When I was about fifteen, my dad sat me down before school one morning and asked me, "So, who's the boy?" I was not allowed to date until I was sixteen. I knew that. But for weeks now, I'd been up, dressed, and ready for school hours early. And I was (am) not a morning person. All of this added up to, in my parents' eyes, "Kaitlin is secretly sneaking out to meet a boy."

Oh, how I wished I were that cool. My father probably did, too. But no, the answer was much, much more frighteni...