Ten times did I see her. Ten times I wanted to kiss her lips. Ten times I failed to gather the courage needed to ask the magnificent Kelly Hill on a date. Ten miserable times this scrawny, geeky, guy with a supermarket t-shirt and jeans that were too short did nothing.

I know my time will come, it has to. Doesn’t it? Anyway I like to think that it will. Someday, I’ll be out of this dump called High School and into a new world where I’m no longer the butt of every joke.

Every morning I wake up just to eat my flaky cereal. I look into the mirror just to see yet again the body not of a teenager but of a boy with the face of a pizza. Then I pull my “cheapest shirt at the store” shirt over my head and the “my mom bought these” jeans onto my legs, covering the pastiness of my calves. Just to go to a place where everyone hates me, everyone.

Once there it’s easy to forget that I’m a person like everyone else. So many people push me around, especially Rick Thomas, although I personally think it’s funny that he has two first names. Then, there is always the fact that Kelly Hill is so unbelievably out of my league that I can barely stand being near her.

One day that all changed. I was being pushed against the wall, just about to be tar and feathered by the usual jerks and bullies, when Nick decided to turn a new leaf. Right before my head was about to be punched in, Nick stopped them. I was surprised, I didn’t know why he stopped them.

“Hey, I know I’ve been a jerk to you in the past. I don’t know how to say this, but I need a favor.” Nick said.

I knew that he must have had some alternative reason for saving my skin.

“I need help in English, I don’t understand Shakespeare. At all.” He said.

That’s what it was, he wants to cheat off of me. I can’t even count the number of times people have cheated off of my paper.

“I need tutored, I’m willing to pay you seven bucks an hour. I really want to understand the material, there’s this girl and… Oh well you don’t want to know about that.” He said.

So maybe I was wrong. Well shoot, seven dollars an hour to teach him about something I enjoy, sounds goods to me. Who knows, maybe we will become friends?

So it all ends well, I taught Nick what he needed to learn to impress his girl. We studied for four weeks, and I made a total of four-hundred and twenty dollars, plus a new friend. Nick gave me something more though, he showed me that life is surprising and unpredictable.

You can’t live life stereotyping everything, not even yourself. Four weeks ago I would have thought that I was a friendless nobody, now I’m friends with one of the people I despised most and about to take a chance that I haven’t been able to take the past ten times.

Kelly is right in front of me. My heart pounding inside my chest about to blow up like an atomic bomb, the beads of sweat on my forehead are like bees on honey.

“Hey, Kelly? I’m not sure if you really know who I am but, wound you like to go out sometime?” I asked

What Kelly says is up to you.