You see, I was once a popular guy. I had the entire school wrapped around my middle finger. I was Julis Caesar, or perhaps Nero if I want to be extremely pompous about my history, and I could wipe anyone off the school grounds. Guys wanted to be like me, and girls wanted to be with me. I glided by on a proverbial chariot of the gods. Teachers fought like gladiators as members of my legion of loyal followers. And then, space aliens appeared and zapped me with some death beam ray.

Shit, it was just a dream.

No, I was part of a small collective of men with formidable thinking skills. Do not call us nerds, geeks or “I promise you; I have a girlfriend, I swear” kind of people. There wasn’t time for dating, there was only time to study and then break out a few rounds of Shouts of Rage: the ultimate first-person shooter that one could play on a hand-held system and still get internet cred from the $3000 plus PC builders and their “I could pay for college for that price” video cards.

“Tyler! You’re supposed to be watching our backs. We almost got toasted!”
“Yeah, sorry, I had to re-load!”
“I swear if we get fragged during this mission-”
“Watch for sniper fire, Tony!”
“I’m on it.”

We were a squad of five, determined to capture the energy flag and return it to base. The goal was to trek across enemy lines, grab their flag and then race back. The issue was great since we had the flag our locations shined brighter than Rhianna’s diamond. In a way, this is how were in real life: Arrive at school, enter in and get to the end of the day before we were annihilated. Socially and mentally annihilated, of course.
Matt had three members of the wrestling team who were always on his case. I think he pissed one of them off in sixth grade and nothing but a daily blood offering—usually from Matt’s nose—would pacifist them until the next day. Chris had the painful memory of having an accident in homeroom when he was a freshman. Let’s just say, he fell asleep and pitched a tent in his sleep. It could have happened to anyone, but teenagers never forget things like that.
Tony had the unfortunate luck of barely scratching Barry Wyatt’s new truck. He had backed his car up and caused a you-can’t-even-see-as-it’s-microscope scratch on Barry’s new ride. Barry took out his frustrations on Tony’s car which forced Tony to ride the bus. Riley had noontime detention every day for a year due to a teacher who had it out for him. It was there he met up with a gang who called themselves the Omegas. Their leader once picked him up by the literal seat of his pants and threw him into the large trash can. She was mean then and decided to sic her crew on all of us.
And me? I’d love to say I was normal. Yes, I’d love to say that…but I wasn’t, at least not according to the governmental powers of teenage angst. Nope, I was a wreck because I had to deal with the fear if anyone learned how I really thought about myself. I didn’t see myself as “Tyler”— and tragically I looked terrible in a dress. I had tried on several of my sister’s and all of them had major flaws…a major one being she was well-endowed, and I was not. She was at college I had full reign of her closet.
I had to run covert, Metal Gear Solid-like operations to get in and get out with any article of clothing without my parents finding out. The issue was my room was on the other side of the house, in kind of a separate wing created when the previous owners closed off the garage and made a small room complete with a full bathroom.
My parents were in a room right beyond a door that was so loud that not even a case of WD-40 helped. My parents were at one end of the hall and my sister Sheila had a room at the other end. You can believe I would lock my room and the bathroom whenever I tried on a diverted dress. I’d look at myself in the mirror and frown because as much as I wanted to love the reflection, my face revealed the pain because I had no way to express it to anyone. I couldn’t have anyone tell me: “hey, green looks great on you and goes with your hair.”
There was a time when I wanted to tell the guys in the middle of a “Nuke Quake” round—where you go around planting bombs around the other team and then detonate them. However, Matt yelled out at another player, saying how much of a “panty-wearing faggot’ the leader of the other team was as he tea-bagged him. I realized my revelation would have to wait for another day.
“We lost the flag!”
“We can get it back.”
“Not in five minutes,” Matt replied as he looked at his watch. “Best to log-off.”
We all agreed, closed our connection to the game and then plugged the school’s security switch back onto the network. We loved the IT support at Liberty Hight School because they left the switch sitting in the corner of the library—all by its lonesome and vulnerable self.
We left the library as a group and then splintered off with Matt walking with me as our lockers were on the first floor, but the other guys were upstairs.
“You’ve seen that new chick?” Matt asked.
“There are 1,132 students in this school. You’ll need to be a little more specific.”
“Blond hair, maybe a nice B-cup.”
“I guess you know the important stuff,” I replied with an eye roll.
“So, you haven’t seen her?”
I shook my head.
“She laughed at one of my puns.”
“She would be the first,” I said as we arrived at our lockers.
“I could have swept her of her feet with a few more jokes.”
“Not if she’s seen one of Fluffy’s shows on Netflix.”
“It’s not stealing. It’s spreading good humor and if it gets me into her pants I will aggressively borrow from John Pinnette if I got to.”
“Do you know anything else about her?”
“She usually wears white, so I was thinking—”
“—I’m not going to take a firehose and spray her.”
“I was thinking about a few cups of water, but you have a damn good idea there.”

I entered my Geometry class and went to sit at my desk in the back corner but found it was occupied by a blond-haired girl wearing a white shirt. I did not plan to ask her bust size. Matt was right, she was blond, but he left out how cute she was with her nails painted a bright green. She had a visible midriff and cut-off shorts. I wanted to ask her where she got her wardrobe and how long it took to make it all click but I didn’t want to add a larger target on my back.
However, she noticed I was looking at her as I approached.
“Is this your desk?”
“Yes, but you can sit there.”
“Oh, thank you.” She replied with a smile that could launch a million ships.
I sat at the desk next to her.
“I’m Katie.”
“Tyler.”
“Are you good at Geometry? Because I suck at it.”
So many thoughts entered my brain and if I was Matt, I would have said a few. Instead, I flipped my hand over and over. “I like to think so. However, Mr. Fredrickson uses the same lesson plans and test every year and I have notes and copies of the answers.
“Tyler, will you be my new friend with benefits of knowledge?”
“We’re on chapter four, take notes and we can compare them after class.”
“Cool,” she replied as she flung her hair behind her back.
I wanted hair like that.