March 10, 1999

Today is Saturday. Last night, there was a dance. Everyone wanted to know if I was going to go out with Mark. Tyler and Daniel were like, "Will you go out with him?" I said, "Let me dance with him first. I want to see if he makes me feel tingly." I meant tingly as in nervous because I liked him, like butterflies, but they took it a different way. [Yeah, "tingly" might not have been the best word choice, in hindsight.]

"You mean horny?" Tyler laughed. "No!" I said, but they ran off to tell Mark. A few minutes later, they came back. Daniel asked, "What does Mark have to do to make you feel, er... tingly?" This sent them into another fit of giggles. I sighed. "Tell him to just be himself."

I danced with him, and I saw Jacob. He and Matt were running around yelling out, "We're pimps! We're pimping!" Matt lifted Jacob up like a baby and charged through a group of people. When the song was over, Mark went back to his group of friends. Tyler and Daniel ran up to me. "Will you go out with him now?" While I was thinking about what to say, I noticed that Jacob was still with Matt, pretending to be pimps, whatever that means.

I mumbled, "Okay." "Really?!" They cried. "All right!" Like it was as much of a victory for them as it was for Mark. They ran over to tell him. All my girl friends started congratulating me. I felt sick to my stomach. Mark came over and stood next to me. Melanie whispered, "You look miserable." I whispered back, "I am." She said, "Well, at least pretend to look happy, for Mark's sake." We looked over at Mark, who was beaming from ear to ear. I plastered a smile on my face, pretending I was in a play and Mark was playing the part of my boyfriend.

He reached over and took my hand. Our fingers intertwined, and his hand was sweaty. He took my other hand and began playing with my fingers. It was a romantic gesture - if I liked him, I would have been swooning. His hands started to move my hands downward, towards his waist. I got stiff, remembered his incident with Shauna, what happened with Zach, and also what happened with Chris Walker, all at the same time somehow. I was petrified. If he tried anything, I wouldn't be able to move.

Luckily, Melanie turned to talk to me at that instant and Mark dropped my hands. Then another slow song came on. Mark wrapped his arms around me. We were really close. I looked to the side and his eyelashes fluttered against mine. I leaned my head against his and closed my eyes. It felt good to be holding someone this close, even if it wasn't Jacob.

Mark turned his head to look at me. I was suddenly very aware that he was going to kiss me. I kept my head turned to the side and bit my lip. He took the hint and turned his head so that his face was pressed into my neck. I couldn't feel anything. Another slow song came on, annoyingly. Mark turned his face up, as if to kiss me, and I kept looking to the side. He kissed me on the cheek and waited for my reaction. I didn't do anything - I just kept staring off into space.

He kissed the corner of my mouth and I decided to just get it over with, so I turned my head so that his lips were pressed against mine and opened my mouth a little bit. Kissing Mark was nothing like kissing Zach. With Zach, we both opened our mouths and our tongues kind of met in the middle. Mark shoved his tongue into my mouth, surprising me so much that my eyes flew open. Everyone was watching us. I closed my eyes and tried to get into the kiss, but that was impossible. His mouth kept opening and closing and I couldn't move my mouth at all. Mark owned the kiss. I tried to end it, but wasn't able to until the song ended.

Then I pulled away and ran to the bathroom. Gina was right behind me. I could feel tears start gathering in my eyes. Steph came into the small bathroom. She looked at me, smiled, and said, "What have you been doing?" "What?" I didn't understand. She patted her own neck, applied some makeup, and left. [Phew. That could have been worse.]

I looked in the mirror and nearly died. There were red marks all over my neck from where Mark had been sucking on it. Then I really started to cry, and I took out my makeup and did my best to cover the marks. Stacy, Michelle, and Melanie arrived and crowded into the bathroom. "Mark asked us where you went," Melanie said. "I told him you were in the girls' room. This is the one place he can't follow you."

My friends are very understanding. They told me I should wait a while to break up with Mark. "He really likes you," Gina reminded me. "Give him a chance."

[The strange power dynamic stands out to me here. I seemed to have social power over Mark, since he kept sending his friends to beg me to go out with him, but in our physical interaction I clearly felt powerless: "Mark owned the kiss." He doesn't seem to have done anything blatantly wrong, but for some reason I associated his attention with negative, threatening interactions I'd had before.]