I’m a model, I thought on my way to the studio, all bundled up and trudging through the snow. My hair was still a little wet from practice this morning; I could feel the pin prickles of my scalp of my hair freezing and stiffening.

Never in a million years did I ever think I would be paid to stand and look pretty.

The fall semester would last through the rest of November and early December, then the spring semester would start. I was lucky that Sam wanted to get a head start on his thousand-piece project early, so he hired me for work right away.

For just one three hour session, I’d get paid $180. With just a few of those a week, that was guaranteed rent and spending money.

No longer would I have to ride the bus a few towns over in order to work to barely make rent. This opened up so many possibilities for me: I could quit my job as a waiter, I could stay in Ann Arbor, and I could focus on studying and swim practice.

I just had to hope that Sam drew me as slowly as possible so I could milk this gig for all it was worth.

Hell, Sam might even let me study while he was drawing me. Ugh, but that still left a thorn in my side: Having to be around that pretentious prick for an extended period of time.

But if Sam could afford hundreds of $180-sessions with me, that raised questions about who he was and where the hell an art student got that kind of money. He didn’t look old enough to be far enough in his career to shell out that kind of dough without a second thought. I knew he was at least a little older than the average age of the students here, thanks to that pretentious bio I read.

Ugh, just thinking about it filled me with disgust.

Maybe he’s a drug dealer, I mused as I opened the door to the art school.

I halted as I felt my pocket buzz. Pulling out my phone, I read the caller ID. “Mom”

It’s been a while since I’d heard from her, I thought, my eyebrows pulling together in concern. What if something’s wrong? What if something happened?

The panic seized me as I answered and raised the phone to my ear.

“Hello?” I answered.

There was a silence on the other end; I could only hear the crackling of the white noise.

“Mom?” I asked into the void.

“Oh heyyyy…” She slurred.

My face fell. Not again.

“Mom, have you been drinking?” I asked sternly, leaning against the wall.

“Don’t yew judge …me!” She managed to slur out. “I was juss callin’ to see how my baby boy’s doin’.”

Sighing, I peered down at my watch. “It’s eight-fifteen in the morning,” I stated.

Did she really just wake up and start drinking? And she was already like this?

“So fuckin’ what?” She countered defensively. “I just wanna know how you’re doin’…”

Feeling hot tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, my body wanted to fold with embarrassment.

I had to give her something, so I told her about my new job.

“A model?!?” She slurred in disbelief, chuckling. “Who would hire you as uh… a model?”

Rage swirled within me. Here it was again; her telling me that I couldn’t. Every time something good happened to me, she always made sure to dig trenches around my success, planting seeds of doubt.

“Some rich guy, a big shot from New York.” I recalled, trying to impress her.

Then I heard it in my own voice: My southern accent that I’d tried so hard to smother was coming back in full force just by talking to her.

“What’s the money?” She asked.

I scowled. Everything was about money with her.

“Sixty dollars per hour,” I said proudly, letting the figure slide off my tongue. I was sure that, to her, that was a gold mine.

She cackled on the other end of the phone. “He ain’t gonna pay ya.”

My body seized up. Not because I wanted to prove her wrong, but because I knew there was a chance she was right. Sam had emailed me a contract that I’d read and signed, but…

“Has he paid you somethin’ yet?” She asked, picking at my resolve.

“No, but—”

“Yew keep yer waiter job, then,” she said with finality.

I was silent, stewing in a soup of rage, shame, and disappointment.

“Anyways… I wanted to know if yer comin’ home fer Christmas,” she continued, “yer brother is.”

Her voice softened when she mentioned him. He’d always been the favorite.

There was nothing that sounded less appealing to me than going back to that Tennessee trailer park for two weeks to hang out with my drunk mother and drug addict brother.

“I don’t think I can swing it with my exams…” I muttered, knowing what was next.

“YEW THINK YER BETTER THAN US!” she raged.

“No mom, I didn’t say—!”

“YEW WASTE MY MONEY GOIN’ TO SOME GODDAMN FANCY SCHOOL!”

“Mom,” I exasperated, tears leaking out of my eyes, “That doesn’t make any sense, I have a scholarship! There’s literally none of your money going—”

“You’re one of us,” she said, her voice shifting to a delicate hiss. “Never ferget where yer from… you’ll end up back here. Everyone who leaves always does.”

There was silence on the line as her words sunk in; a black sludge percolated through my defenses and leaked into my soul.

“I’m not coming home for Christmas,” I said stiffly.

“FUCK. YEW.” She snarled, then hung up.

Shaking, I tucked my phone back into my pocket and hurried to the bathroom.

My reflection in the mirror was pale as a ghost and shaking, my nostrils flaring with rage.

She was so wrong, I thought to myself, splashing water onto my face. No matter how hard I tried to climb out of the dark pits of Hillbilly Town, USA, there were times like these which pulled at the black chains still hooked into my soul. Whenever I felt them tug at me, it was a nasty little reminder of what would happen to me if I lost my scholarship.

