When I was in seventh grade, a boy from the eighth grade table turned, tapped me on the shoulder, and grinned. With a mouthful of food, he pressed his hands to his chest and sneered.

“Do you think you would want to go out with me?” he asked, barely able to keep from laughing. He swallowed his food when I didn’t answer. “I heard you’re dating, and—and I just thought that you should go out with me.” He started laughing before he swallowed that, too. The people at his table were smirking and snickering amongst themselves. I was both startled and appalled. Why would he be asking? Why was he asking? And why was he acting like it was a joke? Speechless, I turned away and kept eating. The seventh grade table was all looking at me. I could hear the eighth grade table burst into raucous laughter.

It took me a while to figure out why this happened, though if I’m being honest, I’m still not sure how it spread. Apparently, a rumor was created that this boy—we’ll call him Ed—and I were dating. Why is this such a big deal? I’m not sure. Perhaps it was because Ed was a larger boy, chubby but sweet. Perhaps because I was a scrawny redhead, soft-spoken and unsure of anything. Ed had invited me to go see a movie with him. It was a movie I wanted to see. I asked my mom, who said yes, and with excitement, I told him it was on. I had gone out with boys before. My best friend was a boy. I didn’t see the big deal until my mom, who contacted Ed’s mother about times said something rather alarming.

“They can sit in their own row and everything, we can sit further back, and they can get their own popcorn and all that! It’ll be so cute!” Ed’s mom chimed.

Mom blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

She recounted the conversation to me. I had the same reaction. We decided my father was out of town and my mom couldn’t leave my brother alone for a few hours like that, and I needed to stay home with her. The date came and went. I avoided Ed at school for a while.

But then, of course, the eighth grader incident happened. And then it happened a second time. I was equipped with some famously witty quips to fend it off, though. My first exercise in defending myself.

“Do you want to go out with me?” he inquired, having thankfully spoken to me without food in his mouth. He was still snickering though, and those around him were acting just as giggly. I arched a brow.

“Did it take you all week to figure that one out?”

I know. Pretty witty. It’s a wonder he didn’t just bow at my feet at that point, because clearly I was the better quipper.

“No, I’ve just really been wanting to ask you. I just think it’d be great if,” he snickered, “if we dated!” He burst out laughing. I rolled my eyes and turned back to my food. I told my mom. My mom’s expression turned hard.

“Wow. He’s really clever. Super funny, too,” she said, her voice dry. “You should talk to Ed.”

“Really? I’ve been kind of avoiding him,” I said.

“Who else knew you were going to a movie?”

I frowned. Mom had a point. Had Ed said something? Had he told people we were dating? Had he made a big deal about it, and now eighth graders were harassing me because Ed said something untrue? I found Ed during recess. In classic Western fashion, we stood off against each other, and by the end of it, one of us was hurt, and the other walked away unaffected.

I asked him why people were asking to date me. Why did people think we were dating in the first place? I was furious he had done this. Clearly he had done this. He insisted he hadn’t said anything to anyone and he didn’t know why there was a rumor about us, but these weren’t answers. Not the answers I wanted. I went back inside the school.

It wasn’t until years later, when I found him on Facebook, that I apologized for the damage I likely caused. But I never found out who spread that rumor. In a highschool as small as that, it wasn’t unlikely someone just managed to overhear us, but no one had been outside when he asked. He had waited until everyone had left. That is, everyone except the teacher who stood nearby, making sure all the students got home safely and into the right car. Could the teacher have said something to another member of the staff? Could a student have overheard? Or maybe it really was as simply as Ed gushing to me to other classmates, enough that it reached the ears of antagonistic eighth graders?

I always wonder about that. But more so, I wonder what I did to even give the impression that I was interested in Ed in that way. Since when did movies equal a date? I ponder this a lot at twenty-four years old. How did he mistake me as something other than a friend? And why did he like me? Why didn’t he just say he liked me and want to go out? The whole thing could’ve been avoided. My answer would’ve been abundantly simple.

“No.”