Self Help

The Black album

After my kiss with Matt, he seemed to realize that I would expect things to develop further between us, and he panicked. Slowly he pulled away from me, stopped holding my hand in the hallway, focused on his school work in class and found another seat at lunch. Disappointed doesn't even begin to cover how I felt. And on top of everything, the only explaination he gave me was that he was paranoid that word of he and I would get back to his parents. He wasn't allowed to date until he turned sixteen.

Well guess what, neither was I - but that wasn't stopping me!  

Needless to say I wasn't very impressed.

In an effort to get over my heartbreak after Matt, I set my sights on a new boy. After all, whats a jilted ninth grader to do?

Looking back now I'll admit I'm not quite sure what I was thinking in pursuing Anthony, other than the fact that he was the total opposite of Matt. I was hoping to make Matt jealous by finding a football playing broad shouldered cologne wearing anti-Matt. Anthony was Italian, or was it Portugese? Either way, his parents didn't speak English, his suburban house was decorated in lush florals and gold-rimmed everything, and he had a nanny who not only cleaned up after him and his much older brother, but still cooked their meals. He was about three times the size of me, exposed his undershirt under his button-down uniform shirt, wore a gold chain and slicked back his curly hair with about half a bottle of gel each day. We'd been introduced through my best childhood friend Jessica and really I was thrilled to have any positive male attention after the amount of effort I'd just spent trying to convince Matt to like me.

After a quick week of he-said she-said hallway gossip, it had been established that we both "liked" each other "that way" and soon I was taking the bus to his house after school to make out in his empty house (well, no parents, foreign speaker nanny lurking about) twice a week. He seemed hopelessly mature to me, I remember thinking that his room didn't even look like a real person lived there. It was immaculate and decorated in a style more reflective of a thirty-something bachelor than a ninth grade jock.

Anthony was popular and athletic and because of that way out of my league, though there was one thing that acted as a great equalizer for our social status. He had been the fat kid, in a big way (pardon the pun). Growing up in a small town where everyone knew everyone, despite the complete makeover that puberty had granted him, he couldn't escape his past with the girls who had known him that way. Luckily, my town is home to a ridiculous number of Catholic elementary schools that all feed into one central Catholic highschool. This meant that as long as you avoided the sixty- something kids that you had gone to elementary with, you could re-invent yourself.

Despite the fact that we had next to nothing in common, it didn't seem to matter much. Our relationship was happy one. We did everything that obnoxious teen couples do. I would lie to my parents, who were extremely strict about parental supervision, in order to hang out with him at his house after school. I can't even describe how rebellious and free I felt as we lay on his bed behind closed doors. I'm not really sure if his parents had any rules about girls, but his nanny sure as hell wasn't enforcing any.

Even with my newfound freedom, I was shy and if we're being honest, Matt's virginal hand holding was much more my speed. Still, I enjoyed the rush I felt during our makeout sessions that lasted for hours - it was just enough to make me feel grown up and scandalous while still be completely safe and innocent. Plus, he introduced me to Family Guy, which was also not allowed at my house. We would stand in his kitchen waiting for our microwave popcorn to pop, and he would lift me onto the counter and kiss me. I was in teenage heaven.

We had reached our first exam period of ninth grade, and I was taking Georgraphy with a really fun, young teacher. She would let us study while listening to our discmen (yes, this was back at the dawn of time, before mp3 players were as common as pens to highschoolers). I was going through a major Linkin Park "Meteora" phase, though I would switch it up from time to time. Anthony lent me Jay-Z's "Black Album" and I became absolutely obsessed. I feel that it's necessary to make it clear at this time that I may possibly be the whitest white girl where any stereotypes are concerned. I had never felt so cool, so rebellious and so mature (though, I should point out, I am fully aware I was none of these things). And that's the beauty of highschool.

Eventually things fizzled with Anthony after about three months due to his dabble in recreational drugs and the fact that in my teenaged heart I was convinced that I loved him. If that's not a recipe for dramatic disaster I don't know what is. It didn't matter much to me though, it wasn't long before I was on to the next, and believe me, this was nothing compared to the disasters to follow. But that's another story...