Taking a few steady breaths to calm myself, I studied my reflection in the mirror. Over the past few years, I’d transformed; there was almost no resemblance to what I used to look like when I was back there, in that world. However, no matter how much I left the fat version of me in the past, I would never get used to seeing myself as this… this college athlete.

I had always been strong, considering I grew up near a lake and swam all the time. I practiced almost every day in the hopes of getting a swimming scholarship, since that was the one thing I was good at.

And then somehow I made it. I made it to this place; the place that everywhere in the rural areas of the midwest made it out to be some kind of palace on a hill, inaccessible to anyone from a background like mine; only a hub for the elite. The only thing that made this place remotely accessible to me was my swimming scholarship, and that was already on thin ice with my current statistics grade…

Steadying myself with a heavy sigh, I cloaked myself in my athlete persona once again. As long as I was this Evan White, star of the swimming team, semi-famous Instagram persona, academic success, nothing could knock me down.

As I left the bathroom with a second wind, I glanced down at my watch to see how I was doing on time. It was 8:24 in the morning: I still had a few minutes to kill.

Climbing some steps near the studio where I’d meet Sam, I came upon a small convenience store filled with art supplies and snacks. Despite it being so early, there were half a dozen students in there meandering through the aisles.

Given my recent blast from the past, I was suddenly overcome with the urge to splurge on some liquid happiness. Entering the store, I wandered over to the coffee dispensers and plucked a styrofoam cup from one of the stacks.

“Coffee?” A deep voice muttered from behind me.

I nearly jumped out of my skin and turned around to see the hulking form of Sam looming over me.

For a second I was envious of his build; his height and his bulging muscles. That was the type of body that was looked down upon by the best swimmers; they wanted us to be lanky and long, free to propel ourselves through the water at incredible speed. But I had always secretly desired to have a body like Sam’s.

“Yes, yes please.” I said, grateful to get a free drink. Any excuse to save money.

He leaned over next to me where the coffee machines were and poured himself a cup.

“Decaf or Breakfast Blend?” He asked innocently. There was something so calming about his voice, I had to admit. All my tensions sort of melted away.

“Breakfast Blend.” I chose.

Amused, I watched the hulking man lean over and pour me a tiny little cup of coffee.

As we went up to the cash register, I had to wonder: Why was a man that looked like this in the art school? He totally didn’t match the stereotype. The only thing artsy about his appearance was his clothing; it was some kind of hipster-y outfit, complete with thick black rimmed glasses.

I had to admit, I liked his style.

Then I glanced down at my own clothes; wondering again if I looked thin enough to be wearing them, or if I looked too poor.

Sam turned around and handed the coffee to me. “You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I replied, trying to mask my feelings of inadequacy.

Together we walked down the long, long hallway in relative silence as we made our way to the other end of the art school.

“This is our room,” Sam said, parting the curtain into one of the empty studios.

It was a cozy room, with one wall that was entirely a window. Bright morning light was pouring through it, illuminating everything with a chilly glow.

There was something magical about it; I couldn’t deny.

“You know, the light changes,” he said, noticing my pause. “The morning shifts the personality of a space; it makes it its most true.”

And my warmness towards him turned cold again. What an ass.

“So how do we do this?” I asked, getting down to business.

“Right now,” he replied in his deep, bossy voice, “you wait.”

He was walking around the room with a pencil in his hand, holding it at arm’s length in front of him, and checking things.

“What are you doing?” I asked impatiently.

I was getting paid to wait, I reminded myself.

“Measuring.” He replied simply. “Come, stand here.”

I went over to him, towards the middle of the room. I thought he was going to make me stand in one of the beams of light streaming in from the windows, where outside it was a snowy, wintery wonderland.

“Pose.” He commanded.

“With my clothes on?” I asked, taken aback.

“Did I stutter?” He replied.

Suddenly I felt my spine straighten up. I liked being bossed around; this was new.

Sam softened his expression.

What the hell was that? I thought. I didn’t know why I’d had that reaction, or why he felt the need to yell like that. Though, he hadn’t yelled, not really. He was stern; firm with me.

I struck a pose, positioning my feet a little farther apart than normal, and leaning back with my arm against my butt.

Sam studied me for a moment.

“Move.” He commanded.

I struck another pose.

“No. Move over here.”

I hesitated.

“Don’t make me tell you twice.” He warned.

I felt my cock twitch. What the hell was wrong with me?

Sam studied me for a moment, the light laying across his body and casting dramatic shadows across his appearance. He tilted his head to the side, appraising me.

I had to remind myself that I was just a thing to him; only a thing to draw. He wasn’t looking at me with any kind of desire— at least, not right now.

Then the memory surfaced of how he had to run out during class earlier this week and jerk off in the bathroom; supposedly to me. Excitement bubbled in my gut. Excitement that I tried to squelch. I had to get a damn handle on myself.

“I guess we’ll have to make do here.” He resigned.

