Hi. My name is Jesse. And if your face is tingling with delight at the sound of my name, don’t blame me. Okay, blame me.

I’m just a normal guy at Norman High School in south Connecticut. Sure I’m pretty popular. Actually, I’m really popular. Actually, I can have any girl I want. And I’ve had a lot.

A lot.

My story starts on October ninth of last year. I was working on my amp-yeah I play guitar in my band, Electric Fire. Our lead singer, Manny Zinger kinda kicked my amp off the stage at our last gig, and well, first of all it broke, which was why I was working on it, and it caught on fire electrically, hence our name.

Shocker.

See what I did there? You get shocked by electricity? And I said shocker?

Ah. A joke is never funny if I gotta explain it…

Anyway, I was fooling around with the wiring, not having any idea what I was doing. It was study period, and my band and I were in our usual classroom. Manny and Jimmy, our drummer, were practicing one of our songs, but pretty much we were all waiting for Sam.

Sam is our bassist. She’s amazing. She’s half the reason we get gigs. I’m the other half. Considering all of our gigs are school related, I get the girls in the committee to compromise, and she gets the guys. Even if we are hard-rock, most kids in Norman High would do anything for one of us. Unfortunately, her boyfriend, Ryan, could not be more obnoxiously the same. If girl example A didn’t have a crush on me, she had a crush on Ryan.

Girl example A is Sam.

You know, I’m not usually a really romantic guy. I just…don’t love girls. I love parts of girls. Like their lips, faces…et cetera.

But I really like Sam. All of her. Her personality, too, which doesn’t happen all that often.

And trust me, Sam is HOT. But she chose Ryan.

Well, I plan to change that.

Just as Sam waltzed in, all wrapped around Ryan, I picked up my guitar and hooked it up to the kind-of amp.

“Hey guys,” Sam greeted and unzipped her bass case. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Story of your life,” Jimmy groaned.

Manny adjusted his mike and followed Ryan with his eyes as he sat on a metal chair. “Come on Sam!”

“Coming. What we playing?”

“How about that mushy song Jesse wrote?” Jimmy laughed, twirling his sticks.

My song papers were fluttering in my backpack, just screaming, “Play me! Play me!”

“What, is it about Chelsea?” Chelsea was my girlfriend.

See, here’s the part where I could either lie and be happy or tell the truth and be sad. So I chose the first one. But it would still kind of be a truth.

“No.”

Sam tuned her bass like a pro, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo tuning up the strings higher and higher until it pleased her ear. “So who’s it about?”

I blushed. Naturally, I don’t blush physically. I’m a dude. A popular dude with a hot girlfriend. But my face got hot.

“No one…just um…” I ruffled the pages in my bag to get the song out. “Y’know. Here, Manny.”

Dodged that bullet.

We were almost done playing the song, when Ryan jumped up off his chair and yelled, “HOLD it, hold it!”

We stopped after another measure or so, ticked. “What,” Manny spat out.

“That song?” Ryan said, looking like he just smelled something awful. “Sucks.”

Ryan turned to walk out the door. “Hey, Ryan!” I yelled.

“WHAT?!”

I smirked. “Forgot your bag.” I threw the bag at him, and right before it hit his face, time slowed down drastically. My eyes zoomed in on his face, and I tensed my muscles up tight. The skin on my face was heating up, and it felt like ribbons were shooting out of my eyes.

What I was doing was making the nerves in his face a million times more sensitive than usual. When the bag hit him it would hurt like…well, like electric fire.

I don’t even know when or how I learned how do turn off and on and up people’s nerves. Anyone could do it, I think. Like, how about doctors? Do you really think that Valium is real? No, see, they just turn off your nerves. Well, here’s how I see it:

I can turn them off to prevent pain.

I can turn them way up high to make your skin sensitive.

I can make them “asleep,” creating a numb feeling.

And that’s about it.

Nothing that special. I bet if you concentrated really hard, you could do it too.

Anyway, I turned his nerves up REALLY high, and when the backpack hit his face, he yelled in angst and grabbed his throbbing face.

“Sorry, man,” I sighed, and he ran out of the room.

“Hey Sam,” Jimmy smiled. “I think my duffle bag can beat up your boyfriend!”

“Shut up!” she blushed.

I was about to comment, but she strummed her base really loud, blocking out my voice.

As Manny sang my song I wrote about Sam, I thought about how sweet it would be to kiss her…

Her over-sensitive lips.