Karine hung up her jacket in her locker and checked her makeup in her mirror. She reapplied some lipstick and shook out her hair. Satisfied that she was looking good enough to deserve her reputation as hottest girl in school, she grabbed her books for her first class and closed her locker door. She jumped, startled to see Jason Harris standing there with a goofy smile on his face.
Jason Harris wasn’t that bad really. He didn’t have b.o. like his fat, pimply friend and he wasn’t as pompous as his blonde friend, nor was he as hyper as his little Indian friend. He was just a bit of a dork and pretty clueless. He probably had no idea that Cherry the Raspberry was totally crushing on him.
It wasn’t even that unbelievable that a girl might like him. A lame girl of course, but it was understandable. He was tall and while a bit scrawny, certainly not manorexic skinny. His shoulders were broad and if he just worked out a bit he’d probably fill out his frame ok. His hair was ridiculous, being way too long and curly but all he needed was a haircut to get that under control and then he might actually be somewhat cute. His features were large, almost comically so, but he seemed to be aware of this as Karine had often seen him making faces at his friends to amuse them. But he had a strong jaw and nice chocolate brown eyes.
“Hey Karine,” he smiled lovingly.
Karine was perfectly aware that Jay had a crush on her. He wasn’t really all that subtle about it. She’d caught him staring at her plenty of times and he was always nervous around her. But it was nothing new for Karine to be the object of guys’ affections. She was, after all, the hottest girl in school.
Karine smiled tightly in response and started walking to her class. Jay followed.
“So uh, I was thinking we should start working on that presentation for English.”
Oh god, the stupid presentation. She’d forgotten all about it in all the drama of breaking up with Steve. They only had a couple of weeks left to work on it.
“Yeah, I guess we need to choose the book, eh?”
“Yeah,” Jay nodded. “And we need to read it and then like, meet up and prepare our debate and everything.”
“Let’s just do it on a book we’ve already read.”
Jay nodded and looked worried. He was probably thinking that they didn’t have the same taste in books. He was probably right.
“Ok well, I have to go to class now,” Karine informed him. “But I guess we should meet up at some point and figure everything out.”
“Ok, well how ‘bout tonight?”
“Tonight? Are you serious? It’s Friday. I’m having a party tonight.”
“Oh, I didn’t know,” Jay said sadly.
He looked at her hopefully and it was pretty obvious he wanted to be invited to the party. Obviously Karine didn’t want him to come but she felt bad for him, standing there all dorky and lovestruck. He was a loser but at least he had the good sense to admire her.
“Well, you can come if you want,” she smiled kindly.
The physical transformation in Jay’s body was hilarious. His face lit up and turned red and his eyes got huge, as did his smile. His shoulders hunched up like he was about to jump in the air and he was even shaking a little bit. Clearly she’d just made his day. If he actually showed up to the party he would probably spaz himself into oblivion. Fortunately he didn’t know where she lived and she wasn’t about to tell him.
“See you later,” she said as she hurried away.
“Ok, I’ll see you there!” he called after her.
Jay looked very happy when he caught up to Cerise in the stairwell.
“Guess what we’re doing tonight?” he asked.
His hands were balled up into fists and he was shaking his shoulders backwards and forwards like he was winding up. It was as though he wanted to break into dance but was trying to control himself.
“Playing the game and eating pizza?” Cerise guessed.
“No! Tonight we’re chuzzing the guys!”
“We are?”
“Yeah! We’re gonna do something totally different!”
“Just us?”
“Yeah! It’s gonna be awesome!”
He bounded away, saying she should come by his place at around 8 o’clock. Cerise was amazed and delighted. He wanted to see her in the evening, without the guys? Had she just been asked out on her first date? Was Jay finally getting over Karine and catching on that Cerise was into him?
Cerise floated through the rest of the day on a cloud of self-satisfaction. Not even square dancing in gym with stinky Shauna Darren could ruin her mood. Tonight was undoubtedly going to be the best night of her life.
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