Lockers

“Hey! Wait up!”
Jamie turned around and grinned. “Man, why am I always waiting around for you?” he shouted back. “I could just leave, you know. When I don’t have to drop you off, I get home twenty minutes sooner.”
I caught up to him and gave him a shove. “’Cause you love me. And ‘cause you got nothing to fill that extra twenty minutes with. You're lost without me. You’d just be sitting around and thinking about your girlfriend. Even though she doesn't deserve your thoughts.”

Jamie and I had only been friends about a year, but the challenges of high school tend to be good for bonding people, if nothing else. He was the only person I felt comfortable around.

“But man, she's so hot,” he said. “But I am really sorry about Danielle earlier. I know it was a low blow.”

“Dude, your girlfriend is a bitch. Why the hell are you still with her?”

Earlier today, Danielle had accused me of cheating on my math test and landed me in a week of detention. I was cheating, but that's beside the point.

He groaned. “I know, I know. I’ll finish it tomorrow. So, who should be next?”

Jamie was never without a girl for longer than a week. He was also never with a girl longer than a week. I didn’t have much of an interest on girls myself, and although I had never told Jamie this explicitly, he was good about not ever asking why I had never had a girlfriend. It did bother me sometimes that he was such a serial dater. I always felt guilty thinking about it, but there was a reason he got the girls. He was quite nice looking.

“Um, what about Becky? I asked.

“Ugly.”

“Krystal?”

“Too easy.”

“Dana?”

“Not easy enough.”

“Emily?”

“Taken.”

“Alexis?

“The one who’s taking Emily.”

“Nice. Zoey?”

“Dated her sister. Can you say awkward? Anyway, I’m thinking about something new.
Someone different.”

We had stopped by now, facing each other across the hallway. I was running out of girls. Suggestions were hard when you yourself wouldn't date any of them.

“There’s always Brenna, the goth chick from home room.”

He was stepping closer to me know, well inside my personal bubble.

“That’s not quite what I meant.”

I could feel his breath hot on my neck.

“W-w-well, y-you seem to h-have run out of g-g-girls,” I choked out, my heart racing.

“Exactly”

And then he kissed me.