend invited me to see a play with him. I didn’t tell him that I had seen it the night before, or that I had a poster for it already hanging in my dorm room.

Waiting for the lights to go down a second time, I asked, “What’s your favorite bathroom on campus?” I had the urge to tell him about mine. It was in my freshman year home, known for its mysterious bathtub, graveyard of lost cups and broken bike parts, and wallpaper of “consent is sexy” posters. The lights shifted to the Little Theatre stage. He whispered, “Why the hell do you want to talk about this?” I decided he was again right; I was distracting from something more important. It was okay, he still liked me. I haven’t messed this up. He pressed his thick hands into my leg as I stared ahead. I reminded myself: Perform. Be softer, be prettier, shave even if the other art models don’t.

That night we went to my room. We half-watched “Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical” under the covers in my little blue room. He climbed on my bones. We had gone on three dates of just kissing. I wanted to be fun and alive for him, convincing myself he would otherwise find another student or I would get an official “Bad At College Certificate” in my OCMR mailbox.

He held my back reminding me of what he felt I was refusing him—“I can’t wait.” Tongue wet on my ear, echoing, “I Only Want To Be With You. I Can’t Wait To Have Sex With You. I Know You Want To. I Don’t Want To Wear a Condom. I Am Ready When You Are.”

make my words small; detach. hold me down below your breath.

yes.

worn down from trying to stop you.

My smile and questions all became quiet; touch only where he wanted it. I said yes to the push and pull, everything out of me until I was hovering, hollowed out and obstacle-free; beautiful. I forgot about my muscles and bones and everything that supported my weight and the ability to push back.

It was my first time having what I thought was consensual sex. I thought I wanted to be had; it’s how I grew up.

After weeks of lying flat, the “I Can’t Wait” and “I’m Ready When You Are” stopped. It became “Now?” and “Are You Ready Yet?” I held the ceiling as if the bareness was my own reflection.

My job sitting naked in another room gave me a double-life when dating The Last Boyfriend. His gaze marked my body as capable and important only when I folded myself into his hips. In class, the artists’ eyes and hands noticed the folds in my stomach and infinite puzzles of shadow and light I could make with the slightest movement. There was no positive or negative feedback, only holding space as I put my own body into every pose. Every canvas and crumble of sketchbook paper held evidence of my hair, feet, the pressure I put into my own hands. I could feel the closeness of my own skin under the hot lights and between the sheets of another’s portfolio.

I received a gift one night while working at a sketching class where locals re-imagined my body in downtown Oberlin. After two hours of hurried hands and new layers of dust, an old woman in the front row gave me her charcoal sketch made alive on a sheet of white. It traced my body curled up, knees to my chest, rounded as if to finally rest. Her veiny hands set the page on the white podium that elevated my feet. She gently said, “Thank you for today. You can keep this.” Surprised I could be given back my own body, I retorted, “Are you sure?” She smiled knowing what you can only know by witnessing a person standing, out of performance, for one hundred and twenty minutes. She put on her aged sweatshirt and walked out of the room.

I took one last look at my newly angled body, safe and content, and rolled it up like a map. I carried it to The Last Boyfriend’s dorm room inspired by the possibility of connecting my divided worlds.

I fantasized bursting through his door, standing on his bed looking strong for the first time. I would shout so loud that the posters would fall, “HEY LOOK: I am a lot of things. I could move with this map — back to a place where I feel vast.” He would hang up the poster, tell me I am good without his grey hat, without his direction. After that, he would get us late night eggs from his Fourth Meal privileges.

In reality, I bust through his door, and stood next to his bed looking strong for the first time. I never had a chance to unroll the drawing, uncurl my body. He broke up with me that night with my shirt, like a collector’s item, on his crowded floor. He said, “I want someone more experienced, someone who won’t hold me back.” I was in the way of something good.

I walked to my dorm room on the other side of campus; threw my drawing into the folders and iron supplements scattered under my bed. If anyone asked me “Who is that?” I would say “No one.”

Days later, I worked another modeling gig, this time a drawing class for fellow college students. I tossed my shirt on the floor and held myself above the fog of charcoal-clouds. I stood even when it hurt, as if I had forgotten how to shift my own weight. Students in my line of vision made my body appear with shadow and misshapen breasts. I couldn’t move to hide my moles, leg hair, anything, and still no one left me. All I could do was slowly take pride in my silhouette being “an artistic challenge,” the eraser marks that would only add depth, but never come clean.

It was the only place I could imagine closeness and heat between myself and those who I would never have to defend myself to. My feet quiet under the spotlight, I wanted to be a landscape or a place that couldn’t be contained.

The drawing of my curled up self now hangs over my bed. If anyone asks, “Who is that?” when they point to my nineteen year old frame, I say, “That’s me, resting.” Resting in a place where my body was their teacher and no one had to teach me.

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