BY ASHLEY FRAY
The first boy I ever liked was white class. His name was A.J. At least that’s what we’ll call him for now. I met him when I was 13. We were in the same biology class. A.J. and I hit it off from the start. He was from a strong Christian church which was multiracial. That is exactly what I was. A Christian multiracial. We started off as friends. Good friends. Although we were in a mostly white school I had friends from all races. Though there were fewer of us minorities than I would’ve liked. Me and A.J. got close to becoming more than friends. At least that’s what I thought. One day in biology class A.J. whispered something sexual into my right ear. Things that I had never heard of nor ever imagined. My dad’s thoughts were the furthest thing from my mind at that time. After all, he taught me to hate white boys even though he dated and married white women exclusively. A.J.’s sexy talk was all I could think about. I told my closest girlfriend who was also white class. She was a ballet dancer and had very proud poise and grace. When I told her about A.J.’s thought she smiled wide. Neither of us could imagine what it was he wanted to do. We were both virgins but A.J. wasn’t. He also had a steady girl who was 18. One day in the hall I encountered A.J. and we both smiled and it set off a game of chase. He caught me from behind and lifted me off the ground. It felt good to be so close. I had never been that close to a boy before but when I was a young girl around the age of 7 me and some girls were alone in the library and pretended to be humping, as we called it in our girlish ways. I felt nothing. That’s how I knew I wasn’t gay. A.J. was the first boy I ever let embrace me in that way. I was raised Catholic and believed that sex was between married adults only. I was to be a virgin on my wedding night. Me and A.J. would pass each other in the halls and joke with one another but I had a strange feeling he was holding some things back. I knew he had a girlfriend so one day I decided to ask him point blank. “Have you ever had sex?” He turned to me right away, he laughed “Yes!” I was shocked and turned on at that point. It never occurred to me that I could compete with a girl like that. I had very little to offer except friendship and maybe holding hands. He told us that they had played games while having sex. I felt so dirty after that. I let the rumor mill take over since teenagers are like that. When my birthday rolled around I invited A.J. to my party. My mother had rented us a limousine and all my girlfriends came. All of whom were white. The limo came to pick up me and friends at the end of the school day. A.J. said he would have to meet us at the teen dance club because he had his violin lesson. I said that was OK, but inside I was kind of sad. Me and the girls drove around downtown St. Paul listening to Ice-T Colors and wildly waving our arms outside the sunroof of the limousine. We downed cold sodas and munched on candy. We laughed. We pretended we were stars. A celebrity. It was great. The limo dropped us off at the downtown pizza shop called Sabarros. We ordered a large pizza. Drank more soda and laughed. I tried not to talk about A.J. because it was becoming my secret crush. Our next stop was the “The Library.” The Library was a 16-and-under night club. No alcohol. Just music and snacks. Me and the girls danced for a while and then my face lit up. A.J. walked through the door. He greeted us warmly but when it came time to dance, he danced with all my friends but not me. That was when I realized that A.J. was confusing the hell out of me. I felt like the reason he refused to dance with me was because he liked one of my friends instead of me. The ballet dancer I’ll call Kath. After that night was over I decided to take a chance. I told Kath that I really liked A.J. told her to relay the message to him that I wanted a date. His response was swift. He made it known that he would not date outside of his race.
