Page 117 of A Really Bad Idea

Then, junior year happened.

It was the year Meadow came into her own.

Before then, Meadow was dorky. She was scrawny and always reading her Eloise books or The Baby-Sitters Club. She then moved on to Judy Blume and pretty much anything she could get her hands on. Her favorite music was NSYNC and Backstreet Boys, and she had Britney Spears posters all over her room. She didn’t wear makeup, she had a rabbit’s foot keychain on her backpack, she let her mom dress her in ruffles, and she always wore her hair in a ponytail.

Now, she was reading her mom’s Doubleday Book Club romances, listening to Maroon 5, and doodling boys’ names in her notebook. Her hair was down, and her face looked … different. It could have been the makeup she wore or the fact that her eyebrows were thicker. Perhaps her face was just changing, but she was getting pretty.

Really pretty.

Too pretty.

And then she turned seventeen.

If my hormones weren’t already raging, Meadow’s teenage metamorphosis had me going crazy. Her boobs had grown overnight, she had an ass, and that gawky figure was filling out all over. By the time the winter formal came around, I was having a hard time not staring at her when I should have been focusing on the PlayStation. It was as if she were channeling her own Britney Spears with the small tank tops and super-short shorts. One time, when we were supposed to be studying, I spent twenty minutes watching her suck on a Blow Pop.

That was when I decided I would ask her to the winter formal. I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t know why. She was a friend. We’d have fun together. I would not tell her I was lusting after her like the out-of-control teenager I was.

I waited until our drive home from school—something I’d started doing. When we got in my car, her door wasn’t even closed when she danced in the seat, screaming in excitement.

“Garret Kent asked me to the winter formal!” She was glowing. Ecstatic to be going to the dance with the biggest douche bag in school.

“When did you start liking Garret?” I wasn’t hiding my disgust. She was just too into her own celebration to notice. “You didn’t say yes … did you?”

“Are you serious? He’s the cutest boy in school, and he asked me. I mean, I know my value is more than some silly boy asking me to a dance, but can we first revel in the fact that, one, this is the first time I have ever, ever been asked to a dance, and two, I was asked by the boy that every girl in school wants to go with? This. Is. So. Exciting!”

Damn. How could I compete with that?

Not only did she think Garret was hot, but she also felt good about herself.

So, I did what any other guy in my position would do. I asked someone else.

And, when Meadow and Garret left the dance to go to a hotel, I did the same with my date, except I lost my virginity that night.

Meadow puked on Garret’s Nikes.

So, there I was, having a beer in Long Branch, New Jersey, with my dad in celebration of becoming a man.

“Not as exciting as you thought it would be?” he asked as I took my first sip.

“Sorry to break it to you, but this isn’t my first drink, Dad.”

“I’m not talking about the beer.”

“Oh.” I squinted my eyes into the sun and wrapped my hands around the cold beer. “No. Not really. Is that normal?”

“Only when you do it with someone you don’t care about.”

It was a powerful lesson. One that has sat with me over the years. As did another that my father imparted on me that day.

“You be a gentleman and treat this girl right by letting her down gently. Now, why don’t you tell me what you were doing at that dance with a girl you didn’t like?”

I rolled the bottle back and forth in my hands. “I was going to ask Meadow to the dance. You know, toss her a bone, so she didn’t have to go alone.” I tried to act unaffected because I didn’t need my dad knowing I liked her in that way. “She went with someone else.”

With an understanding nod, my father sat there and absorbed my admission. “Meadow doesn’t need your favors anymore. What she needs is a friend.”

As always, he was right. Meadow had been a good friend, and all I did was think of ways to get in her pants.

I was no better than Garret.