Admit that the only girl you can talk to is her.

You wash down a bite of the sandwich with a slurp of coffee, while you listen to your sister going on about how you should try talking to girls, and how you'd make a great boyfriend. "I don't know Abs. I'm pretty sure none of the girls at school feel that way." You shrug. "I'm kind of known as a stammering nerd to all of them. I can't manage to get out a full sentence to a girl without tripping on my words and sounding like an idiot. It's easier just not to talk."

Abbie rolls her eyes. "Talking to girls isn't any different than talking to your friends. I'm a girl, you talk to me all the time. Or do you think I look like a guy?" she says in mock offense. "Am I so hideous, you don't even consider me in the same category as other girls."

You snort out a laugh. Your big sister has always been the popular, cool one in your family. She's beautiful and confident, a huge contrast how awkward and introverted you are. "So now you're fishing for compliments. All the guys fawning over you aren't enough, you want your brother to tell you that you're hot too?" You smirk. "I thought this was about my insecurity."

"Anyway, here's my deal with talking to girls," you continue, "when I'm talking to one of my friends or you, the question of whether I'm just looking to fuck isn't hanging over my head. When I talk to a girl, it's always there, unspoken. I mean, usually I would want to fuck her, at least a little bit, so I'm thinking that she probably can sense that I do. Or even if I don't, I feel like she probably assumes I do, so the issue is still there. Either way, I feel like I have to be so careful about everything I say and the way I say it, or the girl is going to think I'm some kind of horndog jerk. Then she'll tell all her friends that I talked to her like a horndog jerk. Then the whole school finds out that I got shot down for being a horndog jerk. So, it's better to just be seen as a shy nerd who can't talk to girls."

Abbie's eyes leave the road to stare at you. "Wow! Does all that really go on in your mind? No wonder you can't talk to girls. You're just thinking about it way too much. You gotta get out of your head, Stretch."

Your sister pulls the car over and stops, then turns in her seat to look at you. "I'm going to put your mind at rest. First off, all of us girls already know you're a horndog. We know all 18 year-old guys are horndogs. We don't care. We like that you want to fuck us. It makes us feel desirable. We only don't like it if you're not just a horndog, but an asshole about it too. So now you don't have to worry about whether a girl thinks you're a horndog when you talk to her. She can know you're a horndog and still like you, as long as you're not an asshole. I mean, I know you're a horndog, and I still like you, right? Because you're usually not too much of an asshole." She grins at you. Then she faces forward in her seat again and pulls back onto the road. "You know, when you say the word horndog too much, it's like it doesn't mean anything anymore. It's just this weird sound, you know? Horndog. Horndog. Horndaaawwwwg." She taps the car horn as she says it and laughs.

"That's a thing when you repeat a word over and over. It's called semantic satiation," you tell her, remembering something you looked up online a while back.

"Fuckin' nerd," she laughs.

As Abbie pulls into the school parking lot, she says, "About the other thing you said... why you can talk to other guys and me... " She pulls the car to a stop by the door, then leans over close to you. "What makes you think that I don't wonder if you want to fuck me when you talk to me?" She plants a firm kiss on your cheek and giggles. "Now get to school and learn something, beanpole."

You stumble out of the car slightly dazed at what just happened. "What the fuck?" you mutter, but she's already pulling away. You don't have time to think about it though. You're already late for your first class, so you run into the building. You feel like you're rushed and off-kilter the rest of the morning.

When you see Tracey in the cafeteria at lunch, you remember what Abbie told you. You think about the idea that you can just assume that if you talk to her, she'll know on some level you're interested in sex with her, and she won't mind. Maybe thinking that way does help with your nerves a bit, but she's at a table with a bunch of her friends, so you don't approach her.

As you eat your lunch, you remember what you did last night. You wonder if Tracey knowing that you want fuck her and being ok with it would include things like the fact that you actually went through the motions of trying to cast a spell on her and jerked off to the fantasy of her being your sex-****. You sigh to yourself, probably not. That sounds very much like it goes deep into being an asshole territory. Knowing how much of a **** asshole you can be does not help your confidence. Abbie's right about at least one thing, you think to yourself, I do think too much.

Maybe you should be more like your sister — just do what feels right and not worry so much. Even though she was acting weird this morning, because of her talk, for the first time in a while you feel like you have options. Even though now is not a great time to go up and say hi, you think you could try talking to Tracey at English class. You also consider that it might be easier for you to talk to a different girl, who you're not obsessed with to the point of masturbating over her — start slow. In the back of your mind, you're curious about how differently Abbie was behaving towards you this morning. Something's up with your sister, and you would like to know what it is.