Seeing Red.

I'd never had a Valentine.

There I was: seventeen years old and just coming out of an eleven and a half month relationship that had started the week after the previous Valentine's Day. Go figure.

(Okay, here's the part where I should mention that technically I did have a Valentine the previous year, but that is another story for another day and the beginning of the story that I am now ending.)

I didn't really care to have plans. I had gotten along in the past just fine, so why should this year be any different?

But then Dustin had asked me out to dinner during Creative Writing and I was taken by surprise and I decided to try something new and say "YES" rather than dwelling on it and what it meant that he had asked me to go out THAT night of all nights.

Somehow word had gotten to M. that I would be going out with Dustin that night. I already knew that he was messing around with her, and so I didn't really see what the big deal was.

We had gymnastics practice that night and I was working hard at the sidelines so I could get all my homework done so I could enjoy my "date." A date . . . oh my God.

It was when I left the room to get a drink that it happened.

I walked out in to the Commons and saw M., sitting there on a stack of chairs along the north wall--the chairs that were taken down and put back up every day for the lunch periods.

I was cordial, so I went up to say "hello." Afterall, we were trying out the whole "let's be friends" thing that people always foolishly think will work until it all blows up in your face worse than the actual breakup. Well, this was about to be that blow-up.

His hello was far from cordial. In fact, it was cold. Maybe being cordial wasn't such a great idea?

He then proceeded to tell me that he stripped the gears on his Dad's dually when he drove me home last week, and of course it was my fault because he shouldn't have had to drive me home. (Again, we were trying to "be friends" and I thought being friends could possibly involve a ride home. Plus, I wasn't the one who told him to keep shifting down to showboat his "amazing driving skills.")

He also told me he heard I had kissed Cody, which I technically hadn't--it was just an accidental brushing of lips while dancing at a wrestling party.

Then he mentioned he heard that I had kissed John, and for some reason this is what really pissed him off. Not hundreds of dollars of damage to the truck that his Dad loved more than his children, or an accidental possible kiss by a hot sophomore. John. And I knew it was because he had always, more than secretly, idealized John. He wanted to be John, he wanted to be near John. And there I was having been closer to John than he could ever be.

And here's where things get blurry:

M. had gotten up to go to the drinking fountain after our little discussions. He ducked down right next to me and slurped from the adjacent fountain, and then looked up right at me and said:

"Have fun on your DATE, BITCH."

Or maybe it was whore.

But it doesn't matter. The fact is: I heard him say that, and the way he said it, and I saw red. Heat of passion. I grabbed him and somehow using super human strength, I slammed his head into the metal drinking fountain, yelling, "FUCK YOU!"

It was then I looked up and saw the Girl Scouts standing by the door, having watched everything.

* * *

The date that night was uneventful. I ordered ribs so Dustin would not fall in love with me.

M. missed school the next day, citing "whiplash."

* * *

I found out later that summer as we were all making our grand exits what Dustin's intentions were in asking me on that date. Pity.

I could have avoided eating the messy ribs and I could have avoided making a scene in front of ten Girl Scouts had I only allowed myself to step back and think about WHY this guy would be asking me out for a date on VALENTINE'S DAY. But I didn't and instead I set forth a chain of events (which, to be honest, had been set forth earlier) which resulted in me becoming the monster I had always been afraid of becoming. Pity, anger, rage.