Just as Benny sits down, Sarah comes running into my office.
“I need you!” She’s panting, looking frazzled and anxious.
Benny stands quickly. “Ms. Kim, is everything alright?”
She looks back and forth between Benny and I. “Uhh yes. It’s a . . . girl situation . . .”
Benny nods, smiling as he hurries out of the office. Sarah slams my door shut behind him.
“What’s going on, Sarah?” I watch her clench and shake her hands, looking all around my office as she paces back and forth.
“It’s Ethan Blake!” she growls. “He’s told every guy on the football team that I made out with him under the bleachers and that isnotwhat happened! He cornered me!”
Feeling instantly protective, I interrupt. “Did he force himself—”
“No, no!” she interjects. “He just cornered me . . . with his sexy eyes . . .” She stops pacing and looks at me with her own pitiful, love struck eyes.
“Ahh.” I nod in understanding. “I see. Go on.”
“He told everyone on the football team, and now they all think I’m easy or something. It wasjusta kiss—an unexpected one, especially from me. I’m the smartest kid in school—he’s the hottest. It’s disrupting the status quo! We threw homeostasis off balance and now they are rioting! It’s everywhere. People arelookingat me. Texting me. Birdie hates me!”
Birdie was Queen Bee, apparently. Everyone knew it, and I’m assuming Ethan was “hers,” because in high school, of course we look at our partners as property and not humans with individual thoughts or opinions.
I try not to wonder if she had listed Ethan as one of her prospective formal dates and focus on Sarah.
“She has the entire cheer squad whispering about me! It got all the way to Ms. Simmons before debate practice and she never knows anything! The woman is oblivious to the social norms. I couldn’t even finish my defense on subsidization of renewable energy production!”
Sarah kept going—even going as far back as the third grade when Birdie moved here and how they were best friends for years. Then comparing how different they were now: Birdie got boobs, Sarah got brains. Then on to Ethan—how she’s loved him since she knew what love was and decided pursuing him was like grasping at the wind. And of course, how she thought loving Ethan would fade but it has grown into something she can’t run or hide from, and now she has to watch this person she wants to be hers, be with someone else—someone who doesn’t appreciate him like she does.
Her words, not mine.
She became very poetic, and a twinge snarky, which I am thoroughly enjoying.
Sarah is in love with Ethan. Even if she is a teenager, what she feels . . . is love.
I remember my first love in school—he went on to be assistant manager of a Best Buy.
I start to doodle little tweety birds and reading glasses. It may seem silly to someone on the outside—this teenage drama—but the reality that these years are extremely formative for a person is at the center of my mind. I think back to my conversation with Benny the other night, and focus on Sarah’s situation.
As much as I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her senseless, I have to fight that feeling and remind myself of her heightened emotional capacity and the continued development of her brain. It is essential, as someone she confides in, for me to listen well and validate her feelings as being normal, even if I know, in the depths of my soul, that she can dowaybetter than Ethan Blake.
“What I need to do is find a super hot date to prom!” She finally stops pacing to share this revelatory solution.
“Do you think that will improve this situation?”
I know exactly why she thinks this is a good idea, and I won’t lie, it would definitely get heads turning and provide her that confidence boost she desperately wants, but is it the most logical, and emotionally mature option? Absolutely not.
“Maybe! It might at least clear my name from the hallway whispers, it will get Birdie off my back, her minions will find someone else to gawk at, and it will definitely make Ethan jealous.”
“Prom isn’t until next term though,” I say.
“I know, but what other option do I have?”
“Does the only solution involve another person?”
“Yes, that’s the only way. Unless I started a rumor that I made out with someone else? Or left someone on read! Oo! I could say I was dating a guy in college!”
“Or!” I jump in, quickly interrupting her last idea. “Now hear me out . . . what if you actually dated someone, for real?” If her only solution involves another person, I will go along with it to at least avoid her trying to date a scrubby college boy.
