If Crushes Didn't Hurt; It Wouldn't Be Called A Crush

"Denise...you know how prom is coming up..."

"Denise...I was wondering, if you didn't already have a date..." Somehow, rehearsing in the mirror didn't help for how it really what it really be like. Talking to my reflection didn't seem to be much of a confidence booster either.

"Would you like to go to prom..."

"You know Fred, maybe you should practice on me." A tall, gaunt faced and scrawny boy also known as Howard, pointed out. He was sprawled across the rigorously torn up mattress, which consisted of a long, thin cushion that caused the bed springs to gnaw at my back during slumber. It was just another of the random foster homes I was living in. With a person who didn't care if I lived or died.

I wasn't exactly sure now if you could qualify Howard as my friend. But he was really the only person I knew and hung around with. I'm not even sure how we met.

Howard pushed his oversized glasses upon his nose. I didn't know why he was always fidgeting with them. They just slowly slid down his long, thin nose anyway. "Denise is a popular girl Fred. You sure you're going to ask her and not chicken out?"

My stomach was full of nerves. I was definitely tense. Denise was a subject that made my heart writhe.

"Of course. Who do you fucking think I am?" I snapped. But the very mention of Denise was making me hyperventilate. "I've already got a plan of attack."

"Great. You're going to attack her? How is that ever going to get her to accept?"

It was a little thing called sarcasm that Howard just didn't seem to comprehend. "Never mind, Howard." I hissed under my breath. "Just never mind."

I tossed and turned on my mattress all night. It seemed Sundays ended too quickly, bringing on the following weekday. The first day of the week. The first day of school for a week, bringing you for more days afterwards of hellish high school torture.

It seemed no matter how much pep talk Howard forced me to sit through, it didn't prepare me for anything that was out for me. I knew life and I knew life well. It never worked out for the kids that sat quiet in the back of the classroom. If I was lucky, Denise would turn me down lightly. But yet to be rejected was still a healthy punch in the face.

That night, my thoughts. They wouldn't leave. They wouldn't leave me alone. I didn't fall asleep that night. Instead I repeated words in my head. Four letter words. Fuck. Love. I didn't know whether I fucking loved her, or hated her.

I didn't eat in the morning. Lack of sleep, lack of food. It was better to be nervous on an empty stomach. If I was nervous on a full stomach, I'd probably puke my guts up.

I met Howard at his locker. I never used my locker, but Howard used his frequently. It was a pain in the ass because it was so out of the way of everything. But Howard was in a bunch of extra credit classes and carried practically the entire library around with him.

"Nervous, Fred?"

I nodded, my eyes darting back and forth down the corridor. I could miss Denise at any chance. If I blinked, I might not get the damned opportunity.

"Just take a long hard breath of air and ask her." He made it sound easy. But nothing is easy in the world of females. I'm surprised I liked girls at all. I'd lived some of my life with a bitch of a mother who had been a nun. I knew the story. All the nuns that ran the convent told me. Otherwise I'd have been unknowing. This bitch, who had given birth to me was actually a bitch who had been raped. I was the product of it. Conceived by a freaking madman. Must be the reason I get those...urges.

But it's not important.

"There she is!" Howard hissed a little too loudly for my liking. Shoving those glasses up his nose and pointing a long, bony finger Denise's way. I turned around to look at her. Heck, this was no watching Denise walk as if in slow motion, her blonde curls bouncing as she laughed and chatted with her sidekick Cindy in tow. This was judgment day.

Cindy was saying something, and Denise was cracking up.

"Do it kiddo." Howard pushed me in her direction. I ground my teeth together and cracked some knuckles. I wasn't preparing for a fight, I was preparing to be shot down in front of everyone.

"Hey um, Denise?" I mumbled. I hadn't even said two words to the chick and now I was asking her to the prom. Denise's laughs faded and Cindy still carried on smirking.

"Uh yeah?" She asked, flipping blonde locks off her face and over her shoulder.

"Wannagotopromwithme?"

She frowned and laughed nervously.

"What?" Cindy jabbed her in her side and she slapped the girl's hand away.

"He wants to know if you'll go to prom with him." Howard cut in. God, I had been nervous but Howard was ruining it. Bastard.

Howard grinned, like he thought he was really helping me out by making me look like a wimp in front of the most desired girl in school. Denise looked stunned. I could of slapped her and she would of looked less surprised.

"Um..." Great. Fucking eh! "Can I get back to you on that one?" She asked weakly. Rubbing at a pale temple, I nodded finally and Cindy tugged at her arm and whisked Denise away.

"She probably was lying ya know." Howard elbowed me in my ribcage once the girls were out of earshot, and mumbling curse words towards him, I turned and banged my fist against the locker behind me.

"Violent urges!" Howard squealed. "Whatsa matter Fred-I asked her for you, didn't I?"

"And made me look like an inadequate retard in the process." No wonder I was a social outcast; I had people like Howard backing me up. We both knew Denise would probably still reject me. Right now, her and Cindy were probably thinking up a nice way to do it.

"That's what friends are for."

I couldn't believe I, (or rather, Howard) had actually gone through with asking a girl of such high social standards to the social gala of the year. The one event girls and boys look forward to for years. Dreaming of their dates, their gowns, the dancing and partying and the partying after prom. People like Denise Charlotte went with the stereotypical jocks, wearing over expensive dresses and having wild sex afterwards. People like Denise Charlotte did not go with people like myself or Howard, so to speak.

I thought the talk of asking Denise to the prom was just that; all talk. Something Howard and I would dream about- you know, fantasizing about things that are never capable of happening to us. Something that we'd always mention, but never get around to actually doing. Saying is one thing, doing it is another.

"She's gonna say no, Freddy." Howard mustered sympathetically, flinging a spindly arm around my shoulders. Even the biggest nerd at school thought that I was a lost and utterly hopeless cause.

Well, school did not matter to me. It never had, it never would. I had bigger plans for the people who had made me their scapegoat for the better years of their lives. Much bigger plans.

"Well you are the one who asked her for me." I snarled. If anyone was going to tell me my chances were irrevocable, it wouldn't be Howard-who couldn't get a girl even if he dressed up as Elvis and started performing a pelvic thrust. "Maybe it wasn't in my intentions that I was going to ask her at all!"

He mumbled something that sounded awfully like "sorry".Howard backed down then. He knew he was too blame, but it was too late to be sorry. Now all we had left was to wait for what was to come.