Delia

Now

A cymbal sounded. All the light bulbs in the room sparkled brightly a few times. The hall was a sleepy giant, blinking itself to awareness. The lights dimmed, and I could hear Corbin’s voice in the speakers, instructing the spectators.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we students at TISCH proudly present the act My Body, My Own. We’re about to introduce the human statues. This is Phase One: Pristine.”

The recording of Oscar’s song started in the background, and the first silhouette was illuminated. My heart was pounding really fast, and Oscar’s hand was squeezing mine. I looked around the room as each volunteer was illuminated by a spotlight.

Two girls named Sandra and Monica that I knew from Dalton were standing on the podiums in front. Sandra was gorgeous, with an athletic body and no amount of fat. She’d chosen white paint and had assumed a halfway lift position, her eyes to the ground, her hands resting on her knees, which were only slightly bent to sustain her weight. The length of her back was exposed to the room, to the ceiling, still and elongated, waiting for everyone’s perusal. Monica was simply standing, arms raised above her head in a graceful pose, the globes of her large breasts naked underneath golden glitter. Her body was very similar to mine, curvaceous and full. She stood so proud and smiling, I wanted to kiss her.

“Listen to the room,” Oscar whispered into my ear, sending a shiver down my spine.

There were whispers coming from all the dark spots in the room. But they were quiet, reverent in their respect for the statues. In an almost pious nature, with no snickers, with no clamor, they shrouded the statues with the deserved attention. I looked at my watch. We were into minute five of Phase One.

I took it all in, watching quietly from my spot next to Oscar. Precisely timed, the cymbal sounded. The room was thrown into complete darkness and the speakers came to life.

“Our wounds do not define us. Yet, we carry them with us. Do not assume that, just because you don’t see it, the hurt is not there. Do not forget the toll an act that lasts for second can take on a life. My life. Your life. The life of your beloved. Maybe you wouldn’t believe that someone as young as me—or younger even—carries with them such big marks. Now you can see it with your eyes. We won’t accept our wounds anymore. We’ll fight for awareness. This is just the beginning. Our wounds do not define us, but we carry them with us.”

I counted to ten in my head, and then Corbin’s voice filled the room.

“We now begin Phase Two: Revealed. After the sound of the bells, you are free to move around the room.”

Lights started to come on, this time moving from the back of the room to the front. The volunteers were in the same positions as before, but they were no longer pristine.

A few beats, and the cymbal sounded again as the lights lifted and it was time to move.

There was a bit of an entanglement in the first few minutes, but then everyone seemed to find a rhythm as we paced among the statues. Oscar and I moved, hand in hand. I knew our end goal. I knew the square that was our end game. But I let him lead for a while because I too was curious about the messages our peers were conveying. Sandra’s splendid back was covered with long stripes of green paint. It looked like lashes had clawed their way into her skin in elongated strikes. I wondered for a second how she’d applied it, but I caught a glimpse of green paint on Monica’s fingertips. Monica, whose breasts were splashed with black all over, had stopped facing the ceiling and kept her head bowed. We passed a guy who had been solid bronze before but had added blotches of cyan over his face, neck, biceps, and sternum. We passed both women and men whose bodies silently declared that they had been unrightfully touched.

Oscar squeezed my shoulders really tight when we reached a certain girl, crouched down. Both of her eyes were circled with deep purple, which looked so violent against the rest of her silver paint that I felt the hairs on my body rising.

The whispers and the murmurs around the room alternated in intensity, depending on the statue visitors found themselves in front of, and the emotion it stirred within them. We had just rounded a certain volunteer I didn’t remember having seen in school. His body was covered in gold, but he didn’t seem to have used his baggie. We went around him and he looked pristine. I noticed the unused paint at his feet. His palms were extended toward the rest of the room, in a silent plea that matched his sad, open eyes. Hmm. The other side of the medal. The crave for touch. Interesting but maybe not what we were looking for here. Still, I wanted to give him a hug.

There was commotion a few squares over before Enzo came barreling through the crowd, almost knocking into Untouched Guy on his way toward the exit, his face the epitome of rage. I looked in the direction he’d come from, to the people crowded around the volunteers.

Without my having to say anything, Oscar took the lead, walking in front of me and shielding me from the crowd until we reached the display. He stopped abruptly, his whole body going as rigid. He turned his head toward me, his eyes a storm of worry. I pushed him slightly so that I could see, but it was good I didn’t let go of his waist, because my knees buckled. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

It was a cluster of three people. One statue was of a plump girl who had her wrists and her nose colored in gray, another skinny guy who had painted something that looked like a knife on his ribs.

But it was the third statue that gave everyone pause. With her slender body straight as an arrow, her hands almost peacefully aligned, colored in silver, Kayla stared straight ahead, her eyes open. She had streams of tears running silently down her cheeks as if she’d been weeping since the second phase two had started.

Unlike ninety percent of the volunteers, she had chosen full nudity, and had dabbed the additional color on only one spot on her body. Her genitalia were covered in blood-like red that she had left to dribble down on her thighs. It was a confession nobody wanted to make, but everyone needed to see and to listen to. Hands trembling, I clung to Oscar and fought the terror that brought a bile taste into my mouth. I looked into my sweet friend’s eyes, hoping she wasn’t staring into emptiness and that she could see me. I mouthed I love you, which ended on a hiccup. I needed to cry, but Oscar turned to me and ushered me to a new square.

