Mitch remembered the first time he ever really felt exposed. He was twelve years old and he had to change in the boys' locker room for gym class for the very first time.
He remembered the smell of it the most: the strong nylon smell from the inside of some middle schooler's new gym bag, the chemical odor from the Clorox wipes the janitor used on the benches, and the permeating scent of sweaty socks.
Young Mitch, naive to the ways of the jock, scrunched up his face so hard that his shaggy bangs tickled the bridge of his nose. Without even setting foot in the room, he did a one-eighty, shut the door and started making his way to the restrooms down the hall.
Head still turned towards the vile place he was leaving, he practically bumped into the phys-ed teacher around the corner. "Where do you think you are going, young man?" Mr. Buckley asked Mitch, a hand raised as if to physically stop him if he took a step further.
"Uh, I- I- I wanted to change in the boys' bathroom. Uh, Sir. Coach. Mr. Buckley," he stammered.
"Coach or Mr. Buckley is just fine." He motioned in the air as if he was drawing a small circle on the top of Mitch's head. "Go on, back to the locker room with the rest of the boys," he ordered. Mitch wanted to protest, but his anxiety got the best of him. He felt his body spin itself back around and start walking back to the locker room before he could even think about it.
When he entered, his jaw dropped. Boys were changing in front of each other-- down to their undies! Or less! Why is everyone so calm about this? Mitch wondered. I don't want to see-- Oh, yup. Okay, well, I guess I've seen that now. He could feel the blush creeping up to his neckline, so he made his way to the farthest corner of the locker room with his gym tote clutched to his chest. Some boys were already changed by now and the locker room started to empty.
Mitch chose a locker on the outer wall and set his bag inside it. He faced the corner as he switched his shirt as fast as he could. With one more glance over his shoulder to be sure no one was looking, he took his pants down. At that moment, he heard footsteps on the other side of the lockers, making their way towards him. Mitch panicked. With his pants on the ground, shorts held between his teeth by the waistband, and nothing but his favorite green briefs on, he was a sight to be seen. Scratch that. He was a sight not to be seen!
He gasped, shorts falling from his mouth to the floor, and desperately tried to cover himself up. When he looked up, he made eye contact with a lanky, awkward, blonde boy from the homeroom next to his. Mitch felt his classmate's eyes on him, and found it hard to breathe. The locker room felt like it was getting smaller and the air was too humid to inhale properly.
"Sorry to scare you, I thought you might not wanna go out alone," the newcomer explained. He bent down suddenly and Mitch visibly spooked. "Whoa, I'm sorry," the boy repeated, standing up slowly and offering his hand out to him. Mitch looked down and saw that the boy had picked up his shorts for him. Mitch grabbed them quickly. "I'm Scott. I really didn't mean to scare you, I'm sorry. I'll let you change," he said. Mitch heard his footsteps as he retreated out of sight around the corner of the aisle of lockers-- and then stopped.
"I'll just wait here, keep you company," Scott offered.
Mitch smiled a little. He wasn't going to be alone.
---
In college, Mitch took a darkroom photography class. There was magic in that dark hall, in the corridor that they had converted into an enclosed space where only red light was permitted to shine.
A few students would crowd in there at a time, dipping their white paper into the tubs in the long sink assembly-line style, prodding the edges of their photographs lightly with tongs until a greyscale image would appear and rapidly darken.
He liked the smell of the stop bath, the tub of liquid that would halt the development of the print on the photo paper. It smelled a little like vanilla, and it was a pleasant shift from the vinegar-like smell of the developer. Sometimes he'd "accidentally" dip his hand in it while trying to remove his print from the liquid. He would catch a whiff of it later in his day and smile.
Sometimes a print would appear as if it were a ghost, all shades of platinum and ash instead of charcoal and slate. The subject appeared blown out and sun-faded, overexposed.
Mitch's teacher told him that a photo like that was not good enough. "There's no contrast. Try again, leaving it a little longer under the light in the enlarger. Let the developer seep into the paper for fifteen seconds more."
Mitch disagreed. He would put his print on the drying rack, and do as the teacher said, but he'd pick up his dried, ghostly print at the end of class to take back to his room anyway.
---
If Mitch could describe Scott's face right now, it would be like the subject of one of his overexposed prints.
The color was all gone, and he was frozen in time, but not like last time. No, this time, his deep grey eyes were focused on Mitch's black ones, alert and ready to listen to what he had to say. Mitch was all contrast, black and white, fully developed-- and Scott was overexposed. Mitch had been sitting in his thoughts for a while now, developing for years, and the darkest parts of him blackened accordingly.
Scott was freshly burned. The blinding pain just hit him what felt like seconds ago and it caused parts of him to discolor, but he had not yet developed for long enough. The shadows only just began to appear. The clock on the wall had a few more revolutions to suffer through.
