When I was in the second grade, I loved a girl named Kay. She had stringy brown hair and wore bright green corduroy pants, a combination impossible to resist.

Shy, too shy to tell her how I felt. Somehow she got the message, though, or maybe she got the message to me. Anyway, we plunged into the intense relationship possible only between mature 8-year-olds. At that point, she moved to Arizona.

Betrayed. Shattered. My happiness rent asunder by forces for which I had no name.

But life sometimes gives a second chance. Our teacher assigned us to write a letter to some person we knew. Someone, anyone. Naturally, I seized upon it as the chance to make good fate's treason.

I composed, I wrote; I shaped my need, my despair into a sob of reaching out, a love letter. I created.

The next day, I saw my 'letter' tacked to the bulletin board. "The Best In The Class" read the block-lettered label beneath it.

(But wait, if the teacher is going to send them out, why is she marking them up and grading them like an ordinary class assignment? Because it is an ordinary class assignment. And they are never going to be sent out. Because you are a little kid. And the grownups know what is best for you.)

I still remember the feeling of being defrauded, of being used for someone else's ends. Because then I chose. I chose to forget. I decided to be proud of what I was. Being the best in the class is better than being a love-struck little kid.