Scarves should not be necessary in May. Luke was dreading the thought of walking to the bus stop wearing his winter pea coat and his favorite white and black striped scarf. Taking the bus alone was degrading enough for Luke, being fifteen years old in high school and showing up to school on the bus will not help his chances with Cheryl Petting.
Cheryl is two years older then Luke, but since he was bumped ahead to 12th grade, he assumes being rather intelligent increases his chances to ever talking to her. However she's clearly "studying" with Kyle Houthe, the high school badass with rich parents, own car, and the likeability of James Franco from Freaks and Geeks. Luke never had a chance, and taking the bus doesn't affect whether or not he'll have the chance to talk to Cheryl.
On this particular day in May, Luke was forced to wear a scarf and his pea coat while he waited for the bus. It was unusual weather; however, living in Michigan he should know better. Fuck it, Luke thought, he's rolling the dice and only going to rock a hoodie and scarf. He opened the door to his house and immediately regretted his decision and jetted out the door anyway.
While he was shivering on his way to the bus stop, he couldn't help but think of Cheryl. He thought she was perfect, the cutest face. She goes for the whole, "Look at me, I don't wear make-up yet I'm still hotter than you look." Luke loves that, he can't help. Hell, most of the guys at his school have inappropriate thoughts about her. Luke goes mad just thinking about her--the ridiculous chuckle she produces out of her perfect mouth showing her perfect teeth--she's pure fucking perfection.
All of Luke's friends tell him that he needs to give up all hope on ever having any sort of short interaction with her. Luke wasn't a horrible looking kid. He was only a few weeks away from his 16th birthday, but most people assumed he was much older, which is due to his mature personality. He carries himself in a manner unlike most regular high schoolers. Luke reads books outside of school, hangs out at coffee shops, and is the President of the Elk River Rapids Young Democrats. His intellect is at the level of a college student, and resembles a young John Kennedy, but more like what a cousin of John Kennedy would look like.
Luke had his own "little fan club." Girls that were mainly older then him. None of them mattered, he only wanted Cheryl Petting. Standing at the bus stop drinking his black, french-roasted coffee Luke went over his daily imaginary conversation with Cheryl. It always went something like this:
"Hi Cheryl! My name is Luke, we've had a few classes together but we never actually met."
"LUKE! Of course I know you! You sat right behind me in Biology last year. I wanted to talk to you so many times, but I was always so nervous."
"Well, you know, my parents usually go to bed early. You could, uh, if you want, um, come over tonight? I mean if your not, like, busy with Kyle or something..."
"Oh me and Kyle are just friends, he helps me study. And I would love to come over tonight. You can help me study for anatomy." *Wink*
This conversation has never taken place, and Luke was hoping, praying, and begging to any God(s) that it would someday. He also had the tendency to get lost in his fantastical delusion that he would get a little too eager and it would show. Today waiting for bus while he was going over different "scenarios" a girl was approaching the same bus stop. Luke was caught off guard because normally he was the only waiting for the bus at 7:15 a.m. This particular girl happened to be none other then the star of Luke's fantasy, Cheryl Petting.
Luke immediately became really red when she walked up and stood about two feet from him. Luckily for Luke, he was standing in front of Cheryl and she couldn't see what he was trying to hide from her. It took him a solid thirty seconds to calm down, and he turned his head to notice that she didn't look happy. He considered the idea that maybe she was embarrassed that she had to take the bus, but he grew the courage to speak to her for the first time.
Luke managed to mumble, "Fucked up weather, huh?"
"Hmm, did you say something."
"Oh, just that the average temperature this time of May is usually 65.8 degrees and today it's 35 degrees," replied Luke, and thought he sounded too smart including the exact average temperature.
"Yeah, it's pretty shitty," she said rather quietly. Luke still sensed that something was wrong and thought maybe he should say something funny.
"It totally is, but you know there will still be some douche that wears shorts today just because it's May. I mean no one thinks the guy that wears shorts is a badass, he's just an idiot."
She smiled and said, "Yeah. You're right on that."
Luke was so elated that he made her smile that he didn't know the bus just pulled up and was caught off guard so fumbled to collect his bus fare. He got an empty seat and tried looking for Cheryl and noticed she was behind him looking out of the window, not pleased at all. Luke thought about moving back to her empty seat next to her. He didn't really have a non-weird way to go about it. He couldn't just end up sitting next to her since they have been on the bus for a few minutes now and was already on its way to the next stop. He thought about making a scene and yelling that there was shit on the seat and he needed to move, but he didn't want to implicate himself as having sat in shit. As he was going over different ways to approach this problem they arrived to school and he missed his opportunity.
Luke waited for Cheryl to get ahead of him so he could get of the bus behind her. He was hoping that he would get the chance to ask her out to coffee, or even talk about weather again. Luke was desperate and thought the short bus stop conversation went well. She got of the bus and as he was stepping off he noticed the douche wearing shorts. This was perfect! What better way to have another conversation with Cheryl than to make fun of the idiot wearing shorts. Just as he was about to tap on her shoulder and say something, she said:
"Kyle! Over here!"
As she said this the kid wearing the shorts turned and wave to her. To Luke's disgust, it was Kyle. Fucking Kyle. Of all the people to wear shorts on a cold spring day, which is clearly jeans weather, Kyle would be the douche to do it. Luke noticed that they were talking and she pointed at his lack of pants and he just put his hands up motioning, "I don't know." Cheryl just laughed, and it wasn't laughter towards Kyle, it was genuine laughter.
Luke couldn't understand. He thought they had one thing in common, hatred to shorts wearing douchebags in cold weather. Luke didn't even finish his coffee but tossed it away and walked toward school. His young heart being trampled upon by his high school crush flirting with James Franco look-a-like Kyle was too much for him to handle this day, and he made one of the worst decisions of his youthful life. He vowed to not watch a James Franco movie again because of Kyle Houthe and his fucking shorts.
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