November 7, 2025 — “In the Darkroom” by A. Gliss”
CW: Grooming
In the first picture of you two, the flash turns both your eyes into pools of red. His stage-makeup concealer glows white under his. You stand a head taller than him, wearing khakis and a polo because that’s what you only ever wore when you dressed nice, your style as repressed as your sexuality. Still, you think you look good. You haven’t mastered the art of smiling without squinting. His arm wraps around your waist, too low to be entirely platonic. A woody scent spills from his skin, and the first word that pops into your head is rough. But describing smells as rough doesn’t make sense, right? He is rough, though. His grip, his jaw, his eyes. He is a cage, and he’s given you the key.
“Text me the photo,” he says. Yes, yes, of course I will, of course, you say, you think, you embody, you become: a reason to talk to him.
You stare at the picture for so long that you see it even when you close your eyes.
***
The next picture is just him. “You look so old for sixteen,” he texts. “Here’s what I looked like when I was sixteen.” He’s in the backseat of a car, silhouetted by light. His hair is brushed to the side, much longer than it is now. He layers a coat over a gray sweatshirt, both too large, swallowing him. A flip phone presses against his ear, his fingers awkwardly touching the base. He smirks, his eyes staring at the camera, and you. His past sixteen-year-old self leaps across time to connect with you, and it feels close to destiny.
***
At a water park, the wave pool splashes behind you both in the picture. You had two free passes from your Mom’s work. After returning from the bathroom, he says, “Sorry I took so long. It takes a while for pee to travel down, if you know what I mean.” This is not the first time—nor the last—he wants you to know how big he is. “I’m surprised my boyfriend can take it all,” he’d say. Yes, there is it: another hurdle to your love. He has a boyfriend he met in college, whom you rarely see, since he still needs another year to graduate. When you do see him, you suppress your bubbling hatred, thinking he is the reason why you two are not together. He spends more time with me anyway, you think.
But here, in front of this wave pool with screaming children, melting ice cream dripping down sugar cones, a hot, baking sun, he provides another glimmer of hope: “Seventeen is the age of consent here. You know that, right?” You shake your head no. He wears sunglasses, so you can’t track his eyes’ movement. He might be looking at any—or every—part of you.
Waiting a year and a half might not be an issue anymore. You turn seventeen in six months.
He just turned twenty-three.
***
A full solar eclipse, the first one visible from the U.S. in decades. He asks you to come with him, traveling three hours south to the path of totality—but it’s the first day of school. You spend an hour convincing your parents to let you go, using the same logic and reasoning he gave you. You pull up a map on your phone. You use many hand gestures, marveling at how entangled yours and his language and body movements have become in this moment. You put forth everything to spend a full day, alone, with him. Before, you would have never missed the first day of school, but you love how much he’s changing you. You feel more daring. Adventurous.
Your parents say yes. They trust this man, and now, looking back, you realize how hard he worked to earn their trust. Sweet talking your mother whenever they crossed paths, filling her with compliments that she soaked up like a dry sponge.
In the picture, your solar eclipse glasses perch on your nose, and you wonder how these flimsy paper frames will protect your eyes from permanent damage. Your heads point towards the sky. Razor bumps cover his neck, his after-shave carrying that cedar scent that you will soon always, and forever, associate with him.
On the car ride back, you’re awakened by a hand on your thigh, shaking you. The touch is electric, which may be cliché, but clichés exist for a reason. “We’ll be home in ten minutes.” Ten minutes? The day went by too fast. You hate yourself for falling asleep, missing precious time with him.
***
You don’t see him for a while. Sorry I’ve been so busy, he texts. Your camera roll fills with art containing sappy quotes that resonate beyond belief:
Let’s just stop being each other’s almosts, shall we?
Before the tempest comes, I remember how we feel.
Why is love the hardest thing of all?
The movie Call Me By Your Name releases on your seventeenth birthday; it feels like a film pulled from your life, except you live in a small, Midwestern, boring town, not Italy. But still, it all resonates, spreading throughout your body like an infection.
You wish it was summer, when you hung out with him all the time. Summer is for love. For wandering outside on cool nights to escape stuffy rooms. For late, longing sunsets. For bleeding skies that rip through clouds. For sweaty sheets and moving fans. For escape. Winter is hollow, cold, empty.
