Positioning

I am always reaching out to a hand that doesn’t exist. I am awkward in my positioning, and my clothes don’t make it any better. I feel like a stranger in my own body at all times, even when I’m sleeping.

So, knowing this, why do I always force myself out of my comfort zone?

I pull on a pair of baggy jeans, frayed and torn from years of wear, a faded black tank top, and scuffed boots. I clip my hair back, letting loose layers frame my face as they fall free, and swipe on minimal makeup—sparkles on my eyelids, mascara, a hint of blush, and eyeliner. I leave the house carrying only my camera, a pack of gum, Chapstick, and, tucked into my pocket, two Fireball shooters.

The party is only twenty-four minutes away, so I walk. I recite the Anne Sexton poems I memorized today, just for fun, because I had nothing better to do. I try to rehearse my journal entries too, but the words vanish once the notebook closes. They exist only in that moment I hold it open.

I knock on the door, and no one answers. I let myself in anyway. The door clicks softly behind me, and music floods my ears. I scan the room for a familiar face, but everyone wears a distorted mask, fragments of other people stitched together. No one is truly themselves. A twinge of shame creeps in. I forgot how few people know me—and how few I know in return.

I pour myself some jungle juice into a red Solo cup and lean against the kitchen counter, watching the chaos. Something by Massive Attack hums overhead. My foot taps on autopilot. I feel like a fly on the wall, observing everyone drinking, laughing, dancing, pretending.

“Nice camera.” A voice slips into my left ear. I freeze mid-sip, eyes widening. A boy with dirty blonde hair, a Pinegrove t-shirt, and baggy jeans stands there, an unlit cigarette balanced on his lips. “What model is it?” he asks.

“Oh, uh, it’s a Leica M6,” I reply, fiddling with the buttons. “Got it for a crazy discount at Samy’s Camera. Lucky find, I guess.” 

“Well, it’s sick,” he says. “Take a picture of me.” 

He steps back a few paces, right hand in his pocket, cigarette in the left, then tucks it behind his ear and flashes a lazy grin. I lift the camera, frame him slightly off-center, and click. The flash bursts, lighting up the space around us. My face heats immediately.

“Can I see it?” He questions, staring at me intently. 

“It’s a film camera,” I explain. “I’ll have to get it developed first. Sorry.”

“Ah,” he nods slowly. “Bet it’ll look good.”

“Thanks,” I murmur, finishing my drink in one swift gulp and heading for a refill. He doesn’t move—just watches, like I’m some experimental piece at the Getty. I force a smile. “Want something to drink?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t drink that gross stuff. I stick to beer.” 

“I hate beer.” 

“You either love it, or you hate it.” He shrugs. “Well, I’m gonna go smoke this cigarette outside if you’d like to join me. They changed the playlist, and I hate it here now.” 

I didn’t even realize that Sabrina Carpenter started playing. 

Outside, the air is brisk. People smoke like the president is about to ban it, smoke curling around me like mist from invisible machines. I sip my drink, only to find it empty again, and place the red Solo cup on a spare table next to a speaker. Dean Blunt hums from it, and everyone out here looks like they listen to him. I suddenly feel like the least esoteric one here.

He guides me to a quiet spot by a tree. Every step crunches against discarded cigarette butts.

He lights up, the flame revealing his face in brief bursts. I try counting his moles, but the light dies after six. He takes a long drag, eyes drifting upward, then exhales smoke toward the tree trunk—thankfully, not me.

He hands me the cigarette. I take a short drag, watching him. He smiles.

I blow the smoke out the side of my mouth. “So, where do you go to school?”

“Gap year,” he says. “Amsterdam next week. Just got back from Berlin, and before that, south of France, painting on the beach.” He nods, proud. I blink, impressed, and hand the cigarette back.

“Whoa. Nice.”

“What about you?”

“RISD,” I tell him. “But I hate the East Coast. I love LA too much. Happy to be back for Thanksgiving before I subject myself to hell again. Not as interesting as you, though.”

“You’re interesting. Photography?”

“Ceramics. What do you want to study?” 

He laughs. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” 

“Real.” 

We pass the cigarette back and forth, small talk folding into something oddly intimate. We inch closer. My eyes never leave him—or the tree. I know I look awkward, I know I sound awkward, but for once, pretending not to be is fun.

