"No Matter What": The Letter, part 1 (excerpt)

 

CHAPTER 2 – THE LETTER

             Our standard birthday celebration for my dad was not enough to distract me from the inevitable thoughts that would flood my brain as I tried to go to bed that night.  So there I lay, with my stomach still cooled by the homemade ice cream we had that night and my mind relentlessly haunted by Nicole’s image.  I closed my eyes in a vain effort to sleep, but the only thing I saw was the vision of her, laughing, talking to her friends in the department store. 

            Why didn’t I talk to her?  Would she have talked to me if she had seen me?  Surely she would have at least said, “Hi.”  After all, she was one of the only girls that had shown any interest in talking to me at all before I got my contacts.

            I stared into the darkness and sighed.  Why is she such a roadblock to me?  Roger’s right.  I really should ask Amanda out.  Maybe Amy.  But I still liked Nicole.  A lot.  I had never asked her out, not in five years of knowing her.  Now here I am, sixteen years old, without a single date under my belt just because I can’t get the guts up to ask this one girl out.  Geez, she could say ‘yes’ for all I know.

            I moaned in frustration into my pillow and pulled it over my head.  How could I possibly tell her how I felt now? I can’t just come out and say it.  My feelings have gotten way too out of hand for that.  And of course there was no chance I would call her.

            So there in the dark that night, I made a decision: I had to do something about Nicole Ellis if I was ever going to get on with my life. 

"No Matter What": Summer Detox, part 2 (excerpt)

This is the rest of chapter 1, "Summer Detox"  Read part one here.

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    It seemed to me that most guys looked at Nicole like cartoon characters—you know, the ones whose eyes would pop out of their head and tongues would hang to the floor?  But I really couldn’t look at her that way.  I didn’t know her all that well, but my feelings for her had always been strangely warm and caring.  Thinking of her in terms of her body parts, as so many of my friends did, made me feel wrong, even dirty.

    I came to this realization that morning in the shower.  Even during the summer, she would still enter my mind when at that groggy, vulnerable time most mornings.  I congratulated myself on my emotional depth and sophistication as I got out of the shower.  If only she knew I was better than those walking hormones who surround her all the time, I thought.