You’re alone on your seventeenth birthday. Your friends ask to hangout, but you say you can’t, on the off chance he texts you.
And he does. I have a birthday present for you. You’re seventeen now. Of course, now your romance will bloom. It’s legal. How could you not have realized?
You shave, Googling how to shave parts of your body you’ve never shaved before, thinking he’ll take you then and there. You speed to his house, running at least three red lights. He opens the door, wearing sweatpants that tightly hug his legs. You sit on his dirty carpet abound with stains, not on the couch, which somehow feels more intimate.
He passes you a card. Inside it, a letter. A letter you still keep in your nightstand drawer for some reason, a relic of how much it meant to you, but now, reading it over, you laugh, you cringe, your stomach turns, and you wonder how you could’ve been so stupid. So naive. But you were a teen, after all, even if, at every opportunity, he described how mature you were.
You,
My lack of telling you how incredible you are as a young man is not due to my lack of thinking so. I write these sappy things once a year and I like to just save it for then. I wish my 17-year-old self was as put-together, respectable, and mature as you are. For what it’s worth, I’m very happy to say that I’ve played a role in that over the course of our friendship.
Yes, he did always say he’s happy to be your role model. He sensed your obvious vulnerability: a wasp ready to lay its eggs. You clung to whatever crumbs of love you could find.
In our state, 17 is a big birthday because of the legal change, so I thought I’d share some “I’m 17 now, so what’s next?” thoughts with you.
I wanted to first address the elephant in the room—you can bang whomever you like now. When I turned 17, I remember that being my first thought. I was garbage then. I’m not really worried about you. I just thought you’d be amused at some of my slutty stories. By the way, I’ll officially tell you slutty stories now.
The next paragraph is going to be my “be careful,” real-talk paragraph. The gay community can be gross and dangerous (and so can the straight community, but the culture of shame and needing to be secretive has snowballed into a sometimes scary rape culture). If a guy much older is going for you (and at this point, that means 3+ years older) then they probably have a twink fetish and are not the guys you should be spending your love and effort on. I’ve said it before but while being gay may seem lonely at times, don’t go searching for a boyfriend. You’re a fucking catch and you will find a guy and be happy—don’t worry. You are everything I wish I was at your age.
With so much love,
Him
In the picture, you hold up the space-themed card, the earth, stars, and comets scattered throughout the navy background. Only the corner of his head is in the picture. You smile wider than you have in years, so ignorant of the false happiness that has claimed you, but it’s all the same; it’s what gets you up in the morning.
He does not take you then and there, however. He says he’s tired. Has an early morning tomorrow. You leave, crying in your car, wondering how easy it’d be to drive off the side of the road. A deep emptiness nestles its way into you. You’re seventeen now. So what’s missing? What will it take to earn his love? Why does he always trap you in his web, then just leave you there, never taking a bite?
***
His “gay army,” as he calls them, gathers in a coffee shop. He met them all through theater productions, including you. You take eager sips of your chai latté, welcoming the heat it brings in this crisp fall weather. You lean forward in your chair. Everyone talks too loud, puncturing the peaceful space. People stare, sending daggers through their eyes, but no one whispers. Everyone shares their stories of him. His venom, his web, his hold, his cage, his key. A dam has shattered. Stories spew out, uncontrollable. He cheated on his boyfriend with one of them. He said he can’t wait to date one of them. He said this, and that, and that.
You share your stories. You realize you are not special. It’s freeing, in a way, but equally devastating. Thankfully, you and him were not hanging out anymore. If you were, you wonder if you would have defended him. God, you hope not, but you’re not sure, because then you would’ve felt like the chosen one; the one who survived the most rounds of some cruel, evil dating show. Either way, your eyes are open, so you can finally end this chapter, right?
There’s a selfie of everyone in the coffee shop. You’re wearing a hat since it’s early and you didn't have time to brush your bed-head. In the selfie, there are held-up peace signs, tongues stuck out, brightly colored braces, faint hints of facial hair. No one looks “mature” for their age. They look like teenagers. How teenagers should look.
Four different lives, all entangled by him.
You leave for college. He barely graces your mind. He’s from another life. Another world.
***
A pandemic sends you home from college freshman year, when freedom and expression became your normal, wearing crop tops and painting your nails with friends from your dorm floor. At home, however, you revert. You’re sent back to the cage you worked so hard to escape.
