When you are seven years old—with long, stringy hair the color of dust and dirt—a boy asks you to be his girlfriend.  

          You vaguely remember his name. Maybe something obscure, obnoxiously Caucasian. Braxton. Probably. Floundering, your mouth opens, then closes again. Tiny, calloused hands grip the chains of the swing, legs dangling over the playground mulch. There’s a slight ditch carved into the ground from all feet that have kicked off before you. Another pair of Sketchers, another recess, another time.  

          You dig the toe of your sneaker into the dirt, thinking.  

          Braxton’s bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for your answer. But you’re not sure if you have one. You’re not sure you know how to be anyone’s girlfriend.  

          You’re not sure Braxton knows how to be somebody’s boyfriend.  

          Your mom has one of those, and he makes the job look exceptionally difficult. His name is “Joe,” and he’s bald and stocky, covered in tattoos, and wears jeans with rhinestones on the asscheeks (you learned that word from Dad). Joe complains a lot about money and time and wasting one or the other, or both. Sometimes. Most of the time…both.  

          You wonder if Braxton would do that.  

          So, you decide to ask.  “Depends…” you say, spinning in little half-circles on your swing. “Would you act like a douchebag?”  

          You learned that word from Dad, too.  

          Braxton tells you he doesn’t know what that means, and you decide he might be slightly stupid.  

          You roll your eyes. Say never mind.  

          “So.” Braxton rocks back on his heels. “Do you wanna or not?”  

          You give the boy standing in front of you a firm onceover. He’s wearing khaki shorts and a T-shirt with dinosaurs on it—a Triceratops and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. There’s a strange stain on the collar. His knees are bruised, scraped, and he’s wearing Velcro shoes. Embarrassing.  

          There’s dried snot flaking off the skin just above the Cupid’s bow of his upper lip, and he has dirt packed under his fingernails. He needs a shower. He needs a haircut—that straw-blond mop is curling unflatteringly over his pointed little elf-ears.  

          But in spite of all of your observations, you decide he could be salvageable.  

          So, against your better judgment, you decide to give it a chance. 

          You say sure.  

          when your friends ask you thirteen years later who your first boyfriend was, you technically have to say Braxton. 

          But you later learn his real name was Ryan.  

 

          Your relationship with Braxton—Ryan—doesn’t last particularly long. But then again, you never really expected it to.  

          He tells you he wants to hold Sophie’s hand at recess instead of yours.  

          “That’s fine,” you say. “But we have to break up.”  

          Braxton looks flabbergasted.  

          “Why?”  

          “Because,” you explain patiently, “we aren’t in an open relationship. If you wanna hold hands with someone else, then you can’t be my boyfriend anymore.”  

          The phrase “open relationship” comes up a lot between Mom and Dad. You remember something about “miscommunication” and “I thought that’s what we were doing here, Wendy!” 

          Clearly, that wasn’t what they were doing.  

          You asked your sister to explain it to you one day—an “open relationship.” She’d been sitting in the bathroom sink, with her shins pressed against the handles of the faucet. She was doing her makeup, carefully dragging a black pencil across her eyelid.  

          Rachel shrugged. “It’s like when two people are dating and one decides to date someone else.”  

          You stared at her reflection in the mirror. You’re barely tall enough to peer over the counter. “That’s cheating.”  

          That word, you know.  

          “It’s not, though,” Rachel said. “Because both people know about it, and they agreed to it when they started dating.”  

          You thought Rachel was really smart for understanding all of that.  

          And you wanted to be smart like her. So, you made yourself understand.           Braxton says, “Oh.”  

          Then he says, “Okay.”  

          Then, “Bye.”  

          He walks off, across the playground, and away from you.  

          And to be perfectly honest, you’re relieved. Your hand is lighter without someone else pulling it down. Your skin doesn’t itch with anxious anticipation anymore. Before, when you’d sit in the cafeteria—book balanced on your knees so you could eat and read at the same time—he’d sit next to you and the fine hairs on your arms would stand up, stock-straight and sharp.  

          When you were a kid at your great-aunt Helen’s house, you and Rachel would try and catch her grumpy house cat, Edward. If either of you got close to him, the gray fur along his back would rise all the way up to the tip of his tail.  

          You think you looked a little like that cat when Braxton came around.  

          Your shoulders would tense up to your ears, and, without even seeing yourself, you knew the corner of your upper lip was curling up towards your nose—Rachel’s does the same thing. So does Dad’s. All three of you wear your emotions on your mouths.  

          But Braxton never took the hint. And that annoyed you.  

 

         You never wanted to be the one to tell people outright that they were making you miserable. Determined to spare someone’s feelings, you often sacrificed your own—even when you were a kid. Even now when you’re not.