Emergency Medical Dad

XIV: March 30th, past

I wanted to know why. I wanted to know why and it drove me insane. Everything worked. Everything fit in. Everybody that checked the boxes in the right way was up there with those groups. Everyone that didn't, wasn't. Except Jessie. Everyone that wore their hair just right and put on the right type of jewelry was up there with those groups, everyone that didn't, wasn't. Except Jessie. Everyone that had an air of confidence and casual chill was up there with those groups, everyone that didn't, wasn't. Except Jessie.

I didn't understand. I didn't get it.

I agreed, Jessie Kingston was attractive, she was gorgeous, cute as a button, big red hair and sweet eyes and an adorable little nose. But she wasn't attractive in the way that her friends were, they were all business, hot and classy and all of that. At eighteen, the end of my junior year, I knew what I liked and what I didn't but I still didn't know where I stood with the people at St. B's. I understood the attraction to Jessie. I understood the attraction to Summer-Lynne. If I, at that point, had to pick, I'd choose Jess because she was more tolerable over a longer period of time but I couldn't deny being more sexually interested in Summer-Lynne. Jessie reminded me too much of a little kid. She was seventeen, I was eighteen. She was 5'4 and I had just cleared 6'0, she still wore socks with frills on them, she still liked polka dots on her clothes, she didn't drink or smoke or do anything that I did with my friends. In my head, she was out of my range because I was too old, she was a kid. It felt wrong and wry and off.

So I didn't get it. If popularity was about association, attitude, style, being attractive to the majority, all of that, why did Jessie Kingston make the cut?

I had failed to take desirability into account.

Demand increases price. Though Jessie Kingston was not an object to be bought, she had a high demand.

That high demand being Evan Peters.

Evan Peters checked all the boxes. Evan Peters was the boy's version of Summer-Lynne.

Evan Peters was in love with Jessie.

***

The boys locker room was never not hell. Hell because I was a chubbier kid, hell because then I thinned out and was too skinny, hell up until I got some tattoos and then nobody bothered me anymore.

I peeled off my school shirt, tattooed bar down my side still raw from three nights before.

"Evan!" Someone shouted from the other end of the locker room, pitching a football over my head.

"Good afternoon!" He hollered back, arms spread wide, huge grin on his face as he walked in their direction. I paused, insiding out my shirt, observing. "Guess who's got a date!"

"Oh?"

"I'm picking her up after frisbee, who knows why she plays frisbee of all things," Evan staggered for a minute, noticing me lurking in one of the locker alcoves. His eyes flickered over my shoulders before moving onward. He was quiet until getting to the right alcove where all his friends were, getting ready for lacrosse. "Guess who got another tattoo?"

His friends snickered quietly with him.

"Who does he think he is? He's not cool getting those, I bet is his friends knew how much of a fucking idiot he is here they'd drop him. Loser can't even fit in with his own kind."

The comment was rude, the racism was uncalled for.

I pulled on my athletic shirt and dropped my khaki pants, praying nobody would walk by mid-change.

"So you're going out with her? Finally? What's the plan?"

Evan laughed, "we're going to a movie-" boring, "and then getting ice cream," again, standard and boring, "and then I'll take her home and make sweet sweet lo-" one of his friends cuts him off, laughing.