“We will have to help her later. Come on.”

His resolve reminded me of the statue I hoped he would see. As if on cue, Corbin’s voice sounded in the speakers again, this time accompanied by the sound of a heartbeat.

Thump-thump.

“You look at us every day. But do you see us?”

Thump-thump.

I kept walking as Corbin’s voice continued softly through the overheads and the heartbeat continued to thump.

Then we were there.

Oswald stood, alone in his section of the exhibit.

He was covered in white, arms extended sideways like he’d stood during our rehearsal. He had used crimson to put a mark on his shoulder where his scar was, and he’d drawn a blue heart above the place the organ was encased behind his ribs. The blood-like paint oozed down from the scar, to the heart, splitting it in two.

Oscar looked at me, and where I expected some anger at the unwanted surprise, I only saw sorrow. He let go of me, stepping slowly over the ribbon and going toe to toe with his brother. A volunteer guard named Marcus raised his eyebrows at me, and gave him a subtle shake of my head to let him know it was okay.

They stood there, each other’s mirror, an ocean of secrets and sorrows and squander between them. I hoped they would leave it behind them.

“You took so many beatings,” Oscar said in a hushed voice.

Oswald looked him straight in the eyes.

“Only one that truly mattered.” Oswald’s whispered explanation barely came out.

Oscar’s head bowed, and his brother mimicked his movement, their foreheads touching in a silent tale. I sensed a crowd at my back and wanted to tell them to go away. To let these two battered souls have this moment so they could start to heal, but I swallowed the words.

A moment and an eternity passed before Oscar straightened and made his way back to my side. All the while, his eyes shone with moisture. He squeezed me against his chest and dropped a long kiss to the top of my head.

“Thank you,” was all he said.

“I would do anything for you.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“You do. You just need to let yourself believe it.”

His smile was sad, but I saw the tiny spark in his eyes. It let me know that he would be okay.

“I have to go on the stage and close this with Dalton.”

“I’ll stay here,” he said, nodding.

I met a beaming Dalton at the podium, and I caught his hands in mine.

“We did it!” we both exploded at the same time.

“Okay, you two, squeal a bit later,” Corbin said, appearing from behind the curtains. “Let’s wrap this up.” Corbin handed Dalton the microphone and then he and I melted into the background to give Dalton the floor.

“Thank you so much to everyone here—both viewers and subjects. “My body, My Own” is about boundaries. Boundaries that are invisible but also important. Boundaries that, once broken, leave permanent wounds behind,” he said. “Do we know the boundaries that we’re supposed to respect? Do we teach our children to respect those boundaries? Do we ask our peers about their wounds? Do we help them heal and overcome them?”

Dalton let them steep in the questions as I stepped forward and took the microphone he held out to me. “What is your story?” I asked. “What are you not telling? What are you hiding? Do you want to confess? Do you want to be heard? Do you want to tell the stories so that you can move past them? Should you move past them? Can you move past them?” My eyes searched for Kayla in the crowd but couldn’t find her.

Dalton brought us back to script and followed-up.

“There will be a recording of this act available online after next week. We hope we opened some eyes today, and we ask you to please pass the message on. Thank you, and a good night!”

I turned to exit the stage, and Corbin waited for me below with a surprise.

“Mom, Dad!” I shouted and hurried to hug my parents. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“We didn’t want you preoccupied,” my dad said while handing me a large bouquet of irises. I squeezed them happily to my chest.

“Mom, Dad, this is Delia’s boyfriend and his brother,” Corbin said even before they had approached us. Oswald had a sheet wrapped around himself like a toga, and Oscar extended his hand in my dad’s direction. Mom’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and she kept looking from one brother to the other.

“Mom, you’ll give yourself a whiplash,” I told her, and she giggled.

“Well, you’ll have to explain the secret to differentiating between them,” she said.

Dalton joined us and saluted cordially as he introduced himself.

“Kayla went home,” he whispered to me. “She asked me to have you call her tomorrow.”

The only thing I could do was nod because as much as I wanted to run to her side, I knew she needed time. said. I pulled out my phone and saw that she’d sent me a hurried text.

Kayla: I needed to leave. I will be in my dorm room. Please, let’s talk tomorrow.

“Right,” my dad said. “So who are we buying dinner for? Let’s figure it out because I’m starved!”

“I have a date,” Dalton excused himself and made a quick work of disappearing, Oswald gestured to his paint-covered torso and bowed out of the open invitation, but Oscar, Corbin, and I weren’t going to turn down a free meal.

“Dad, I just have a few things I need to wrap up here before I can leave. Do you think you’ll survive for thirty minutes?”

He groaned, which was so like him it made me grin. My dad was perpetually hungry. “I guess. But if it’s any longer, you’ll have to meet us at the restaurant.”

This got a laugh out of my mom, who also rolled her eyes before I took off toward the staging area so I could thank everyone for putting on an amazing show.