Clout

He was at least a foot taller than her. That was what had drawn her to him, his height. His body was bigger than any other boy in her life. He filled up spaces, and she assumed that that meant she wouldn’t have to. She could sit in the corner at parties, where she felt comfortable, while he took up enough space for the both of them. And then they could go home together, and he could take up all the space in the bed, and she could be as small as she wanted. Perfect.
Getting his attention was the hard part. Getting him to look down a couple of degrees and notice her. Luckily, despite their huge difference in height and build, they shared a lot of things. They had grown up in the same city, both love bicycles, and both would rather have eaten cereal than any other food.
She followed him around, learning things about him from other people, collecting all their shared traits into a pile in her ribcage before she sprung them on him, almost all at once. She sat next to him at dinner, and though she could tell that they had grown up differently, had different values, and were headed for different things in their lives, she knew she needed him. Needed his bulk next to her, jeopardizing while it protected her safety. She needed the uncertainty: the danger that came with his size as well as the protection that came with belonging to it.
She succeeded, of course. People always succeed in getting what they need. Or, at least, she did. Next to him she felt tiny and girly and pure. At parties, she would sit back, with a drink in one hand, and watch him. He would get riled up, too drunk and angry to control his heft. That was part of the charm- at any moment he could easily pick her up, pick any body up and just carry them away.
The first time they made love it felt as though a hole was being torn in her middle. Not in that way (don’t get the wrong idea; they were not, in that sense, too mismatched in size) but in some unwholesome, spiritual way. In the middle of the act, she realized: I am disappearing under this boy. The thought of it drove her wild with pride: she was accomplishing this small, unvocalised goal of receding from view behind the bulk of him, but at the same time it made her feel insignificant and insubstantial. No one would be able to appreciate her feat if no one could see her. And underneath the bulk of this boy’s flesh, no one could see her. It was beautiful and tragic, to disappear from the world during an act of love.
The feeling of tragedy slowly dissolved as she rested her head on his enormous expanse of chest and slept, dreaming of the ocean. He had his arms around her and he understood both his ability and responsibility to protect her. But underneath that, because he wasn’t as thick as his frame implied, he also knew that she was protecting herself from people like him. He closed his eyes and tried to dream of little things, but instead lay awake breathing in the smell of her hair.