He dragged one of the art desks over to where he was standing in the light, and began to set up his drawing materials.

I didn’t really know what to do, so I just stood there.

I was conscious that even though I’d only stood in this pose for a few seconds, this would make my body sore after a while.

As if reading my mind, Sam brought me a pillow that he had scrounged up from the corner of art supplies next to the statue in the corner.

“Here. You should sit on this for now.” He offered.

I was surprised how he was trying to make me comfortable, or that he had detected that I was uncomfortable at all.

“I won’t have you take your clothes off until I need you to,” he grunted while pulling out his calligraphy ink and pen, “I don’t want you to be cold when you don’t have to be. For now, I’m just going to draw the broad strokes of your form.”

I sat on the pillow on the floor, focusing on a point in the distance. I reached over and picked up my coffee, taking a sip. God, this stuff tasted like life.

“You really have a knack for this, you know,” he mused, not taking his eyes off his work. “You ever consider modeling as a career?”

I knew that he was trying to stroke my ego.

It was working.

“Nah, that’s not my thing,” I admitted.

“Well, what do you want to do after you’ve graduated?” He asked, his eyes piercing right through me like he was staring down prey.

It put me on edge.

“Everyone seems to ask that,” I said, a little annoyed. “I don’t exactly know what I’m going to do. Probably something with sports.”

That was my canned response. It’s what most people were expecting, after all, and it made them stop asking questions.

“You don’t like it though.” He said.

What the fuck? I thought to myself as I broke my pose. How could he see through me like that?

“What do you mean?” I asked, regaining my footing.

He put his pen down, fixed his gaze on me again and explained. “Whenever I’ve heard you talk about swimming, your voice goes flat and you don’t look anyone in the eye. You also do this.”

He crossed his arms over his chest defensively.

“It’s easy to see that you don’t like it very much. Plus, your fake excitement doesn’t transfer to others when you talk about it, meaning it’s inauthentic.”

My mouth popped open.

His eyes returned to the canvas, as if he were having a normal, pleasant, everyday conversation with someone instead of performing a psychoanalytic strip search.

This fucking asshole, I boiled, feeling the same indignant rage from my conversation with my mother earlier consume me.

“You don’t know anything about me!” I stood up and shouted, breaking my pose and filling the classroom with the echoes of my voice.

A deadly silence hung in the air for a few seconds, then something shifted. I couldn’t put my finger on what. The very essence of the room seemed to turn, as if I could feel the smallest change in the way the world was spinning.

He chuckled, set his pen down again, and took off his glasses in a patronizing way. Setting them delicately on his easel, he got up and walked a few steps towards me.

His face was an inch from mine as I stared up at him defiantly, my nostrils flaring.

He smirked, then leaned down and whispered in my ear, “I know all about you, Evan White. I know you play by the rules, I know you spend your life running from your past. I know everything — everything online about you is merely a distraction from who you really are. You’re trying desperately to shed the shell of who you used to be, but all you’re doing is encasing yourself in another cocoon. Working every day to patch it up until everything you’re ashamed of is unrecognizable.”

I was overcome with rage, and I wanted nothing more than to deck the guy in the face. But I was paralyzed by the truth of his words as they stripped me down.

He leaned in closer, his beard brushing against my cheek. “Every day you live with the fear that someone is going to find out. And the saddest part is that most of all, you wish you could. What you won’t admit to yourself, is that you wish you could be me. You wish you could have the freedom to do what I do, to be who you really are, instead of putting on that bullshit front for everyone else to see. You’re just too much of a fucking pussy to do it.”

He pulled away slowly, his eyes filled with a sick satisfaction, then locked his gaze onto mine. Somehow I was naked, even though all of my clothes were still on.

“So you better cut the attitude, Evan White. It’s screwing with my work.”

The snow clouds had come back, obscuring the sun and casting the room in a dull gray shade.

“Ugh, my lighting is ruined. I can’t do this anymore today.” He complained, tearing his gaze away from mine to look out the window.

The only thing that kept me from throwing a punch at his stupid face was the fact that I knew he was so big he could paint the floor with me. Some instinctual thing urged me to stay alive.

“What’s going on in here?” echoed a familiar female voice from the doorway to the studio, diffusing my hatred.

Sam’s expression softened as he turned towards the door. “Kelly!”

Kelly? Jake’s Kelly? I thought.

I turned and sure enough, it was her. The same girl that I’d been seeing in the apartment I shared with Jake for the past few weeks. And the reason her voice was so familiar to me was the fact that I was used to hearing it say, “Jake, oh, yes Jake don’t stop!” from the room right next to mine.

“Sam!” She said brightly, “What’s going on here? I heard yelling on my way to class.”

Then she seemed to recognize me as the person in her peripheral vision whenever she was sucking face with my roommate.

“Oh, Evan! Hi!” She greeted, guiltily tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Wait, you two know each other?”

Sam smirked, looking between us. “Small world I guess.”