How To Get a Boyfriend 101

Bonus : Monday

MANY, MANY
YEARS EARLIER
(OR TWO, TO BE EXACT)

MONDAY, NOVEMBER
FIFTEENTH—ONE DAY
BEFORE RUSSELL CHEN'S
FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY.

TOLD BY
BLAKE TURNER.

Absentmindedly, I chew on the eraser of my pencil. In my experience, the wooden pencils have better erasers for chewing than mechanical ones. There's something about the all-natural wood that just makes it more satisfying (is what I like to tell myself).

My teacher drones on and on about some mathematic formula... or something. Honestly, I don't even know which class I'm in. It's my second month of high school, almost the third, and I really just want to take a nap. Too bad they don't offer that class in MBA anymore. Rumor has it that my parents' generation actually had nap time in high school. Lucky ducks.

My best friend and sort-of-actually-my-feels-like-he-is-my brother, Felix Gray, notices my droopy eyes. He blinks repeatedly, conveying some message in Morse Code. I don't have the patience to decipher it and just wave him off, letting a small groan of frustration slip past my lips as I put my head to the desk. Don't even know why I agreed to learning it to communicate with him. Half the time his messages are harder to understand than the subject matter of the class itself.

Felix huffs and turns back to his notes. At least he was able to sleep last night. But his legs kicking against the shared wall between our dorm rooms was only soothing for one of us, and unfortunately for me, that one was not named Blake Turner.

I force my hand to grip the pencil for a purpose other than chewing and marvel at how weak it feels for a solid two seconds. Wow. Blinking hard to prevent myself from yawning, I drag my hand around my notebook in an attempt at note-taking.

It doesn't work. I glance back at Felix, helpless.

He only shrugs and starts mouthing words to me, words that I don't want to decipher. All the normal methods of communication? Gone.

I shake my head at Felix; he sighs, giving up. His eyes light up, and he sighs again. And again. Again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again... oh, boy. It seems as though Felix has discovered the joy of sighing.

I close my eyes and rest my head against the table, and I begin to daydream.

A certain boy I like floats into the meadow of my fantasies.

Ah, Russell Chen. He does strange things to my heart.

Not to be obsessed or anything, but Russell is basically perfect, and no one can tell me otherwise, because I will slap them in the face until they drop dead or beg for mercy... mercy that I won't give them.

Russell has the best nose I've ever seen on a human. There are better ones on some bears, and I've seen a couple dogs with great noses, but yes, that's where I'm starting off. It's nice and slanted at a good angle, and the end is so bop-able that I want to cry every time I see it. His left eye is also really cute. When he smiles, it scrunches up on the side, and I can already tell that he's going to have smile wrinkles when he's older. Smile wrinkles are the best wrinkles, by the way. His right eye, on the other hand—or, should I say, on the other eye—is what I've dubbed The Hawk Eye. Whenever he is being hot (which is always... but still) my attention is always drawn to his right eye.

Or maybe it's his right eye from my perspective, so actually his left one. I don't know. I still can't tell right and left apart very well.

Anyway, moving on to his lips.

Oh, Russell Chen's lips.

Yeah, this is how I know I'm going crazy. You're in class, Blake—slow your roll.