Straight Boys

STRAIGHTegy (Like Strategy)

"...and don't forget to buy football tickets here in the office for three dollars. Homecoming is this Friday after the football game, people! Don't wanna miss it!" I rolled my eyes at Ms. Hughes' manly voice talking with excitement over the intercom as if a dance was to be anything excited about.

"O.M.G, Walker has to ask me out to homecoming! He and I have literally been seeing each other for over six months now. He just has to!"

"Ready for the kickass game this Friday? I am. I mean, if we can beat the White sharks, we can beat anybody!"

"I hear Olivia Benson and Mandy Grace have a plan to hijack Corbett Conners' date to Homecoming!"

"Do you think he'll ask me out? I mean, I've only really talked to him once, but he's noticed me more than that! I hope he asks me..."

These were some of the conversations I had to endure as I arrived to the school the Monday after such a jejune weekend and walked the halls in pure annoyance. I didn't get why everybody got so worked up over a dance. It wasn't even prom! Even then, though, people would still go batshit crazy over the most idiotic things. At least at prom, you had an actual reason to get jittery.

Homecoming, however, was just an excuse the student council came up with to get the school to unknowingly serve them rum-spiked punch and let them dance stupidly till two in the morning. At homecoming, which always took place right after the third football game in the season in the tiny ass gym the school could barely afford after stealing from the fine arts department, people were already hyped after the game and dressed like they were either living through the Super Bowl or actually going to some high class dinner ball. Outrageous if you asked me.

I never went to Homecoming.

Not really my style. Nor was prom, but I was always forced to go to those by my mom whenever I got asked by some girl a grade or two above me because, and I quote, "You were the only other single guy on the football team with mildly good looks." This year, though, when prom rolled around, my mom wouldn't have to force me because, if she even was awake by then, I would give her what she wants and do whatever she wanted like a good son. She would deserve it.

Keeping my head low, so as to not attract any unnecessary attention to my severely jacked up face, I kept a steady pace towards my locker. Of course, people around me still kept their conversations going on about the dance, but a few stopped to give me fleeting stares. They most likely wanted to ogle my striking jawline and mysteriously colored eyes, but then again that would be asking too much of them. They were only staring at the bruises brandishing half my face, and the scrapes dotting my skin like constellations in a night sky. That's the only thing gossip seeking leaches noticed.

This, however, turned out to be a terrible idea. Who even holds their head down in a hallway full of oblivious, young adults? Ninjas, that's who. I was no ninja, which I proved by running right smack dab into a tall slab of meat laced in a red hoodie and tight fitting jeans that outlined the lengths of his legs.

"Andrew flipping Parsley, who gives me the pleasure of seeing you here in this fine establishment?" My annoyance must be what keeps Zachary Rogers alive in this world because, damn, he sure knows how to feed off it, I concluded, as I watched him smile sardonically and let a sliver of a laugh through irritably white teeth.

"Hey, Drew!" My eye twitched.

"Hello to you too, Rogers -" I nodded curtly and maybe even blew him an invisible smile but I guess we'll never know and then, "- Taylor." I barely spared her a second glance.

I hated that nickname people seemed to want to call me. Drew wasn't cool, Hell it made it sound like I was drawing something. I suck at drawing. Preferably, it would be better if people just stuck with calling me Andrew. Not Taylor, though, obviously. No. She must be like the majority of the people and call me that tasteless name even though they all knew I hated it. It had started back in the first grade when half the no-brainers couldn't even pronounce my name correctly. It just stuck, like a piece of gum on the bottom of my shoe I'd just picked up off the side of a hot parking lot. Unwanted.