In a profile of me for her creative writing course, my friend called me the “girl alone in the riot-proof dorm.” That’s what the past year has been for me: solitude, safety, self-sufficiency. It is everything that seemed impossible less than two years ago.

Contentment is harder to express than the depression or rage of my nineteenth year. How do you say “I am happy” in any way but just that? Pain is common, universal, widely felt, and mulled over. Happiness is fleeting and even if everyone’s had a taste, no one really remembers it or knows it beyond the moment. We recall the details and circumstances, but not the feeling. There are just the moments and impressions.

Sunday morning. Early March of this year. I woke up in a soundless riot-proof dorm from nine and a half uninterrupted hours of much needed slumber. I tapped at my laptop and drew my curtains, finding an email from Patrick and unexpected sunniness in the process. The sun blinked back at me, demanding musical accompaniment, so I put iTunes on shuffle and made my way to the bathroom, taking a route littered with wrinkled clothing, unread books, and half-empty cigarette boxes — pieces of a scattered life. Sometime between the scent of jojoba on my cheeks and the opening strains of a Weakerthans tune, I jolted awake when I took in the full extent of my surroundings. Standing there amid my mess of a room, I realized that I had finally cleaned up my mess of a life; that I had done even better than I could’ve ever expected and found a comfort in my own skin I would’ve deemed inconceivable a year ago.

This clarity comes every once in a while, far more frequently this year than last. Some mornings, I will wake up so inexplicably content that I remain flat on my back with eyes stretched wide to take in the cars and morning joggers beyond my window. Everything else can wait while I celebrate this small moment. I like to think of these instances as an expression of my gratitude, as an appreciative reminder of what I have: the ability to be alone and happy. For the girl who used to find it a challenge to merely emerge from her bedroom, this is a veritable triumph over the melancholic ailments to which she was enslaved.

And now, May is today, and I hardly ever spend the night in my riot-proof dorm anymore. Most mornings, I wake up next to a man and his dog. There is no window above my head. The light of dawn streams into his living room but his bedroom remains cloaked in darkness. My Aveda cleanser sits in his bathroom cabinet and he keeps his hardwood floors uncluttered, save for vague evidence of my presence like the occasional earring separated from its twin.

Like my hard-earned felicity, he too is not something I can verbalize. How can one adequately express the experience of someone else? How do I do justice to the hours between dawn and waking, to the broad expanse of his chest, to morning showers with his soapy hands in my hair, to the weight and feel of him through cotton and denim? There are slivers and glimpses, and together, they pile up into impressions. This is the most I can hope for: impressions that come close enough but not quite. Impressions just close enough to extrapolate from and misinterpret or maybe to understand, hopefully to understand.

There are entire nights spent on his living room floor, the two of us face-to-face with me on his lap and his dog splayed out beside us. For minutes at a time, we look. There is looking and more looking and nothing but silence and the occasional peculiar facial expression. Sometimes, after we have maintained prolonged eye contact to the point of absurdity, he will make a cautiously affectionate remark such as “I really enjoy spending time with you.” When it comes to words, I don’t expect anything more from my stoic German. Enjoyment is concession enough. Invariably, one of us will concoct some sort of prank or ridiculous scheme. We are never up to any good, not on our own and certainly not together. More often than not, we will dissolve into laughter at the prospect of carrying out our ludicrous plans aimed at confusing and provoking ludicrous people. That’s what we spend most of our leisure time doing: plotting and giggling. I make this six-foot-something man giggle.

He’s been asking every once in a while how “that piece” is going. He knows that I’ve been having a hard time writing, that I’ve been working on something about him but I cannot manage to finish it. I have been sleeping beside him for weeks yet I cannot bring myself to contemplate what he or this means to me. It is not a conversation I’ve had with him, my friends, or anyone else; it is not even a conversation I’ve had with myself. And until a few nights ago, I wasn’t able to articulate why I was encountering so much trouble.

I’m afraid of getting you wrong, Patrick. I’ve told you before that I am constantly afraid of getting people wrong. That’s why I feel compelled to ask my first subject over and over if it’s okay to put his coarse curls and careless habits down into words. He has always told me to write what I want without worrying what he or other people might think. You say the same thing.

