Poor Aaron had no idea what to do. Katelin, in her misguided youthful honesty had kissed him firmly and sweetly on his cheek. She liked him in that moment, though her friends would soon educate her as to what sort of boy would make her socially accepted amongst the popular crowd.

This was wrong. Girls were gross, weren't they? Aaron thought about his friends. Would they shun him? Kick him out of their D&D club? He couldn't be seen like this. At the same time, he had to admit to himself, deep down inside, that this somehow felt really good, to have the attention of someone as pretty as Katelin. They had been talking lately. That was kind of strange. Katelin had seemed over the last week or two to be going out of her way to say hi in the hallways at school, or tracking Aaron down to ask him a question about her homework. Just yesterday she had launched out of nowhere into some long story about her family and her brother's dog who was sick, whatever that was all about.

Like a would-be train passenger just a moment late to the platform, Aaron would watch Katelin slip away from him after that. Had he reacted right then, had he known how to in that moment, things may have been different. Had he not responded by exaggeratedly wiping his face and loudly proclaiming "EEEWWWW!!" as soon as Katelin pulled away, all the while casting his eyes about the room to see how others were reacting, making sure they saw that he was in no way enjoying this moment as much as he secretly was, who knows how differently the life of young Aaron would have gone. Maybe there really was no chance; Bobby Richardson, the school basketball star would have fared far better, as he did once Katelin turned her attentions to him. He didn't hesitate. He somehow knew what she was looking for and wasn't afraid to show his interest in return.

Aaron would walk away from Katelin that day, not realizing he was walking away from a girl and a moment in time that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He was jittery, nervous and didn't know why. It was like his body was being jolted by electricity and he couldn't think straight for the rest of the party. He certainly couldn't be around Katelin, and carefully avoided her all night. At one point he caught her looking at him. She was surrounded by several other girls, all of them glaring at him from across the room. Katelin's eyes were red and puffy and she looked so sad. That look would be burned in his memory from that day forward.

It wasn't until he got home that night, until he was in bed, alone with his thoughts, that everything fell into place in his mind. She liked him! Like-liked! Here, in the privacy of his own space, he could let his guard down and admit that, actually, he liked her too; or he could like her. He knew for certain he wanted her to kiss him again; he wanted that rush, that pure adrenaline that had coursed through him. He fantasized about her being his girlfriend; kissing, cuddling, on the couch watching movies together. He decided then and there that he would talk to her tomorrow. He would put everything straight. He would simply tell her that he enjoyed the kiss, and that he liked her. It would be easy. He would discover later that what seems so easy in the darkness of your bed is often far more challenging, impossible even, in the moment of truth.

He came up to her awkwardly once after that. It had taken him all day to approach, spending most of his time in class and at lunch stealing quick glances at her, imagining what it would be like to touch her, to be touched by her again, his mind buzzing with energy that made him too shaky and rattled to do anything more. It was after school, the halls swarming with boisterous students. Knowing it was his last moment that day, not wanting to wait until tomorrow and be tortured all night by his thoughts, he ran up and awkwardly mumbled some horrible compliment about her hair looking like dark honey and maybe it was sticky, if he could touch it and find out. She looked at him, and he knew from her gaze that he was totally and utterly exposed. The realization dawned on her, slowly, like the shadows of clouds washing over a vast field, unstoppable, erasing the light as they swept along; she saw him for who he was; an awkward, geeky kid who liked her. He liked her, and though she had wanted this, in this incarnation, in his expression of how he liked her, she felt completely repulsed; she felt badly, sorry for him but she didn't know then how to handle these feelings. It was like a large spider was crawling around in her gut as she watched him flounder like a drowning cat in front of her.

Internet porn would eventually become Aron's escape from the harshness of life, though his most vivid fantasies would always be of what might have been with sweet Katelin all those years ago. He grew to realize he wasn't Bobby Richardson, and that Katelin would have eventually wised up, even if he had somehow managed to say or do the right thing that night. He couldn't have kept it up for long; at least that's what he told himself, because the alternative, that he might have actually had a shot, a real shot, would have simply been too much to bear.

Even though he would meet a woman who would become his wife, and even though that relationship was a perfectly good one and they enjoyed many happy years together, no matter how he tried to cover it up, forget about it and convince himself that this was enough, deep down inside Aaron wanted to go back, back to that dance and that moment when the prettiest girl in school had kissed him, back to when the whole world was in front of him, and all he had to do was to open his arms and embrace it.