George, at the Precipice of His Loser High School Life (Chronic Wanker & Nerd)

"George...? George!"

"Wha-what?!"

George came to as Mrs. Lopez came down. His heart sank like the USS at the stifled faces looking his way, and it was quickly spelled out for him where he was sinking to.

"Are you sleeping in my class, Mr. Bradbury?" the teacher, young and voluptuous, trickled off her tongue.

Those piercing hazel eyes never felt sharper.

The ruffle-haired student gulped, and carefully thought out his answer.

"No," he croaked. "I wasn't."

A murmur of laughs dotted the classroom as he was promptly assigned after-school detention. Then Mrs. Lopez repeated the history question to him, and he revealed he did not know the answer. After some more giggles, the class resumed its everyday monotony once Sabina Mures declared, "The Delaware river," and Mrs. Lopez straightened her face into a smile and said yes, that was correct. Oh how correct you were Sabina. Sabina subpoena.

George wanted to shrink, but instead he remained frozen in place like an embarrassment. To his family name, to his fictional video game enclave -- he thought of a plank. Then, he thought of walking off it.

"Pst. Pst!"

A soft jab struck his temple. Flinching, George looked around, but everyone's attention seemed fixed on the lesson, then secretly on their phones whenever the teacher faced the board, including a barely focused Nicole Vargas and slippery-eyed Cory Latner, who briefly glanced his way before feigning their usual, listless bored looks. Then he saw the paper plane on his desk, and unfolded it.

"Stop jerking off in the restrooms, maybe you'll stay awake"

George crumpled it into a ball, closed his book, and spent the rest of the class staring out the window.

When he got home, his mother was in the kitchen making stromboli. The old man was watching the TV in the living room. He checked his phone and remembered his sister wasn't coming home 'til after soccer practice, probably. Good for him, since it meant he didn't need to tiptoe around the friends she may bring over.

He was okay with them for the most part, which was largely the problem; okay was exasperating. It was oppressive. To his restless, yearning teenage hormones, it was asphyxiation.

He wanted to feel the touch of a girl, desperately. He wanted to smell their aroma. To talk to them and visually undress them without cause for concern. He wanted the ability to be unscrupulous and sloppy and irresponsible, without judgement. He wanted friends that he wouldn't end up feeling alienated from because of the changes incurred by time, and disagreement.

But really, what he wanted was an excuse and he knew it. He knew better than to fantasize about the impossible. To fantasize about being a kid forever. 'One day,' as his aunt told him, 'you learn the meaning of being an adult. And you do that, first and foremost, by taking responsibility for the things that happen both here.' Then she'd point to her heart, or something. 'And here.'

But Leticia's thighs! Her thighs were amazing! Stephanie Jasper probably had breasts the size of volleys! Emily Arpin was hot and had such a photogenic face! Not to mention her best friend: the certifiably pretty, brainy, unattainable Sabina effing Mures!

"Girls," George mumbled ambivalently as he stumbled up his room and onto his bed, and slowly started rubbing his groin through his pants.

Girls are something else.

He jerked off and came, thinking of his world history teacher.

That evening, he suddenly remembered what the hell he was supposed to do that day. Jolting up from his bed, George grimaced and cleaned up his mess. Once he had on a clean set of clothes including a tacky set of Batman-themed shorts, he heard laughing outside his window, and pulled back a curtain.

A group of -- behold -- girls were assembled in the backyard below, hanging out. Chairs were pulled up to recline on, and the half-empty beverages in their hands made no secret of a good time, a good time being had for the whole bangle.

"Hey," a delicate voice emerged just outside his door. George jumped at the voice. Turning, however, didn't help settle his nerves by any margin as a wide-eyed, leggy young woman was staring back at him.

"Oh, sorry," said the slender, tight beauty after a decisively brief silence. Her long brown hair swooped down to the middle of her back. Hazel eyes nestled at the center of her face, as her luscious, slightly tanned body filled out her casual tee and shorts in the kind of way that made the young man internally ache for loving. "I thought this was Alice's..."