But how can I tell you what you mean when I can’t even tell myself what you mean? Maybe, what I am really scared of is not getting you wrong but getting you right. I don’t want to write about you because it is too much, because words might give you meaning that I have yet to grapple with. And I am not ready for that. Not quite.

There was one morning when I woke up crying in his bed. It wasn’t long after I’d come back from seeing Kennedy in Germany. She was doing fine when I got there, meaning she wasn’t 1) institutionalized or 2) suicidal, which were both improvements from the previous week. When I left Heidelberg, I felt immensely better — even hopeful — about my best friend’s mental state. But for whatever reason, I dreamed of her shortly after and I woke with an image of her pushing me away. I was visibly bothered and he wanted me to talk about it. Usually, I appreciate his willingness to listen but on this particular morning, I hated him for it, for his inability to leave things unsaid. Because here is the thing: I am so used to getting upset over stupid, superficial things that I don’t even know how to get upset over real, important things anymore. I don’t want to cry over pictures of me on the Internet because that would mean I’m weak. So I don’t want to cry over my best friend being incredibly depressed and lost because that too would mean I’m weak. Even if what it really means is that I’m human. And he seems to think I’m human, the silly boy.

Human, in fact, was the last thing I felt like being that morning but I made the mistake of telling him something that led to something else and then everything tumbled out after, little bits at first and finally, entire pieces. I told him about resentment and fear and love and fear and loss. I told him about loss. What I lost. What she lost. What I want so badly that I’m afraid she won’t give. I told him about what it means to be family, what it means to be friends. I told him that sometimes there is no difference, that it is my sister I’m afraid of losing.

He said things and I nodded and I was fine and then I wasn’t and I turned away. I was trembling and naked against the morning.

“Come here,” he said. He touched me, pulled me to him, his voice so soft, my throat so hard. That was all it took. That is all it takes. “Come here,” he always tells me in moments like these and I cannot help but break.

“Hey,” he said again. “Come here.”

So I did, and for a moment, I felt human. When I sobbed, I shook.

A year and a half ago, I wrote a series of entries about Kennedy. Our freshman year of college had just finished and we were what I called then an “unlikely duo”. She is many things to me: my first and most significant girl crush, an authority figure who I am more likely to listen to than anyone else (my mother included), and nowadays a kind of sister. “Best friend” always seems inadequate.

We were supposed to go to Europe together that freshman summer but through a combination of my own irresponsibility (made a terrible impression on her family) and simple bad luck, we didn’t. She’s in Germany now and late this May, I’ll be joining her for nearly three months. So it looks like two years later, our trip is finally coming to fruition. This means a great deal to me.

So in celebration of our summer together, here is a compilation of entries about my greatest love of the past few years:

- - -

While riding on the Metro 70 this morning, I saw the man beside me reach over to his female companion and pick something out of her hair. A year ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about the gesture, but that was before I met CK.

CK is one of my closest friends at college. But more than that, she is also the first and only woman I have ever been romantically interested in. That fact is as public knowledge as it is a running joke. But it is also the truth.

Her hair and I are deeply involved. Poofy, unkempt, and unapologetically black, it shuns chemicals that threaten to smooth out its kinks. It has a life of its own. It has a spirit. My job is not to break that spirit, but to calm it. CK looks different when her tangles are neatly pried free. I wish I knew better how to handle black hair, because if I did, I’d pick out her hair completely for her. She rarely does it for herself, and so I find myself constantly retrieving odd pieces of paper and dust from her fro, when not busy taming it with my fingers.

CK doesn’t conform to traditional beauty standards — at all. And yet she has managed to capture my heart while piquing my sexual interest, no small task when considering that I am decidedly preoccupied with what our culture deems pretty. Here is a picture of her, if you can close your eyes and imagine: brown skin, full lips, big mouth, wide eyes, slender legs, round nose, and rounder bottom.

To me, CK is always attractive — but this is not merely an empty compliment I offer all my girlfriends. She is beautiful in a way that wine is better tasting once you have had a few sips to start. She is beautiful in the way that a lover is always beautiful. When she is fresh out of the shower, I sneak glances at her breasts and backside as she changes, because I might catch something new I haven’t discovered before on these seldom-seen spots. I have long determined through close observation that I have never seen a more beautiful body than hers.

