Girls screaming, girls shoving me to the side to get a look, ten year old girls rampaging through the crowd of obsessed groupies, girls bearing gifts of thong underwear that say I love Jesse on the front, girls with sleeping bags who slept on the sidewalk just to get a look at what they believe to be a god. And I stand in the back of all this nonsense, not screaming, not pushing, not bearing gifts for a complete stranger, not carrying a poster or wearing a t-shirt that says Mrs. McCartney on the front, but still I was still there at 2:00 in the afternoon waiting for him, waiting to get a look, hoping to get to touch him, praying that I would get to meet him.

“Oh my god!” “He’s here!” “Jesse I LOVE YOU!” “Jesse marry me!” These are the words of the high pitched screams that came out of everyone’s mouths as Jesse’s big red bus pulled into the Pageant’s parking lot. All I could imagine was his body, his face, his hair, the way he danced, the way that I thought he looked at me the time he glanced over to my section on the floor at the concert I attended in 8th grade. I finally snapped back to reality as Stephanie tugged on my gray Steve Madden wool coat. She dragged me to the front, pushed back the crowd of girls, and then to my amazement we saw him, we actually saw him! He began to walk toward us, the closer he got, the more my heart pounded, I couldn’t collect myself, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think of anything to say if he were to talk to me, and then it came. The moment that I had been always waiting for, I gently nudged his arm and asked if he could take a picture with us, he nodded and with somewhat of a quick smile and head nod he wrapped his right arm around my waist and his left around Stephanie’s. At that moment I looked up at him and analyzed his body and face and realized that he was nothing that I had expected. What happened to the gorgeous hair? What happened to the perfectly white straight teeth? What happened to the tan flawless face? What happened to my fantasy, my dream? It was gone, it came and then it went. Because at that moment I grew up, I finally was able to answer my question of why was I there. I was there because I was chasing after what was really an 8th grade fantasy, not reality.