NATALIE STOREY

YELLOWSTONE

Imagine you are a teenage girl with a black leather jacket and blond streaks in your hair. Imagine, in the scheme of things, that you are poor, but you don’t yet understand what that means, or the ways it can cut. Imagine you are 100 percent beautiful young bravado. Imagine you trust too much too often too soon or that you trust not at all. You are 17.

Imagine you meet the boy at night, for some reason in secret, although your father doesn’t seem to care much about what you do, your mom is long gone and you have no popular friends to explain that the boy is a loser, and, not only that, but he probably has diseases because he’s slept with so many trashy girls in school. There’s no one to judge you, scoff and list off the names of these trashy girls, and tell you that you shouldn’t join the list, although you want to. You really want to join the list, but there’s still a voice in your head punishing you for being a trashy girl too.

So you go with him at midnight on a walk down to the Yellowstone River. Imagine it’s June. You’ve both graduated and are leaving for college soon, and there’s something about this summer that seems significant, like you want to save it as a memory forever. Because this is before. And it will never be like this again.

The boy takes your hand and leads you across the 9th Street Island Bridge onto the womb of land between the Yellowstone’s two channels. He leads you through the trees and into a clearing along the bank of the river. The water rushes by, glistening in the moonlight. He takes your hands, pulls you close, and tries to kiss you, but you’re all nerves.

“Don’t you know anything about your own beauty?” he asks. “Don’t you know how to enjoy your beauty?”

Imagine you don’t know. Imagine you think millions of thoughts about your ugliness and how to get rid of it, but never thoughts about enjoying your beauty. It’s never occurred to you to think such thoughts.

So you get angry because he’s called you out, and there’s something true about what he’s saying. It’s a little foolish, but it’s okay. This is before.

Say, “As if being with someone like you could help me understand that.”

See the hurt in his eyes. See him understand and recover.

Imagine—no lie—that he says, “Take off your clothes then. Then take off your clothes and find out.”

Imagine the moon is almost full, illuminating the shadows of the dark mountains. Imagine it smells like rushing river water and cottonwood blossoms. Imagine you laugh. You think: This is ridiculous.

He says, “Take off your clothes. I dare you.”

And then, choose.

Make the choice to go all in.

In the light of the moon, crouch down and slide your sweater off your shoulders. Feel the goosebumps rise on your arms in the cool night spring air. Unbutton your dress and fold it on top of the sweater. Imagine you don’t wear undergarments. No bras or underwear for you that summer. Remember, this was before. Hug yourself, cling to your elbows, shiver.

This is before. Before his alcoholism came to seem ordinary. Before they took the pool tables out of the Murray Bar and put in cafe tables for the fancy people who move to Montana in droves now. Before his father got cancer and asked the doctors to kill him with fentanyl. Before he came into the restaurant where you became a waitress, crying around, leaving all the other girls giant tips. For you, only his tears.

That was before you figured out what was wrong with him. Before you started to imagine how horrible it must have been to be taught how not to feel. Before you understood he was searching for his feelings, spreading his love all around, to boys or girls, to those who appeared unusual, to those who believed they were fat or ugly. He spread his love around until the world started to punish him for it. It was a matter of the heart, and his just couldn’t take it.

Nevertheless, I want you to imagine he gave you a gift in the before. This gift was convincing you to take off your clothes on the bank of the Yellowstone in the moonlight.

Imagine that you stand up slow, adverting your eyes from him, keeping your head down. Despite your overwhelming shame, imagine you can feel the way he’s looking at you. This is what makes you raise your head and meet his eyes.

When you finally gain the courage to look at him, he’s taking a step back. He’s holding his hands out in front of him. His eyes are soft. Maybe awed.

Imagine he says, “You’re beautiful.”

Imagine you believe him.

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NATALIE STOREY'S WORK HAS APPEARED IN PRAIRIE SCHOONER, BELOIT FICTION JOURNAL, THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE AND MANY OTHERS. SHE'S A FORMER HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER, PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER AND FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR. SHE LIVES IN HAVRE, MONTANA AND IS AT WORK ON A NOVEL ABOUT THE PSYCHEDELIC RENAISSANCE.