For starters, CK has an amazing mouth. It is full and juicy, the most kissable I’ve ever encountered. Sometimes slick with gloss but usually bare, CK’s mouth is a contradiction of sorts. Peeks of metal and colored plastic hint at a tongue piercing, unexpected of this chaste Southern girl. The precise manner with which she bites down on her lower lip is altogether coy and disarmingly seductive. CK is a virgin. But of course.

Invariably, I am tempted to request a kiss, but the rare lip-to-lip contact she makes me crave often comes when I least expect it and never when I outright demand it. She is a frustrating lover who operates on a whim, most affectionate when least solicited.

CK is a small woman, and that too is part of her charm. She is compact, portable like me. Even with all her curves, CK is adorably petite, possessing a slender frame and the features of a cherub. Now that I have known the build of her body, I question whether I could ever be attracted to an Amazon, a taller, broad-shouldered species of girl. And the truth is, part of CK’s appeal lies in the fact that she reminds me astonishingly of me. We are girls who can be broken if squeezed a bit too hard, if pulled more forcefully than expected. And there is a kind of solidarity in living in the same five-foot-tall world.

This started as a piece about my relationship with CK’s hair but I realized in the middle of writing it that there is so much more that must be explained about her body and about her quirks in order to communicate the intimacy of my fingers working through her locks. So I will try, for the first time, to write more clearly than I ever have about what it means to love someone.

- - -

We met on the second night of school via our mutual friend Kam, although “met” implies handshakes and introductions while our meeting consisted of Kam escorting me from the door of a finals club to the door of my bedroom.

Immediately, she hated me. The feeling was more than mutual. She was the worst kind of abstinent. Laying no claim on holier-than-thou coolness, CK refrained from drugs, alcohol, and sex out of personal conviction alone. You could call her moral, but you wouldn’t dare call her straightedge. While she thought, “That rash, drunken whore is going to get herself killed,” I silently fumed, “Who is this short-haired, fully-clothed monster telling me what to do? Kam better get rid of this pint-sized bitch by morning.” Neither of us was particularly impressed with his taste in friends that night.

What followed that disastrous first encounter is a bit of a blur. Against all odds, we came around to liking each other. Precisely how, I can’t say because I barely remember. She informed the gay best friend that I was “actually cool” when sober. JB, in return, sang her praises. I decided that I was a fan of CK after all. After repeated run-ins through mutual friends, we became comfortable enough around each other to hang out, just us. One night in early fall, she stopped by my dorm room, upset at a guy’s inconsiderate actions. Mid-explanation, her voice cracked and eyes welled up. I didn’t expect it. The vulnerability she showed made the difference between friend and confidante. I trusted her completely after that.

Before two months had passed, we were living together. I relocated from my tense Canaday D suite into hers in the neighboring building. I liked her roommates better than my own. In a box by her closet, I kept a toothbrush, a towel, and flip-flops. Each evening between her sheets, I cradled my laptop, slept against her back, and crooned off-key the Bright Eyes that accompanied the late night. In the morning, I’d scurry down her stairs, across the courtyard, and up into my room where I quickly showered and changed. But after class and between meals, I’d be found in CK’s room more often than in mine, whether she was there with me or not. Sometimes, all the others were out, and they came home to no one but me, their adopted roommate, napping away in CK’s bed at the most content I’d been since college had begun.

I began to feel more comfortable in her skin than in my own. I took to wearing her clothes like I would wear a boyfriend’s, though I joked that her wardrobe (which ran more casual than mine) was reserved only for my grungy days. Her tshirts and sweatshirts and pants and even socks – they were all fair game, except for the size six shoes that would not fit. And although the mismatched outfits I constructed fit my frame, my appearance was that of a stranger invading fabrics not her own. I looked just as out-of-place in CK’s clothing as I did in the oversized garments of my male lovers.

- - -

I have learned CK’s curves from consecutive nights of side-by-side embraces, from furtive caresses over shoulders and under chins and down happy trails. I like to think that she has a body only I know how to hold and handle, that there are words and gestures belonging to us alone.

CK has a boyfriend now, but I don’t know if he picks at her hair like I do or if she drawls “baby” to him while teasing his cheek with her fingertips. I am certain that her paramour suspects me of being bitter. He would not be incorrect. As much as I adore him, I can’t help but think that he has somehow ruined our relationship.

