I move home and remember I want to be a better person

For some reason, anytime I hear concern that a book has themes that are too dark for youth I remember this boy I went to school with. He was slightly chubby, wore raggedy t-shirts and jeans, had mousy matted hair, and big glasses that hipsters now kill for. Have I told you this story? I'm not sure. There's never much call for me to bring it up.


We were in junior high...I can't remember now if we ever interacted, if we had any classes together besides band, if we ever had face to face conversations. I remember he had a crush on me and most of my grade new it. Which felt embarrassing and awkward.


Do you remember how we didn't have cell phones? So at some point in the summer after 8th grade, he looked up my number in the phone book and began calling to talk. I don't know anymore if I heard it from him first or from a friend. He'd been raped.


My parents noticed a boy was regularly calling me so they sat me down to tell me it was OK to talk to boys on the phone but I shouldn't encourage them. You see, being Mormon, I shouldn't have anything more than platonic friendships until I was 16 and thereafter all non-platonic relationships should be with Mormon boys.


I didn't say anything, I didn't know what to say. It felt strange that my parents were concerned about my budding and supremely awkward love-life when it wasn't the least romantic, it was a poor, struggling boy who just needed someone to talk to. And I wasn't very helpful. 


One afternoon he called and asked me go with him the next day when he'd be getting tested for AIDS. This was too much, now, I didn't want to deal with it. I had never wanted to deal with it, what was I supposed to do? Why was he calling me? I still have a hard time believing any of this happened, but I know it did because I distinctly remember my response. It's something to add to the list of tactless, inappropriate things I've said––the kind of thing I can't dream or make up––


"I can't," I said, "I have to pack."


During that next year I read The Caine Mutiny because I was into reading big books, in all honesty. I felt they had deeper characters. However silly my reasoning was, I'm glad I read it then. The protagonist is neither hero nor antihero and at the very end you're turned on your head, which is exactly what it's like to grow up.