It seemed that I had just lost the first guy best friend I ever had. It could have been miserable. After all, he just pointed out that he blamed me for everything.

It could have been so easy for Jed to get back at me. I had shared so many secrets with him and in high school, secrets could kill—especially when they had something to do with a certain boy that you like. But then again, when you're a senior rushing from one college entrance test to another, it's easy to shove something like Jed's confession to the back of my priorities.

That doesn't mean it wasn't there. Oh, it was always there, hanging just above the surface of my consciousness. Even if what happened wasn't entirely my fault, we never got the chance to talk again after that phone call.

After all, there were a lot of other things going on, too. Now that Al was single again, Mark and his gang used every opportunity to rub it on Gabe's face, to the point that the latter wrote me a love letter--which I threw away almost as quickly as I opened it in private. Sometimes, he tried to sit beside me in class and make small talk. I remember wishing for the ground to open up and swallow me whole every time that happened.

Gabe had no backbone so he quickly became Mark's favorite target. Everyone just seemed to enjoy putting salt on Gabe's hurt feelings, that even quiet Al joined in the teasing. They were seatmates, and one day, Al told Gabe that I secretly liked big-boned guys. Evidently pleased, Gabe asked me about it and continued to pester me the entire day. He followed me around school like a hovering maniac and refused to leave me alone until I snapped and cried when he cornered me at the second floor of a school building. If it weren't for my girl friends who escorted me to the ladies' room, I would have jumped off the balcony.

It bothers me to think about how many times I cried in high school. When I finally calmed down and went to the classroom, I saw Al and his friend sitting quietly in the corner while the rest of the class awaited the return of the crybaby school council president. I walked over to where he was, raised my hand in the air, and slapped him really hard across the face. Twice.

Needless to say, that incident became the fave topic of the high school faculty for almost a month. Nobody had the heart to give me a suspension. After all, it was the principal's nephew's fault that I had a panic attack.