My animosity toward her relationship is hypocritical. I date far more men than she ever has or will. But in my defense, none of them have ever presented an actual threat. I have been more fully exposed before CK than I have ever been before a boyfriend. And there is no man I have ever loved as deeply as I have loved her. There is a part of her not mine now but I do not begrudge her her contentment. In the same breath that I admit my jealousy, I confess I share in her happiness.

- - -

We were supposed to backpack through Europe this summer, just the two of us. We didn’t go, to our mutual disappointment. Now I don’t know if we missed the only opportunity we’ll ever get to take a trip like that together. Sometimes I wonder if a prolonged journey to another continent would have changed things. Away from boys and friends and boyfriends, I wonder if our thoughts would’ve turned more willingly toward each other; if during one warm, heavy night, we would’ve curled up on the floor of a hostel like we have countless times on her bed; if this time, we would have dared to press our noses together closer than we ever have before.

–September 2006

Disclaimer: The following is completely consensual. It is not rape. I do not endorse rape. The guy in the following entry does not endorse rape. There is a difference between aggressive sex and sexual assault. I really do not think a disclaimer is necessary for this to be clear, but since so many commenters have expressed concern for my well-being, I thought I’d assure everyone that I’m not being abused on a regular basis.

I woke up Saturday morning with my cheek pressed into his chest and his hands softly gripping my back. My skin was sticky against his, and when I gently pulled away from him, I felt the faintest sting, as if I had peeled off a layer of myself in the process. His body had absorbed mine overnight.

I yawned and got on my side, turning away from him. I was awake, but barely, and I would’ve headed straight back into slumber if it weren’t for the three alarms — his desk lamp, his watch, and his cell phone — going off at ten minute intervals, much to my annoyance. He kept pressing snooze. Instead of deep sleep, I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next hour while he slipped one arm beneath my neck, the other around my waist, pulled me closer, and breathed into my ear. He touched his lips to my neck. I pressed my ass back against his crotch and felt him harden. We were both still half-asleep when I turned my head all the way around to kiss him. His mouth felt hot and I was hungry for it, even or maybe especially, in the morning when he tasted slightly bitter.

“You feel better?” he asked. He pulled away and rested his fingertips on my cheek. I nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Then maybe I won’t be as nice I was last night.”

He let his hand drop, lingering at my throat to briefly encircle it. I swallowed and closed my eyes. Practically asleep again, I started to murmur something about not being in the mood.

“You what?” he demanded fiercely. I jolted from my haze. His hand was back around my neck now, tighter this time. I hesitated before answering.

“I’m … tired,” I said carefully. “I don’t feel like having sex.”

“You don’t feel like it?”

He made it sound like the most inadequate explanation he’d ever heard. I shook my head. I felt like a girl.

“If you don’t feel like it,” he continued. “Then you shouldn’t have woken me up by rubbing your ass against my cock and making out with me.”

He had a wicked look on his face, the same one he had when he dragged me around his living room by the hair and forced my head down on his cock so hard that I had to strain to catch my breath. He didn’t have to say a word and I knew I was fucked. I was going to be fucked.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

His grip tightened.

—

The night before, I cried in front of him.

We stayed in. He broiled tuna steak, pan-fried asparagus, and poured Riesling from the bottle we picked out earlier. He chose it because he’d visited the brewery in which it was made. “How bougie of you,” I had teased when we were in the store.

While he made dinner, I sat in front of my laptop, deep in conversation with Kennedy over video chat. She was three weeks into her semester in Germany, and I was getting more and more anxious about the separation. Her first serious breakdown was the night before. I found out about it by reading her blog. Like with most things, she didn’t volunteer an explanation. I’d have to prod her for the full story.

So I did. I got her on webcam despite her insistence that she was sick and couldn’t speak, and for the first time since what seemed like forever, I saw her face. Kennedy was all there and she didn’t fall apart. Not even close. She told me about her new acquaintances and how German boys couldn’t dance. She said she was bored with the repetitive meals of sausage and potatoes. She spun her laptop around to show me her room. I listened. I laughed. I indignantly recounted my experience getting ignored by cashiers at the local piercing place, where my floral dress and platform heels made me look like Alice lost in Rebel-land. I marveled at her hair, still spirited and wild. We giggled about things irrelevant and irreverent. I introduced her to the man moving in and out of the frame behind me. He waved at the camera and said hello to her like her reputation preceded her. I’d already told him countless tales about this 5-foot wonder.

