Note: Names have been changed to protect the privacy of others.

I don’t consider my first time to be with Drew. Although it technically happened, I realize that I blocked it out for the longest time. I suppose I didn’t want to believe that my first time had been something so meaningless and cheap. But as the saying goes, “it is what it is”. Even though I was sore, I bled and my underwear told the story the next day, it just didn’t count in my mind. He didn’t count. I had always wanted my first time to be with someone I loved. So, in my mind, I didn’t give myself away entirely until I met Charlie.

*

I don’t remember a gradual progression from being awkward and homely to being somewhat attractive and acceptable to boys. But I suppose that is what happened. Mind you, I still didn’t think I was pretty in any way. I always had to go by what others thought because I had a warped version of what I really looked like. I was still stuck on thinking I looked like Ralphie or Sally Jesse Raphael with her red-rimmed glasses. Some people still called me Sally-Jesse. I was so hard on myself that everything people said or did didn’t compare to what I put myself through on a daily basis. But nonetheless, I was now pretty in the guys’ eyes. The girls hated it, but I loved the newfound attention.

The day I met Charlie Sheldon signified both the beginning and ending of my understanding of love and sex. He ruined me from the inside-out starting with his charming smile, zest for life and sense of humor. He would be the standard on which I would base every relationship thereafter. And that’s not saying much. I remember the day I first saw him – all six-foot-four of him. Being that I am a petite five foot two and a half, it is amazing we ever made eye contact. Or should I say, it is amazing that I ever made eye contact because he didn’t even notice me – not at first. I made a point to run into him as soon as I saw him. Call it gut reaction. Call it desperation. Call it whatever you wish, but I knew I had to have him. Nothing could stop me from getting what I wanted, and it was already set up in my mind that he would be mine.

Inside I was still torn to pieces and unrecognizable to myself, and I didn’t know why, but the one tiny thing I now had was the ability to get a guy to like me. It’s all I had to hold onto. It made me who I was. This was high school now, and I wanted what I could never have before. I wanted positive attention, or what I thought to be positive attention at the time. From what I could tell from others, I was no longer an awkward geek. I had thinned out. I was still short and always would be, but I had lost some of that baby fat and my hair was growing out long. It was past my shoulders now, and the texture had improved from the frizz ball bird’s nest it was in eighth grade. It was now a normal blonde instead of white with dark roots. The girls absolutely hated me, but now they hated me because I was pretty, not because I was awkward.

The following of girls that hated me in junior high had grown ten-fold. There were more people that didn’t like me than people that liked me. It was as if everything I had done with boys up to that point had become public knowledge. This did not help my case. I was still as insecure as ever, and high school was not an easy place to be insecure. I had to walk through the “L” section between almost every class. That is where all the cool kids loitered. I got called names and had people staring at me every time I walked through. I hated that hallway so much. I started avoiding it by walking outside even in the wintertime.

My “approval process” also started at this point. It was the never-ending seeking of approval from guys, and it was the most important thing in my life; it was definitely more important than school even though I was making straight A’s and B’s with very little effort. My thought was, if the girls hated me at least I could still get the guys’ attention. And Charlie’s approval quickly became the most important.

Everyone called him “Shell”. I loved his last name. Simple. Effective. He was very popular in school, but not for the reasons one might think. He wasn’t a great thinker or stellar athlete or involved in student life or clubs. He was just charismatic. He was funny. Actually, he was hilarious. He had the X factor. And he had this presence about him that just made you want to hang out with him. He took control of situations and made decisions for the crowd. People loved that about him. I loved that about him. He always had a group of followers, and he never seemed to be alone. He reminded me, in a strange way, of Kate with his larger-than-life presence.

But there was a dark side too, just as there often is with anybody. He was damaged goods. So broken. It seems he was constantly seeking power and approval from his peers. He came from an unstable home. He was living with his old-fashioned grandparents to help “straighten him out”. He was in St. Marys to make a fresh start. And at first, it worked, I guess. But it wasn’t long before his deceiving antics and manipulative attitude started sprouting up again. His game was to charm people and suck them in and then spit them out like used pieces of gum. This was his theory with girls, friends, parents … anyone. And once he spit you out he could always charm and suck you back in. That was his superpower. It was amazing how easily it happened. He was good at what he did.

*

I'd seen him in the hallway earlier that mild, fall day, only a few weeks after school had started. Summer break had ended, and here we were again, weaving our way through the social injustices of high school. Some kids were thriving while others, like me, were semi-depressed and trying to find places to hide out in between classes and on lunch breaks. Looking busy was something I became really good at. That was really hard to do before smartphones.

Shell and I had run into each other in the hallway that morning. I ran into his towering body, and my world exploded. He had to be well over six feet tall. He hardly noticed as he glanced toward me, almost annoyed, and said, "Sup?" He walked on. He was wearing a hat, backwards. Hats were not allowed during school hours. Rebel.

I could only stutter. "Uh…hey."  But he didn't even hear me. He had already walked away. Was he real?

I froze. I stared. Who was he? I had never seen him before. I had to know who he was. My heart raced. My mouth dried up. But, I had to get to class, so I didn’t have time to figure out what had just happened.

But I thought about him all day. I kept running the incident through my head. Had I run into him, or did he run into me? Did he notice me at all? Had he said “sup” to someone else?

So, I told Kate about it later. I talked to her on the bus on the way home from school. Neither of us had our driver’s license yet, so we had to take the stupid bus unless we could catch a ride with someone older who lived on the outskirts of town

So there we were, sitting on the bus together, discussing the night ahead. And then I brought him up. I told her what had happened.

"Do you know who he is?" I asked her.

I tried to be nonchalant, but she knew better.

And she knew. She had answers. I could tell. Of course she knew. She always knew everything about everyone. I don't know where she learned all this information. It seemed to just flow to her like she was the supreme queen of popular information for St. Marys Memorial High School. The info was streamlined directly into her brain. She grinned her famous toothy smile and prepared to tell the story. Her dimples beamed – this was her territory.

"Sha-yeah!” her eyes lit up, “He's from Akron. Grew up there. I guess he moved in with his grandma here in St. Marys because he was in trouble at home,” she paused, “I wonder what he did?" Of course, her question was hypothetical -- she knew I wouldn't know the answer. Her tone was impeccably gossipy. This is part of what I loved about her. She was deep in thought about what he could’ve done that had been bad enough to be sent away by his own parents.

Hmmm, so he was a troublemaker. A bad boy.

She rambled on as if remembering what he had done, "Yeah, I guess his mom couldn't really handle him for some reason. Doing shit at school. Stealing stuff. That kind of thing." She was sure of it now. No doubt. I wonder who her source was. I never asked, I just took her word as gospel. She knew I would believe every word. I never questioned her authority on gossip.

I didn't care about his back story. I figured a little black streak wasn't the end of the world. After all, I felt a little black inside myself. A perfect match.