"Heather!" Both of them felt the air dissolve at the call of George's sister downstairs. "Did you find it yet?"

"Not yet!" Heather looked back at George then briskly went down the hall towards Alice's room. "On the dresser, right?"

Alice's affirmative reply sounded below.

"Alright, be down in a sec," the muffled voice replied.

George turned back to the window, then stiffened, pulling away. Closing the door, he felt his forehead and flicked a bead of sweat. Did his sister's friend catch him looking at them from his bedroom window? No, worse; he wasn't 'caught' if he wasn't spying to begin with. He just looked after hearing outside voices!

The bed creaked, George's back flopping against it. Timing had a mind of its own. It also had it out for him.

A few seconds later, he heard an indistinct exchange between who he assumed was his sister and Heather at the stairs, and then the thuds of footsteps as they made their way back to the yard.

"'Sup girls!"

"Hey, what took you?"

"Oh nothing."

"Just watch yourselves," came his sister's voice, then an unfortunately distinct whisper, "I think my creep of a brother might be watching."

"What?" the rest of the girls proclaimed, along with questions of where and who.

Alice shh'ed them and they devolved into more quiet murmurs. George, however, was able to catch 'window' and 'peeper' from the stifled conversation. Then one loud outburst of, "He was wearing 6-year old Batman shorts?!?", followed by, "What a nerd!" and another flurry of giggles before being hastily shushed. Rich.

The topic of the day climbed off the bed and back to his feet. He decided to go down to the kitchen and grab a quick drink from the fridge.

As he stepped down the stairs, he had to admit they weren't that far off. If he did have the chance, he probably would've peeped on them as many times as he could. And jerked off to them. And then jerked off to them later that night. His shame extended across the Panama Canal. No mystery there.

It would be nice to break the dam, so to speak. To one day, let it all loose.

"If only," he rambled half-absently, finding himself wishing to the air, like some fairy tale character. "If only I was normal. If I could make things go my way every now and then."

pop

fizzle

tsss....

An indistinct, inscrutable laugh seemed to unearth itself from the bowels of the urbanity draped over the household, and the row of households in which it stood, and in turn the city, and all other pockets and sub-pockets of civilization and the people in it. Following it was a sinister, if not utterly gloat-worthy, voice.

"For you have been heard, young stranger...

...and now, the world will listen...hahahaha..!"

A content gasp of air chimed through the kitchen.

"Dang," the boy turned the can of soda around in his hand. He nodded in approval as chirps of birds littered the front yard, and the day continued as normal. "That's not bad."

He closed the fridge and went back up to put on some roleplaying warrior game -- he had scheduled a grinding session earlier that he was keen on not postponing any further, and he had nearly slept through it. School load was light, so this was one of the few chances he had to take. As he settled himself in front of the monitor, he succumbed and changed into a pair of jeans. Insecurities -- he did have them, after all.

It took a couple minutes, sure, but ignoring the jovial, girly banter outside was not so hard when you had a world to save. Level up here, some shiny new loot there, and the next thing he knew, the day was already behind him and the crickets encroached as he shut off the console.

Alice took a sip out of her cocoa, and giggled.

"He's so awkward sometimes, I know." There was a pause as, casually, the dirty blonde haired girl, and reticent sister, pitched her head at her immaculately attractive friend. "Ooh by the way Heather," she spotted, "nice Batman shorts."

"Thanks," Heather laughed, pulling against the lower hem of it twice and shooting a playful smile at her fellow teammate. And sure enough, a pattern of colored-in Batman images littered her somewhat small pair of shorts, illuminating gently under the light. "I've had these forever, you know. Still wear 'em sometimes -- even when they don't really fit me."

"I could see that!" One of the other girls, specifically Jenna, remarked, and the whole group of girls circled casually around the table in the corner of the warmly lit cafe devolved into more laughter.

Meanwhile, the night began twinkling away.