Chapter 1: Oliver's Obsession

I have three important goals before I turn 15 next month. One of them is to get a girlfriend.

  You see, I haven’t had a girlfriend before. Yes, I had kissed a girl before. Yes, I have gone through the horribly awkward and strange stages of puberty. But I have never had a real stable girlfriend.

  There are lots of wonderful girls at Newman, each one of them more beautiful than the last. But I can’t fall in love with a popular girl. Popular girls are hot and have over ten million guys chasing after them. I would have to get in line, and those lines are very very very very long.

  This is why I have chosen Eclaire Defluer to obsess over. She’s my age and we have history and biology class together. She’s from France and often pronounces the word ‘ketchup’ like ‘jetchup’ which I find ridiculously adorable and a little strange. She has short strawberry blond hair and really pale skin. She wears thick black glasses and always wears a t-shirt that usually has a weird band name on it like ‘Blood on the Dance Floor’ or ‘The Devil Wears Prada’. She doesn’t have a boyfriend and she isn’t very high on the popularity scale, which is good because it gives me a way better chance to reach her. Her celebrity crush is a weird rapper who goes by the name ‘Mac Miller’. She hangs out with the stoners, emos, goths, hipsters, punks and nerds, even though she isn’t a stoner or an emo or a goth or a hipster or a punk or a nerd.

  She’s pretty much perfect.

*

   I am standing awkwardly in the cafeteria with my tray. I had just gotten a salad, bottle of water and fruit cup. Normally, I would sit with the nerds and pretend to listen to them talk about the brand new video game that would change your life and make you ten million times happier, but today, I decided I had to make my move.

  I am going to sit with the punks. Eclaire is with the punks. I am going to sit with them.

  I lift my head up and walk over to their table. When I get there, Raymond (the ‘leader’ of the punks) looks up at me with his blank empty eyes. He has ten piercings in total on his face and his mohawk is neon red. “Can I help you?” he asks. Eclaire looks up at me with her sickly sweet green eyes and I clear my throat.

  “Do you mind if I uh sit with you?” I ask.

  Stephanie, Raymond’s girlfriend, arches her pierced eyebrow and Kevin laughs darkly. Raymond looks at me, scanning his eyes over my long body as if he has x-ray vision. “Sure,” he tells me.

  I sit down beside Eclaire and she shifts uncomfortably. Her shirt today has a cartoon monster on it and says, ‘Asking Alexandria’.  “Nice shirt,” I tell her, even though I don’t know what the shirt means and who this Alexandria band exactly is.

  She’s about to thank me when Jake bursts out, “you listen to Asking Alexandria?”

  Oh, God….

  “Uhm, yes,” I say. I clear my throat again and Eclaire asks, “What’s your favorite song?”

  I’m totally screwed.

  “I uh I love all of their songs,” I say. I decide to take a mouthful of my salad before I say more stupid things that just embarrass me more. Eclaire sips her smoothie and stares at me while I chew.

  I swallow roughly and then Jake asks, “What other bands do you like?”

  I try to remember some cool shirts that Eclaire wore before and say this, “The Devil Brings the Horizon, Fall out Hole, 30 Seconds To Prada, Sleeping With Starships and Skrillex.”

  They all stare at me as if they are going to punch me. Eclaire turns red and looks down. “I’ll leave you alone forever now,” I say to no one in particular as I pick up my tray and go to the nerds. 

Reviews

[trippy kitty]

Haha this was so funny. Poor, Oliver.

[Caitlyn Murray]

Wow. How nice. The last part was amazing. The line Ill leave you alone forever now makes me think of scott pilgram vs the world which book kinda has the same kind of humor; But anyways I like it so far