“Hey, could you take a picture of me?” A girl with platinum blonde hair in messy braids interrupts, smiling, her smiley piercing catching the light.

“Yeah, sure.” 

I lift my camera and snap a picture of her.

“Thanks. Hey, could I have some of that cigarette?” she asks.

He hands it over, then digs into his back pocket for a fresh one. I click a picture of him, then another as he lights it. She blows smoke from her cigarette toward me. I blink, caught off guard, slightly offended. I raise the camera again and allow the flash to go off. She squeals.

“You'd better warn me next time!” 

“Candids always look better,” I reply with a sly smile. She takes a long drag, eyes on me, then passes the cigarette back. I take a small drag, careful, before returning it.

The camera suddenly feels heavier in my hands, aware of its purpose beyond mere proof. It steadies me, keeps my arms from hanging uselessly at my sides. When I lift it, I finally have a reason to look at people longer than what’s polite. The lens allows me to linger. To stare. To exist without apology.

“I’m gonna get another drink—I’ll be back, though,” I tell the guy, voice steadier than I expected.

I take two shots in the kitchen back to back, no chaser. Someone cheers. Someone else spills something sticky on my shoe. I take a hit of a random girl’s cart after I take her picture. It tastes like artificial fruit and regret.

I go back outside. 

I start circling the backyard slowly, the way you do when you don’t want anyone to think you’re pacing. I frame people mid-laugh, mid-sip, mid-sentence. I don’t ask. I just capture them as they are, fractured by shadows and cigarette smoke and the orange glow of string lights. Every time the shutter clicks, it feels like tapping someone on the shoulder without actually touching them. Like saying, I see you, without having to open my mouth.

No one really looks at me when I’m behind the camera. They look past me, or into the lens, or at the version of themselves they imagine I’m preserving. I like that. I like being invisible and necessary at the same time. When someone notices me, it’s never me they want—it’s the camera. 

“Can you send those to me later?” a girl asks, already smiling.

“Yeah,” I say, even though I know I probably won’t.

She thanks me like I’ve done her a favor. Maybe I have. Maybe the favor is just freezing her for a fraction of a second, giving her something to remember herself by.

The boy by the tree glances over at me again. This time, I lift the camera instinctively, not to take his picture, but to steady myself. The camera has become my stand-in, my translator, my way in. When my hands don’t know what to do, it tells them. When my mouth doesn’t know what to say, it speaks for me.

The guy smirks, knocking ash off his cigarette with his thumb.

“You stalking me now?” he asks.

“Only visually,” I say. “You’re quite elusive.” 

“Is that a compliment?” he asks.

“Depends,” I say. “On whether you like being looked at.”

He takes a drag, exhales slowly. “I don’t mind. Just don’t make me look like an idiot.”

“I can’t promise that,” I tell him. “Film’s honest.”

He laughs. “Figures.”

I raise the camera halfway, then stop. “Can I?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Go for it.”

I frame him loose, off-center again. The tree cuts into the edge of the shot, cigarette smoke softening his face. He watches me instead of the lens.

“Do I smile?” he asks.

“No,” I say quickly. “Just—stay.”

He does. I click the shutter.

The flash pops. My face heats up.

“Damn,” he says. “That bad?”

“No,” I say. “That good.”

He steps closer, peering at the camera like it might give something away. “So I’ll never see it?”

“Probably not,” I admit.

He nods, unfazed. “I kind of like that.”

I let the camera drop back against my chest. For a moment, we just stand there, the music from inside bleeding into the night.

“Glad you came back,” he says.

“Me too,” I say, surprised that I mean it.

I adjust the strap around my neck, grounding myself again. The camera presses lightly into my sternum, like a reminder. I don’t need to disappear tonight. I just need something to hold between me and everyone else.

“Could I get your number?” he asks.

“For the film?” I say, half-joking, half-guarded.

“No,” he says, soft but insistent. “To actually talk to you.”

I glance down at the camera, then back up at him. For once, the awkwardness in my posture doesn’t matter. Even in my mismatched clothes, even in this body I’m still learning to inhabit, I feel a trace of belonging. 

I grin at him. “Give me your phone.”