What It's Like to Be Me

“What I love about you,” he tells me, “is that you don’t make mistakes. With numbers. Your taste in men—not so good—but your math is flawless.” I study him and try to see what other girls see. He is my friend. I spend most of our time together running interference for him. He would argue this, but he breaks hearts. His eyes are clear and green. He is beautiful. He would argue that as well. The girls are not heart-broken to be separated from his naturally shrewd business sense or his artist's eye. Probably no contention there.

We hug warmly, his arms wrapped around me, his body against mine. People see us and assume the most. None of it is true. In private, he musses my hair—what remains of it after ordering the stylist to chop it off in a fit of post-adolescent frustration over guys telling me “don’t cut your hair.” It is short, pixie-ish. “You don’t need long hair to be sexy,” he tells me. “Wear your glasses. I love hot smart girls with glasses.” My fingers trace the tribal band around his upper arm.

We have no shame about changing clothes in the same room. His boxers are low as he pulls up his pants; fluorescent light bounces off the sharp lines of his bare hips. Aesthetically fascinating—so different from what's under the waistband of my jeans. His angles bring to mind the geometry of the architectural studies he sketches for homework. I wonder if he would rather be penciling curves.


We dance in the lobby of the local diner, to disco songs we sing off key. “Older sisters,” he confirms. “Girls like to see your feminine side, as long as that’s not all they see.” He dances just close enough to make me wish he’d get closer. He knows too much for seventeen. So do I, but that’s because my dance partners are always older. High school boys are afraid to look you in the eyes when you’re dancing. Not him. His eyes are golden-brown, and they match his hair.

He shows up on my back porch and asks me to his senior prom. I say yes. He shows up on my back porch and says we ought to be just friends. I say “I guess.” “But,” he asks, “you’re still coming to the prom with me, right?” I go, because I have a fabulous sequined dress that I want to wear again, and because he can dance.


His lips taste faintly of coconut. It’s not chapstick or anything; it’s him. Always faintly of coconut--sweet but still masculine. I watch as they draw back into a smile and I know without looking up that he is glancing down. That’s what he does when he’s about to cast aside inhibition. He will kiss me again and his eyes will shift to the greener side of hazel, and I will know what he is thinking.


“When you look at me like that, I think of chocolate.”
“Well, we are in Starbucks,” he laughs. “I’ll get you a brownie.”


I know his eyes are cobalt, but I can’t see them. We are on the phone, debating competitiveness and office politics and drive. I ask him leading questions; he makes me define my terms. A screech cuts through the phone signal and for a few seconds, we are kids, giggling, bickering in the school yard. “Was that you?” “No. You?” “Well it wasn’t me.” Boyish. Charming. Then back to business. I ask him questions requiring statistics, and gauge his facility with numbers. I put words in his mouth. He cuts in. I talk over him. He says: “listen.” And I do. I stop mid-sentence. It is a small submission I do not begrudge. He doesn’t call himself a writer, yet he always uses his words precisely. And I want him to talk some more, because the sound of his voice makes me squirm.

He pauses, making sure my abrupt stop is not just instinct. He wants to know it is a conscious decision to yield. I wait--willingly, because he seems aware of the crucial but delicate balance. Without my willingness, his power has nowhere respectable to go. Acknowledge my authority and I will want yours. He modulates his drive as well as he does his voice, something feral only flickering occasionally—in the silences, between his careful phrases, when I catch him off-guard. Always tantalizingly close, but clearly well under his control. I hear assurance in his voice as he speaks of ambition, and imagine how lamplight looks playing across the skin of his bare hips.