At ten you know it’s off-limits.  Nobody tells you so, but everyone over there just seems big and scary and you don’t want to make a mistake.  Being young for your grade and new at the school, you stay with your friends and stand by the tetherball court.  You always feel small when the eighth graders pass you in the hallway and even though you know you’re somebody, you look down because they can’t tell anyway.

At eleven you stand on the edge while your friend breaks up with her twelve-year-old boyfriend and swears to be single forever.  You watch the crowd of classmates that gathers at recess and gossips about it at lunch; you secretly vow to stay out of drama for the rest of your life and at twelve, you are independent and self-motivated.  Standing in the field you and your group talk about celebrities and movies instead of crushes and Spin the Bottle.  One of your friends shouts the f word at the top of his lungs with teachers standing three feet away and doesn’t get caught, which proves you’re unbreakable (for now).

Then at thirteen as you walk on the ground of dead grass and packed mud you realize you are the big kid now.  You are one of the people you were afraid of three years ago.  Everything is different now.  Classmates start to compliment your clothes, your hair, your writing, your music.  You land a part in the school musical and for the first time in your life, you know what you’re doing.

But in the spring, when you’ve finally made it to the top, everything seems to happen too fast.  The months flash by like Polaroids and between musical rehearsals, violin lessons, and schoolwork you can’t seem to find time for much else.  Your nights are late and the six hours of sleep barely carry you through the next day.  During recess you wander the field eating bagels and drinking orange juice while complaining to your friends about the grades, the recital next Saturday, the five hour rehearsals and they nod, pitiful and secretly relieved.  Life becomes monotonous; every day you come home too tired and flooded with work to eat dinner with your family.  On the closing night of the musical you’re nostalgic but in a way, you can’t wait for it to be over.

After you finally get some rest it’s like something new awakens in you.  You’re popular, smart, and talented according to your classmates, half of whom you hadn’t known your first year here.  Everything is perfect and unflawed and you wonder, unconsciously, if this is the high life the popular kids in movies live.

When he starts acting different around you you begin to think about the three boyfriends your friend has had and how she’s ended it with each one of them, in turn (they all became either creepy or reliant in the end).  Then you realize this is different; you don’t like him, he’s just your immature, gossipy friend who occasionally tries to be popular (he’ll never get there, but you don’t tell him).  But he’s flirting like he’s lovestruck and you know he’s trying to get closer so when he touches you in the field during recess you run away and blame yourself for doing nothing.  When you were a sixth grader on your first day at a new school, you watched the upperclassmen playing soccer in the field with awe and something of a strange envy.

And there you are again, standing by the tetherball court, hoping to escape the boy in the field who’s done this to you.  You slip behind the trees and into the building like the girl you were four years ago and when you can’t see the field anymore, you run.