“Oh, what a pretty necklace!”

I reached down a touched the dull edges of the dirty golden key hanging around my neck, and smiled as she greeted someone. To be honest, I really needed to clean it, but I hadn’t taken it off since the day I got it. There’s kind of a long story involved.

You know how people say that you can’t know what love is at a really young age? There’s one little exception in my opinion: you never know what love is. It’s always changing, and it’s different for everyone. Sure, sometimes you can tell when people are in love. The day of their marriage and you see it in their smiles; or the second they call you and their voice just sounds so… happy; or when the couple are meeting each others’ family, then you know it’s for real. But sometimes you can’t tell. Sometimes it just kind of falls into your lap, literally or figuratively, and you sit there, not knowing what it is and not knowing how to react. And just like that, the next blink of the eye and it’s gone. So to me, it doesn’t matter what age you are when you think you’ve found love, because it’s so unexpected, and because everyone loves differently.

All of that leads up to this key. I was ten years old, sitting alone on a bench at the park. Nearby, there were some older boys, by about one or two years, playing football. Attempting to, at least. I guess now when I look back I realized that they were getting closer and closer to me, every throw. I don’t know what exactly I was doing when something shiny on the ground caught my eye. I guess I was so concentrated on picking it up that I didn’t give hear the pounding feet coming closer and the yells of the boys farther off. I had just outstretched my hand when one of the boys landed directly in my lap, and instinctively I put one arm on his back to keep him from falling. We stayed like that for a little bit, locked in each others’ eyes. Then he grinned and got up. He thanked me and told me that he better get back to his football. I smiled, and told him he threw like a girl.

“What do you mean I throw like a girl?” he questioned as his eyes widen, challenging me.

“I mean that your spiral is hardly even a spiral, and your aim is just as good as a blind man’s.” I got up and looked him squarely in the face, suddenly the most confident person in the world. “Do you need me to show you how it’s done?”

He laughed. “You just told me I throw like a girl… and now you’re saying you can throw better than me. Are you calling yourself a man?”

One of the boys farther off yelled. I grabbed the football off the ground and threw the ball to him. My throw was a little short, but I had a perfect spiral. I turned to the boy next to me, shrugged and said, “No. But I did just show you and all your friends up. Not only am I a girl, but I am probably one or two years younger than you.” I grinned, and started walking away. “I hope I didn’t hurt your pride too much!” I yelled over my shoulder. As I glanced back, I only saw him watching me, his dark eyes unreadable and his mouth cocked in a slight smile.

I returned to the park the next day, at the exact same time, and I sat on the same bench. The boys weren’t there, but I wasn’t expecting them to be there. I only came back because I remembered the shiny thing that I had seen, and my curiosity had gotten the better of me. I finally found it, and once again, I had just outstretched my arm to pick up the object when I got the scare of my life.

“So, Mr., uh… pro football thrower, can you catch?”

I turned around just in time to see the football being hurdled at me with no significant sense of spiral. However, his direction was right and it headed straight into my open arms, and I pulled the ball safely into my chest, smiling at him the whole time. “Yes.”

It was that moment as he was walking closer and closer to that bench that all his features really registered in my head. His short, dark hair, sticking up at the top a little bit; his dark eyes innocent but daring at the same time; his cheekbones high on his face tinged a slight shade of red. His nose, small and perky, and his thin lips revealed slightly crooked teeth when he smiled.

“What’s your name?” he asked as he sat down next to me.

“Sam,” I replied. “You?”

“Max. Another question, what is it that you keep trying to pick up?”

I must have look puzzled for a second because he kept going. “I mean, both times that I’ve seen you, here, at this exact same spot, you’ve been looking at the ground quite keenly…”

“Oh, I keep seeing something shiny glint in the sunlight.” I looked around for it while really wondering just how juvenile I sounded to him.

He bent over and grabbed the object. “Here it is!” he declared. It was a shiny golden house key. And thus, my necklace was created.

Okay, so not exactly like that. Turns out, Max was two years older than me, living a block and a half away. What he neglected to tell me until six days later was that he was moving to Chicago in a week and a half. We spent at least seven hours a day together for the next seven days. On the third day he told me I was beautiful. On the fifth day he kissed me, right while we were sitting on that bench. On the ninth day he told me that no matter how crazy it seemed, he knew that he loved me. And on the tenth day, the very last day, he gave me the golden key and a light chain to wear it with. I still remember exactly what he said:

“So, I… uh, have something for you. It’s not much… but hopefully you will wear it once in a while to remember me. I know that I will never forget you. I’m so sorry that I have to move… I’m going to miss you so much. And I will never throw a football the same again.”

And that was that. My first taste of love, my first broken heart. I never did hear from him again. I didn’t know his new address, because he didn’t even have a new address. I was too young to have a cell phone, too young to have facebook, too young to even have an email. Then again, I was ten years old, and most definitely too young to think I was in love. But that didn’t stop me.

Now, I was at an end-of-year party, and I had just met the hostess’ mom, Mrs. Driggers. I scanned the room fairly fast, pretending to be doing a sweep but really just looking for a way out. At every party I was forced to go to, I spent the entire time trying to escape from one memory. The memory of my first real party. The night that I truly discovered anger.