I had been invited by one of my great friends, Magalie, to her birthday party. We had always been neighbours, except that in that year we were not going to the same school. Her parents had enrolled her in a private school for girls as I entered high school at a public high school.

I had not foreseen that I would be the only boy at the party. It bothered me at first but it was more because I did not know any of her friends.