The following is something I submit to the theater group as a monologue to be performed in my grade 12 year, it went on to be published in a collection of short stories written by highschoolers.
Hot Flashes.
That’s it. I swear this is the last time I’m ever going to have a crush on someone. Crushes. Jesus, if there’s anything I can’t stand it’s crushes. Sure some people have a little crush and before you know it there’s a new couple hitting the streets, hitting the bars, hitting each other. You see them and it’s like, hey I wish I could have that kind of connection with somebody.
No word of a lie, you don’t even have to try and within days you’ve found her. This time it’s that girl who sits in front of you in math class, or maybe the girl in the cubicle across from yours. She’s the one. She is your new holy grail, and you will stop at nothing to have her. You see her in the hallways and you say hi and smile at her awkwardly, and when she gives you a funny look it’s okay. It’s your thing, yeah it’s that thing you two do now. You make funny faces on purpose, and then roll your eyes just as you walk past them. Then you go brag to your friends, did you see that? How she looked at me? She’s totally into me.
Before you know it you just happen to walk through the same hallways and bump into each other all the time, and each time it’s the same thing. You’re really starting to feel the connection you have. So you start talking to her, not chit chat that’s for couples. No what you do is far more important than chit chat, you say a random sentence. She laughs a little and that’s it, your mission is accomplished. You are a random sentence machine, and you are on fire.
Little by little, throughout the day, you start to notice it. That feeling in your stomach, that’s too warm, almost hot. This feeling is the reason you are alive, and you only feel it when you’re looking into her eyes, looking into her soul. You just know that if you two were going out, that bam, this feeling would be a thousand times stronger and you would have everything you ever needed. You have to get her! So you ask around, get her phone number, home address, email address, SIN number. You have everything you need to make this work.
So it’s the end of the day and you follow her home, mere footsteps away. The number of footsteps is obviously her favorite number, nine. Ahh… So there you are, nine steps away thinking about how you’re going to ask her out.
...But at the last second you can’t do it, so you’ll call her later. No, that would be creepy, she might wonder how you got her number. So you get your best friend to call her first and three way call you, perfect. So you go home and you wait, you don’t eat so that the last traces of the feeling stay in your stomach. You wait by the phone all tense, for that three way call to come your way. The phone rings and sure enough it’s your best friend, and he tells you he called you first and you’ll call her together. Fifteen minutes of bliss later, you hang up the phone. You didn’t say a word and just listened to your best friend and your girl talk about… stuff. What a wonderful subject, so narrowed down and not vague at all.
So you decide first thing tomorrow morning you’re going to ask her out. You stay up until three in the morning preparing yourself for the best day of your life. You already know what your song is, how much you’ll tell them you love them, and what you’re going to get her for Christmas. You also figured out the exact amount of seconds between her birth and the birth of Jesus Christ, naturally it’s a multiple of nine. Nine tomorrow morning rolls around and you’re ready, you turn on your discman, listening the the mix-CD you made her and you’re listening to your song… Which is track number nine.
You take the seat behind her on the bus, seat number nine. *Sniff* Oh herbal essences, how you’ve come to love that smell, her smell. So this is it, now or never, you practice saying her name to yourself and she hears you. She turns around, and gives you your look. So you spurt it out awkwardly, will you go out with me? She demonstrates what your look would look like if it were ten times as awkward, she’s so good at it too. It looks like she’s been practicing for you it’s so real. She says, I… only want… to be… friends… You understand… right?
You recollect yourself, beet red, but collected. You nod. Nod and think to yourself, god how could I have been so stupid. I knew it, I knew it. I knew she liked him. My best friend, what a traitor. This is the same thing that happens every time. I should have known from the start that she never liked me that way, that she liked that two-faced girl-hoarding Catholic piano-playing bashful best friend of mine.
She was just leading me on, pretending she loved me, because she’s a heartless bitch who used me to get to my best friend. I don’t need that bullshit, I’m never going to have a crush on anyone again. I don’t need a girlfriend, love, the feeling. You know what it is? It’s because They think I’m desperate. Don’t they? Desperate. I’ll show them desperate. Wait...
As I continue thinking to myself instead of doing my English homework my eyes wander forward. To the girl to her right. My stomach starts to warm like an oven, getting ready to cook up some hot love.
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