If you had been driving by Pinole Middle School on that fateful day, you wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary. A slightly overweight 6th grader was standing outside waiting for a ride. Perhaps his mother had fallen way behind and forgotten him or something. He was what most would consider a train wreck of fashion, one of those kids who doesn’t know who he is yet, so he mish mashes all the trends of the day.

Tragic? Sure, but the tragedy wasn’t what was going on on the outside. The real tragedy was within. What people passing by that day didn’t know was that the boy wasn’t waiting for a late ride home from school; he was waiting for an early ride home from the dance that was taking place in the school’s multi-purpose room. If anyone was paying close enough attention to see past the boy’s horrible haircut, you would have seen that he was crying. At least, I was trying not to cry, but wasn’t having much luck.

The day started out with all the excitement and good intentions that any supposedly promising day holds—the first day of school, the last day of school, the day of the big game, the chance to be a hero—as I put on my clothes that morning. I knew the school dance was going to be my chance to start talking to a few of these girls I had suddenly become interested in this year. Sure, I’d seen girls before and I’d liked girls before, but these girls had done something that the others hadn’t: hit puberty. I chose my clothes carefully, no, painstakingly as I knew that my clothes were the first thing the girls would judge me on later.

I held up different pants while wondering, “What would Tammy think about these pants? What will Susannah say when I walk up to her wearing these?” I even caught the last half of “U Can’t Touch This” on MTV before I headed out the door. Keeping those moves fresh in my mind would surely help me impress the ladies later on. As my mom drove me to school, I asked her about the best way to ask a girl to dance. “Well,” she told me, “just go up to them and ask. The worst they can say is, ‘No’.” Mom knows best, right? She dropped me off at the front of the school and I stepped out of that car exuding the confidence I knew would carry me through the day and into the school dance where, let’s face it, Tammy and Susannah would find me irresistible and spend the rest of the night fighting over who got to dance with me next.

All day long, questions raced through my mind. “Who will I ask first? Who will get the first slow dance with me? Which one of these lucky ladies will I choose to share my first kiss with?” The day was still full of promise as I walked out into the schoolyard for lunch. I saw my friend Nathaniel, who told me he was also going to dance.

“Hey Nate, who should I dance with first, Tammy or Susannah?”

“Well, it’ll have to be Tammy, Susannah isn’t going to be there.”

“I guess that makes my decision easier, then, right? But hey, Nate, do you think you can help me out with talking to Tammy at the dance? I don’t want to go up to her alone.”

“Sure man, I’ll help you out.”