Confession 130

Once, in high school, I went into the bathroom, and it was immaculately clean. It was the first time this had ever happened in all of my time there up to this point. So I peed all over everything.

Confession 129

In sixth grade I moved to a new school, nine weeks before the end of the school year. At the new school was a kid who looked exactly like me, only shorter. It freaked me out. He had the same glasses and skin and haircut and everything. He was only a fifth grader. It was unsettling to see him. He had his friends approach me one day. "Hey, Bryce wants to fight you," they challenged.

I didn't want to fight Bryce. I thought it was ridiculous. Especially when the kid was me, but smaller. Everywhere I went, people were calling me "Bryce." I hated it.

One day after school I went to where my mom was going to meet me to walk home, and she was following bryce away from the spot, calling out my name, over and over.

"Mom?"

She turned around. "Oh!" she gasped, "You're so tall!"

Bryce and I went to different middle schools, but in high school he was back in my life, and still looking exactly like me. I saw my friend Emily one day, and I said, "Hi, Emily!"

She glanced at me and said, "Hi, Bryce!" Then she noticed what I'd said, and we looked at each other. It wasn't Emily. It was Someone Else. We both just sort of glared at each other and walked away. You know how Doc Brown explains in Back to the Future about what happens if you meet yourself from a different time, and the Universe ends? That's the feeling I always had around Bryce.

Anyway, I'm getting to the confession, but I had to set the stage.

The first time I ever cut class was when I was in the tenth grade, very near the end of the year. I went with my friend Matthias, and we didn't even go anywhere. We just walked to the chapel where seminary was, and then back to school after a nap in there. Well, as we were passing the corner where all the smokers hung out, the relief society president was coming out of the house where she'd been visiting teaching across the street. So she called my mom and told her that I'd been on the smoker corner during class. I'm so sure! The first time I ever cut class and I got spotted by the RSP.

Mom confronted me when she got home that evening. She told me what the lady had said.

I acted confused. "Hmm. Must have been that kid Bryce that looks exactly like me. He hangs out around there."

I don't know whether she bought it, I sure didn't get into trouble. From then on, whenever I was cutting class or got caught doing anything I shouldn't have, my name was Bryce. I have no idea how many detentions he ended up serving for me, but I was sure glad that horrible little person existed, and that he never realized what I was doing to him.

Confession 128

Carrie was a girl in my sixth grade class. Once, she and her friends (both named Sarah) were practicing fake slaps. You know, where you clap right on the other side of the face? Anyway, I said, "I wanna try," and slapped Carrie a little harder than very lightly right across the face just because it seemed funny to me. She told Mr. Sheldon, and I had to lie to him and say it was an accident. Stupid girlses, always trying to get me in trouble.