You rearrange your bedroom three times. You buy new video games. You read with a cup of tea on the back patio, burying your toes in the grass and soaking up sun. You bike twelve miles on a trail near your house, until your thighs melt and the world shuts away. And still, and still, and still, it is not enough.
It’s summer, which you now associate with danger; it’s when your longing peaks. Now you know why some say heat is suffocating. Loneliness feels even more apparent when you’re constantly outside, but there’s no one else to share this sun with.
He must sense this, somehow; a predator seeking prey. He messages you: “Are you back in town?”
Yes, you say, you embody, then try to sever.
“Let’s meet up for dinner sometime.”
You’re nineteen, with a year of college under your belt. You feel capable of seeing through his tricks, his manipulation. Yet, something pulsates, thrums from your being, still, after everything, and you hate it, but you cannot stop it.
After dinner, he says he needs to show you his new house. You drink and play Mario Party, tapping into your competitive natures. You’re tipsy. The alcohol lessens your nerves, and reality slips away, this whole scene feeling hallucinatory, or something you’re acting out in a movie.
“You can spend the night.” A pause, as if scripted. “If you want. I don’t think you should drive.”
“Yeah, sure,” you say, wondering if he planned this. You think you know where this is heading, but you’re not sure. Him and his boyfriend broke up a year ago.
It’s an old house, so the wooden stairs creak as you make your way up to his bedroom, where all the blinds are closed. A cat encircles your legs. You sneeze, since you’re allergic to cats, and the sound scares the cat away. Now, though, with the cat gone, the privacy of this space settles on your chest like a weight.
His bedroom is barren, despite its enormous size; it contains only a bed, coach, and TV. He turns the TV on, but not the overhead lights, and once more you can guess where this is going. You take a big gulp of your mixed drink, the soda sizzling down your throat. The TV plays, the light reflecting across the dark room, shadows stretching across empty walls. You’re finally getting what you want, right? What you waited for, right? What your past self craved.
“Come sit on the couch with me,” he says, tapping the cushion next to him.
There are no pictures here. Some things are better left in the darkroom, forgotten, never developed.
***
The next picture appears on your Instagram feed. He’s a high school teacher now. He’s surrounded by teenage boys for the sport he coaches, most probably the same age you were when you first met him. You stare at the photo, a knife twisting through your gut, then quickly hit the unfollow button. You pray the cycle does not continue, that it ended with you, but deep down, you know that won’t be the case.
***
Graduating from college, you find yourself lost with nowhere else to go, so you return home. You post your new job acceptance on Facebook, and, of course, of course, of course, he messages you. And still, and still, and still, you reply, but it’s simple, cordial, like when he messaged you last summer: “I saw your mom at a retirement party. Did she talk to you?” Yes, she did, passing along his message: He wants to see you.
You keep your response short once more, hoping he gets the point, hoping to keep communication short—to keep the cage closed as he dangles the key in front of you, testing how easily you may come back. But you won’t. You can’t.
You could unfriend him on Facebook: the last communication outlet between you two, but it feels too overdramatic, too petty. In reality, you know, but don’t want to admit, that you don’t want to completely sever all communication ties with him. You are entangled, after all, and severance is more difficult than you think. How often does your childhood self seeking validation crawl its way to the surface? How much hold does he still have over you? You’re not sure, and that terrifies you.
***
You’re also not sure why you write all this, in a way it feels like a confession, a cleansing. But roots that are groomed and watered dig deep. There’s no easy purge, no matter how many fires you set, how many droughts you suffer. But you’ll write this for you, me, I, us, and them—a reminder of your past whenever your poisoned mind might try to reach out to him, to be wanted, to feel when feeling becomes almost impossible in this small Midwestern town, where you want nothing more to escape to a big city with options and overflowing love, but don’t the means right now.
You just turned twenty-three, the same age he was when he met you.
Every now and then, that emptiness resurfaces. You’ve never been in a relationship, but, when love hopefully one day arrives, you’ll remind yourself it was all worth it: the buried trauma, the secrets, the shame, the hollowness. One day, you hope, it will all be worth it.
A. Gliss is an English teacher from the Midwest. When he's not reading, writing, or grading papers, you'll find him doing yoga or watching/rewatching the reality TV series Survivor. His work has appeared in The /t3mz/ Review, Samjoko Magazine, and 96th of October, among others.
