In high school, yearbook superlatives were basically our Hunger Games.

Most Attractive.
Class Jock.
Best Dressed.
Funniest.

Basically: the popular and pretty kids.

And then there was me—
Most Likely to Succeed.

Which, in teenager-speak, was really just the polite way of saying:
Least Likely to Get Laid.

***

I wasn’t the smartest kid in school.
Not valedictorian.
Not ambitious.

I was just quiet.
Awkward.
Closeted.

And in high school, if you were a boy who didn’t play sports,
people just assumed you were “successful.”
Which was really code for:
Biggest dork.

***

The truth?

I wasn’t succeeding at anything.
I was surviving.

Lying to everyone around me about who I was.
Pretending I didn’t know every word to Material Girl.
Spending way too much energy trying to make my cowlick lay flat,
as if that was the thing keeping me from fitting in.

***

And maybe that’s the real joke of high school superlatives.

They’re not awards.
They’re disguises.
Politically correct, PTA-approved labels for what everyone already knows.

Most Likely to Succeed?
Translation: Least Likely to Get Laid. Biggest Dork.

And if that’s the case—
they nailed it.

But the real success?

It wasn’t high school.
It was finally deciding, years later,
that I could be open.
Be free.
Be me.

And that’s the one award I actually deserved.