  I once went to a performing arts camp at Eastern (the college for kids who got Ds in high school,but still want the college experience... if only for the keggers) It was an really great workshop, though. We put on A Mid Summer Nights Dream and I was awarded the part of Helena. And despite being watered down and shortened, despite from my bittersweet unrequited crush on Demetrius, I had the time of my life. There was a background dancer, Felicia, who played one of the fairies. I was only 12, just entering junior high, so I was also completely unknowing about the seethy world of cussing and sluttyness. (This was, of course, before we watched TV) Felicia wore thick black eyeliner and tiny tube tops to rehearsal.
She would sit on boy's laps and hand feed them their lunches. Everyone seemed to love her. My friends in the camp, Jessica and Sara, were my age and equally ignorant. And so we collectively strived to emulate her... trying out swearing, just to see how it felt to say 'shit'. The boy I "like-like"ed at the time was named Graham. He was fourteen, tall, and lovely.
Felicia, for some ungodly reason, befriended me and encouraged a new, dangerous form of flirting. I would sit on his lap, giggle incessantly at his jokes and pretend that he was the most brilliant person I had ever met. I rolled up my jean shorts and the sleeves of my t shirts everyday that summer. Though I was welcome to fawn all over him, Graham crossed the line at reciprocation. The fucker. During a long break once before our cue, we were backstage together.
It was some sort of breaking point of the crush. His spiky gelled hair! His smirk! His overall appeal! I was dying a slow, slow death. I wanted him to like me so badly.
And he knew it. "Nervous? " "My dad is in the front row. Yah, I'm nervous. " Then, in some romance-novel fashion, he put his arms around me so that our faces were within a few inches of each other. I would have died of happiness except I had lost all ability to feel anything.
"What would you do if I kissed you? " Panicking, I racked my brain for something to say. Anything to say. "Umm, I, ummm. " And the asshole removed his arms and laughed. Laughed!
Looking back, Graham embodies everything I loath in teenage boys. The smirking arrogance and over-gelled hair. I had just turned twelve, and knew nothing of boys. I knew so little, in fact, that I was entirely blind to fourteen-year-old playing Puck. Thomas. He was a gem.
What he lacked in hair gel, he more than made up for in acting ability. Aside from seeing right past Felicia and Graham, he was also a four-point-oh student who listened not to Shania Twain (as I did at the time) but to people my parents listened to… Janis Joplin and Nat King Cole. My summer was redeemed, and Thomas and I went on a date. It was my first date, a play to which I still have the ticket stub. He lived in Cheney, so it wouldn’t have worked out. But the knowledge gained from my “Stage Door to the Future” summer will continue to influence me.
Wherever you are, Thomas, thank you. And wherever you are, Graham and Felicia, fuck you. Affectionately… Anna 
