i remember the day as if it were yesterday...
it was the tail end of 6th grade...or maybe it was 7th? anyhow, that's not important. it was nearing the end of lunch and i was chilling outside with my best friend and the boy we both liked. i'll call them rehtaeh and gerg to keep things anonymous.

the bell sounded and all the other kids left.
gerg put his arm around my shoulders.
rehtaeh took this as a signal to leave as well.
gerg turned to me and asked if i'd go with him.

on a side note...i really hope that term has evolved into something a little less lame sounding these days. or maybe it was just a no-cal thing all along. anyhow, that's not important to the story either.

now this wasn't completely unexpected...i knew gerg liked me, but still my heart had stopped beating. i somehow managed to stammer that yes, i would go with him and then scurried off to class.

i was mortified to say the least. i truly liked gerg, but liking a boy and going with said boy are two very different things! i don't want to say that i was a late bloomer or was scared of boys, but that's probably the best way to describe things. my first kiss was not to occur for several years - and i'm counting innocent kindergarten kissing games when i say that. listen to this: i had even pretended to be sick so i could stay home from school on fifties day in second grade (i had heard a rumor that we were going to play spin the bottle and i was having none of that!).

gerg was a perfect boyfriend - he called me and asked me to a movie with him over the weekend. i panicked and said i'd have to ask my mother for permission and would call him back. you've probably already guessed what happened next: i never called him back.

the school year was soon over. i had decided to address the boyfriend issue a little more seriously and taped his school picture inside the folder i used for a summer program. of course the kids in the program teased me since they saw it embarrassed me. although this was not part of my school district, one of the boys in the class knew gerg.

i was gradually getting more comfortable with the idea of gerg as my boyfriend, though i wasn't ready to return his phone call just yet...after all, it had only been a month or so. i didn't have an agenda of any sort, but i figured by the time the school year rolled around, we'd pick up where we left off and maybe even go to that movie.

this is when tragedy struck. the boy in my summer program who knew gerg had run into him and asked after our relationship. gerg announced, "going with madi? not anymore! no way!" thus i was informed that we were no longer going together.

my friends today argue that he was not really my boyfriend since we never kissed, but i disagree. maybe i didn't learn much from the relationship other than what an idiot i can be, but there was definitely a relationship of some sort.

it'd be easy to claim that i sabotaged the relationship intentionally for rehtaeh's sake...this was the only sure fire way to make gerg stop liking me and give him a chance to notice rehtaeh. after all, she had admitted her attraction for him to me whilst i said nothing of my feelings. in essence, she had dibs on him all along. it was very unsportsmanlike of me to say nothing of my own feelings initially or to accept his offer to go with him later. but of course sabotage wasn't my motive - i was just an idiot.

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