Ryan Spriggs and I dated in the sixth grade for three months, without actually dating at all. We never went anywhere together. We talked on the phone rather often, but we hardly ever talked at school, except for occasionally when we held hands while walking to P.E.

He tried to drag me under the mistletoe for a kiss once, at a Christmas partyI had at my house. I dug my heels into the carpet and became like an elephant being dragged toward a mouse. I was terrified of being kissed and I was panicking about my mother being just around the corner in the kitchen. I got away from him and we didn’t talk for the rest of the party.

We were still dating though.

On Valentine’s Day at school I gave him a jumbo size Hershey’s Kiss and he gave me a little gold bracelet in a white box. I wore the bracelet every day with pride.

Over spring break my family and I went on a house boating vacation to Lake Powell and I was out of school for an extended week after the break. When I returned I had several friends coming and telling me that Ryan had been sitting with Betty ever day at lunch while I was gone and that he liked her.

I was mortified.

I didn’t know what to do, however… my friends made it clear that there was only one thing that could be done… Ryan must be “dumped”.

If what people were saying was true, and Ryan really had started liking Betty, then I might me the one getting dumped. I had to dump him first and I had better do it soon.

Once I set my mind on dumping him, I felt empowered. Wow! This was just like a movie. I knew this part well. I puffed out my chest with pride.

I would not be treated this way.

Boy did he have it comin’!

When it was time for P.E. I hid in the bathroom to avoid meeting him for the usual hand-holding walk. I arrived to P.E. late, snuck into the locker room, changed, and caught up with my girls only P.E. class.

Through out the time my friends and I were supposed to be running a mile, we instead walked, and plotted, and planned.

It was decided. The breakup would happen as soon as P.E. was over!

I changed out of my P.E. clothes and headed with my friends out in front of the gym to wait for him. We were all very excited. I was the only one of us whom had, had an official boyfriend for so long and the thought of a real breakup unfolding before all of us was very dramatic.

I hadn’t spoken to him in two weeks. We saw him in the distance and as my girlfriends stepped off to the side to watch the saga unfold, I smiled at him to lure him over. He fell right into my trap and walked up to me.

“Hey,” he said kindly with a smile on his face.

“Hi,” I said, “I have something for you.”

I held up my hand with a closed fist motioning like I had something tucked inside to give him. Perhaps a gift brought back from my vacation.

He held out his baseball glove ready to receive what I was offering. Into it I dropped the little gold bracelet he had given me for Valentine’s Day.

His eyes quickly met mine with a question in them and I was ready with the well rehearsed answer.

In the most dramatic and scorned tone I could summon, I hissed,

“I don’t want this if you don’t want me.”

And with a flip of my hair I turned on a dime and headed up the hill with my friends.

“I never liked you anyway!” He yelled after me.

His harsh remark didn’t even make a dent at that moment. I was on a high, giggling with my friends about the dramatic, very grown up, event that had just taken place. I felt like a mastermind.

When we got to the top of the hill, we turned and looked back down to see him coming up. He was now with his friends and it was clear the word was spreading about what had just taken place. He was ranting and raving a bit and as he passed our campus lake (more like an oversized pond really) and he threw the bracelet into it.

That part actually stung a bit.

I finished the day of school surrounded by my girlfriends who had all moved on to other subjects.

When I got home I cried for an hour about the fact that he threw my bracelet in the lake (pond), and that he said he never really liked me, and because I suspected he liked Betty more. I felt rejected and I couldn’t see how my heart would ever heal.

To be continued…