Tears gathered in my eyes and my throat grew tighter as I stared back into his. He just asked me to be his girlfriend and, in my small voice, I frantically uttered a short “no”. Self-confidence was something I never grew familiar with, and none of the other sixth graders I knew were exactly lining up to talk to me.

We were walking into our small school and he very quickly pulled me to the side of the building. Without eye contact, he shyly asked me the words that I’ve always wanted to hear from a boy like him. “Hey Ari, do you want to go out with me?” He threw me off guard, we’ve never held a conversation with each other, let alone look at each other unless we caught each other’s gaze during the thirty-second commute we took when we switched classes. I wasn’t a very naive kid, so I couldn’t help but ask myself why he wanted to be my boyfriend. I caught on quick to what he was doing. There was a game going around the sixth-grade class where the students would play “Rock, Paper, Scissors” and the loser had to pick someone at random to ask to be together with them. It was never some sort of friendly gesture rather, a game of  “if you lose, you’re going to embarrass yourself in the worst way I can think of”. I rolled a piece of broken off gravel under my shoe as we stood facing each other on the sidewalk. A feeling of self-awareness rose upon me. I stopped rolling the gravel and with a fluttery stomach and while tucking the sides of my short hair behind my ear, I’ll always remember the words that were so hard for me to say.
“No. You’re playing that stupid ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ game.”

He walked away, running his hand through his blonde hair, with a short-breathed sigh of relief and a smug grin. However, there I stood; with a complete lack of confidence, ready to cry, and at my most self aware of who I was to the people I wanted to be friends with so badly.