By the time dinner was ready, my conversation with Kennedy had already moved from the uniquely German (”Everyone eats gelato!”) to the mundane (”School starts in two weeks”). But I didn’t feel any more at ease after I logged off. Sure, Kennedy seemed fine in Germany. But she always seemed fine. Even when she was still at Harvard and not at all happy, it rarely showed. It took me well into our sophomore spring, a year and a half after we met, to even find out that she was depressed. I just didn’t know, I could never tell, and this was one of my best friends. I thought sleeping against her back for two months when I was 18 and lonely meant that I knew everything about her. But no one really did.

She was perfectly normal when she spoke to me hoarsely from her side of the world, and in a way, that only made me more worried. I didn’t want to see Kennedy fine. I wanted to see her honest … not that this wasn’t honest. It just wasn’t how I imagined she’d be the day after the tears and panic and anger I read about on her journal. I wanted to see that. I wanted to witness all of the worst, because I figured that watching her fall apart couldn’t possibly be as bad as simply imagining it.

He served dinner, and I could only think about my little friend in Germany. I sliced up the tuna on the plate and brought it to my mouth, once, twice, again, mechanically, but I couldn’t respond to the taste. I had to concentrate hard on his words, even harder on chewing, on each bite, because each piece after piece of food down my throat only brought the lump inside closer to the surface. I couldn’t swallow for fear of crying, so I barely said a thing.

In lieu of substantive conversation, we talked about the food. The tuna was good, could’ve used a little soy sauce so he retrieved some. The vegetables were over-seasoned, but more than acceptable. The wine was fantastic, but I already knew this since I’d been sipping on it since I started talking to Kennedy an hour ago. Thank you for making dinner, I said more than once. I should have helped. He assured me that it was fine. I was talking to my friend, after all.

“Are you feeling better about Kennedy now?” he asked.

“Yes,” I lied.

He asked more questions and I gave more answers, short one-word answers, barely emitting a breath as I spoke. I swallowed and swallowed after each response. I fixated on my plate. Dinner was quiet. I was somewhere else. I was someone else.

We finished. I cleaned. He pulled me to the couch. He kissed me, but I wasn’t really into it, and he could tell. He could tell about five minutes into dinner that my mind was unsettled. He wanted me to talk about her, to verbalize how I felt, which really was the last thing I wanted to do. I admitted I was worried. But I’m always worried, I explained. This feeling doesn’t ever go away, not since I found out a year ago what’d been going.

Then I changed my mind about talking. Actually, I told him, I don’t want to talk about this. Let’s focus on something happy. I closed my eyes suddenly and swallowed. He could tell. I could tell. My voice had almost broken. I was going to cry. I swallowed again. It’s okay, he said. Come here. I pushed my fists against his chest as he pulled me closer, but it was an empty gesture. He was stronger. I’m fine, I’m fine, I insisted. I nearly choked on the rising ball in my throat. Really, I’m fine. This repeated itself, a few times, and finally, I gave in.

I don’t cry, I told him. I really don’t do this. He thought I was silly, thought I was trying to be tough or brave or whatever people pretend at when they stifle tears. The truth was that I wasn’t worried about how I looked in front of him. But I would have liked to sustain the illusion that my best friend was perfectly alright. I don’t want to talk about this, I told him. I’ve never talked about this. I’ve never said this aloud or admitted to myself that I am terrified one day Kennedy will just decide to kill herself and there will be nothing that any of us can do to stop her. What if she does it and I don’t see it coming? And now, I could feel the pressure coming up against my throat and nose and eyes and I told him, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even when we graduate, but what if years down the line when we are 24, 25, when she is far away in Europe again because that is where she will be after Harvard, what if then she decides to do it? What if none of this ever goes away, if I am always scared she will just be gone when least expected. What if my seemingly irrational fear actually materializes? What if I blink and don’t see it coming?

