» Nonfiction

That Boy When You Were Sixteen

Jacqueline Doyle

Let’s say there was a beautiful boy when you were sixteen. Tall and skinny in the way of adolescent boys, he had long eyelashes and smelled like Old Spice deodorant. His bare skin felt very warm when you buried your face in his chest. The two of you spent every afternoon after school making out in his bedroom while his mom was at work. He had an unzipped sleeping bag he used as a bedspread. The plaid flannel lining smelled faintly of unwashed boy and sweat and cum and Old Spice, smells you liked because you associated them with the way his hands and tongue made you feel, and the excitement of taking off some of your clothes and leaving on others and saying no and saying yes, oh yes.

Let’s say none of that is true. Let’s say there was no boy, and what you remember from the year you were sixteen is being mouthy in classes and yelling at your mother and listening to the Doors holed up in your room and standing on the sidelines at mixers. And this: riding your bicycle in a sudden thunderstorm as evening is about to fall, coasting down a long steep hill, drenched, ice cold, exuberant. You thought you would never get away from the suburb you’d lived in your entire life, where everyone cared more about money and conformity than spirit or intellect or art and where there wasn’t a single boy who liked you. Soon enough there’d be college and lots of boys, and you’d take off your clothes and say yes, yes, oh yes. Beautiful boys whose names you no longer remember. But that year, you were alone.

You never imagined you’d look back at that sixteen-year-old girl and exult in her fierce integrity. Anyone at sixteen can imagine a boy with long eyelashes, after all. And you can imagine him now, balding, gone soft with a paunch, or maybe even gone to an early grave. A heart attack, cancer. You like the girl, though, still very much alive. She nods when you look for her in the mirror, unabashed and defiant, grateful for the life you managed to give her, grateful that she got away from everything she despised. Surprised, really, at what she couldn’t have foreseen: the power of her imagination and where it would take her and how it’s all turned out.

Let’s say there’s no such thing as a happy ending. It’s a shock to see her, the unhappy sixteen-year-old girl, and realize she never imagined that you’d get so old or that you couldn’t go back to being that young. You can say now that the beautiful boy you wanted so badly when you were sixteen didn’t matter at all, but you were so anguished then. Maybe it would have helped, if there’d been a beautiful boy. And now you’re happily married to a beautiful man, you have a beautiful son, but you worry about them. Are they healthy? Are they content? What if this or that disaster occurred? Life pushes you forward when you’d rather linger, but you really have no control over the accelerating pace or the final destination, coming so much faster and sooner than you ever expected. You’re getting closer every day, whether you like it or not.

Let’s say you accept that. Let’s say you don’t. Let’s say there’s a point where imagination fails you. But you haven’t reached it yet. Let’s just say.