"Are you seriously still doing that, Neil?"
Neil turned to look at his step-sister, Nikki. She picked up a booklet (a booklet was a terrible definition, for the disorganized bundle of stapled pages Neil had written) from his table. She skimmed through it. "Damn, big bro, this would be impressive if it wouldn't be so lame."
Neil groaned, ignoring her, and he continued to type in his Google Doc, pausing every now and then to write notes with a pencil that he'd have bitten so much it looked like it could snap in half any minute now.
Nikki took this as a sign to continue, "You're really gonna continue to 'procartisnate' on this?"
"It's 'procrastinate'." Neil looked over at her for a second.
He chose not to argue; he was too busy. But if he had chosen to argue, he would've pointed out he did not procrastinate. Did Neil spend his time planning, meticulously perfecting every detail of an assignment, and fleshing out a project, a science experiment, a question? Yes. All the time, if you will.
This precise reasoning is what led Neil to spend approximately 12 months of his life, from the beginning of last years summer break to the beginning of this one, devising how to ask one simple question:
"Max, will you go on a date with me?"
That's why a humiliating amount of "black-mail material," as Nikki put it, had been scattered across Neil's room ever since he came back from camp.
"Yeah, yeah. So are you gonna tell me who the lucky girl— or guy," Nikki corrects herself, "is? It's so weird that I, your loving sister and friend, don't know!"
"No, Nikk." Neil throws a crumpled piece of paper to the trashcan. He misses, and it hits Nikki on the face. Headshot. She frowns, uncrumbling it, reading through it. "Why would I trust you with such mortifying information?"
Nikki reads out loud, "Research exhibits 'M' would refrain from accepting my request if it was a 'lame' display of affection, so I should attempt—"
With his face ablaze, Neil jumps to his feet and grabs the paper again, crumbling it in the process.
Nikki questions, "Are they from our grade?"
"No." Neil smirks, confident his crushes identity will remain anonymous.
"Upperclassmen?"
"No."
"Lowerclassmen?"
"No."
"Is it someone from the neighborhood?"
"No."
"Someone from camp?"
"What?" He blurts, voice reaching an embarrassingly high pitch that he will never admit to being capable of.
"Camp." She repeats, expression so excited.
He blushes— rapidly.
"Camp? No! That's— That's farfetched? I hardly even remember attending camp! That's- That's—" His words stumbled over each other in their rush to get out, his voice continuing to stay embarrassingly high.
"M! Max! Maximilian!" She squeals, "Holy fuck! M stands for Max!"
"..His name isn't Maxililan, it's just Max."
"Oh, of fucking course you'd know what his full name is!"
He scoffs. Nikki grabs another piece of paper, rolling her eyes when noticing it was just science-y stuff. It was about Max, she realized, but leave it to Neil to make a middle-school crush boring. Neil still squeaks in protest, so Nikki hands him his boring paper.