I’d never said any of this to anyone, certainly not to her and not even to myself. It would have made it too real. Admitting all of this would mean that I might not just be paranoid, that the worst case scenario could be realized. And he was the last person I expected to bear witness to my confession that my almost-sister can break my heart when I see how deeply her heart has been broken. I love her, and there are nights like tonight when I am certain I’ll lose her.

My eyes welled and a few stray streaks of liquid cascaded across my face. He wiped off each with his thumb and murmured in my ear something kind. I was surprised at my admissions. I didn’t think I was this scared, didn’t think her depression was this real. Maybe it had taken me until now to admit to myself that Kennedy hurt in a way I didn’t believe was possible for someone I once thought of as unbreakably strong.

We were in bed within two hours. I had barely cried but I felt exhausted, drained by the experience of fighting him for the right to keep my face dry only to lose anyway in the end. I fell asleep curled up next to him on the couch as he rubbed my temples. When I woke up again, I was midair in his arms en route to his bedroom. He placed me down, brought the covers to my neck, and kissed my forehead. He read next to me until he felt ready to retire and then he pulled me against his body. I was barely awake. It was the first time we spent the night together without having sex.

—

His grip tightened, and I started to gasp for breath. Even though sex had been the very last thing on my mind when we went to bed, I couldn’t help getting wet from the feel of his hands around my neck. By the time he forced open my mouth with his cock, I was eager to spread my legs for him. He always pushed it a little deeper than what I could comfortably take. He was more than halfway down my throat when I couldn’t stand it anymore and had to pull away. He asked me if I wanted him to fuck me and I nodded yes.

He knew exactly the right buttons to push, the right tone of voice to use, the perfect things to say and the perfect moment to say them. The very first time we had sex, he put restraints around my wrists. There were things I let him do that I never let anyone do. There were things I didn’t let him do that he did anyway.

I came on top. He said he wanted me to fuck myself on his cock, so I did. I straddled him and rocked back and forth until my clit throbbed and then everything else throbbed and my mind went blank for a brief, blissful moment. I stopped feeling anything but him inside me. I stopped thinking anything but here, now, this man in this bed in this apartment in this country in this side of the Atlantic.

“Awake now?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

Kennedy & Burke at my 20th birthday party.
August 10, 2007 / New York, NY

Two faces (better known as CK and JB) from my off-line life. Totally different people, important to me for different reasons, and nothing like the girl they call their best.

On Sunday morning, I arrived home to Mather from my UHS stay and decided that living by the River was putting my sanity at risk. I’ve been contemplating a move to the Quad for a while now and I determined that it was time to put my plan in action. I packed my bags, shuttled it to CK’s, and sent off a melodramatic mass email (to Quadlings and River pals) announcing my arrival to my new home.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“Sex and the Ivy” writer Lena X. Chen ‘09 has left Mather House after a Tri-House Formal wrought with former beaus caused her to rethink her riverside residence.

After recovering from her .25 blood alcohol level, Chen bid adieu to her dearly loved blockmates and packed a suitcase of essentials: stilettos, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, and her PowerBook. She boarded a Quad-bound shuttle today at 5:10pm with hope for refuge and new source material, a good possibility considering the attractive gentleman who carried her luggage up four flights of stairs. Later in the evening, she made her first public appearance as a Quadling at Cabot House’s Festivus.

With a Cabot-Open subscription request pending and some distance between her and the Charles, Chen hopes that she can finally blog in peace and pick up a few new neighbors who might be suffering from cabin (Cabot?) fever. She plans on spending the rest of the semester and possibly part of the spring term at her new residence in Cabot N-42. On weekend evenings (Thursdays thru Saturdays) however, she will continue to entertain male guests in her Mather 312 single. Visitors (to either room) are welcome.

---

Tonight’s mission is “House Formal Take 2,” also my chance to redeem myself from this weekend’s fiasco. I’m accompanying CK to the Quad Formal. Again, three Houses will be in attendance. This time, let’s keep my blood alcohol level reasonable. Over AIM, CK left me with guidelines for tonight.

CK’s Ground Rules:

1. If I get drunk, she will leave me.

2. Must use “inside voices” (something I’m not good at).

3. Bring coat or jacket. I often misjudge the weather.

Let’s hope my second House formal this term is less eventful than my first.