Cyrus Stout and The Wonders About

~Two~

"Basically, there's two-page, two-sided list in the girls' bathroom kept by who knows who of who each girl likes, and previously it's been nothing but mortification for pretty much every girl in our grade, not to mention half the guys, but today, I think it might just be your big break."

I lowered a Cheeto puff from my mouth to give my best friend Amy the stare - you know, that 'if-you're-lying-to-me,-I-swear-I-will-hypothetically-castrate-you,-but-not-literally,-because,-you-know,-you're-a-girl-who-doesn't-have-a-penis-and-all' stare - but she just gave me one back - that 'trust-me,-you-dumb-Lacey-Summers-obsessed-fucker' look. You know that look? - and continued her story.

"Because according to the Baxter Prep WLW list, ninth grade edition, a certain bespectacled, redheaded debate teamer has the definite hots for you," she finished, pushing a lock of straight, magenta hair behind her ear sassily.

"L-Lacey Summers?"

"Unless Cindy Sam joined the debate team. And suddenly stopped being a lesbian," Amy replied, leaning back in her chair.

Okay, let's take a moment to look at Cyrus Stout, shall we?

A lanky blonde toy train enthusiast with one friend in the entire world, a slight obsession with Cheeto puffs, an Adam's apple practically the size of a golf ball, a precision tip black sharpie marker constantly behind his ear, a mini composition notebook full of his own original punk rock songs in his coat pocket, and a closet full of custom-made Bill Cipher graphic tees.

Obviously not quite Lacey Summers crush material, right? That's exactly what I thought.

"You've got to be pulling my leg or something," I exclaimed in disbelief.

"If you'd like to waltz into the girls' bathroom and check for yourself, you can be my guest," Amy combatted with her eyebrow raised.

I sighed. "But how could that be? She's Lacey Summers, and I'm just... well... me."

"Yes. You're Cyrus Stout. You're an amazing guy and maybe, just maybe, Lacey Summers has finally brushed her perfect ginger bangs out of her eyes long enough to see that."

I smiled at Amy's sentiment. She then slapped my arm encouragingly and motioned behind her.

"Think fast, here she comes."

With that, she hopped up and made herself scarce, but not before pushing me out of my seat at the picnic table in the courtyard where we were sitting, and right into the path of Lacey Cynthia Summers.

And, as if making the prettiest woman in the ninth grade, if not the universe, come to a screeching halt on her afternoon commute wasn't enough to mortify me into an embarrassment coma for the next one thousand years, all the fuss had caused my less-than athletically inclined hands to lose most of their control over my precious bag of cheesy, fluffy goodness and ended up letting it tip and letting all my dreams spill out. Along with quite a few chips.

So, in other words, I spilled almost a whole bag of Cheeto puffs on the most popular girl in school directly after practically jumping out in front of her.

Still think I'm not the most pathetic creature to ever be granted intelligent life? Well, I'm sure you will eventually, because we still have a whole book for that purpose alone.

Anyway, back to me and my predicament involving the cheese snack-covered love of my life in Baxter Falls.

I immediately began to stutter out my sincerest of apologies, but stopped dead in my vocal tracks as she began to laugh, - like, sincerely laugh - as if her being covered in the entirety of my lunch was the funniest thing she'd seen since Jerry Seinfeld in 'The Bee Movie'.

As she finally finished her laughing, she actually started talking to me. Talking. To me. Do you not see the surprisingness of this situation?!

"I'm sorry to laugh, Cyrus, but I was actually just thinking about how much I wanted some Cheetos," she told me, the laugh still lingering in her voice.

I noticed Amy, giving me a supportive and beyond enthusiastic thumbs-up from behind one of Baxter Prep's signature fire truck red trash bins.

"Um, then I guess I'm like your glorified butler," I said with my most awkward of awkward laughs.

She laughed, - once again sincerely. That was freaking me out - and looked down at the gorey scene beneath and around her feet. "I'm going to help you clean this up, purely because I felt bad about that comment."

I laughed and then we both kneeled down to pick up the crushed bits of my real best friend - cheese flavored snack food.

After we'd done picked up all the little orange crumbs and thrown them away - not in the trash bin Amy was hiding behind, that'd just be awkward -, we stood back up and Lacey smiled at me.

"Hey, um, would you like to go out to The Woods with me?" She asked, making a vague gesture behind her.

In the very back of the prep school, there was a very large, very dark, and very scary bundle of trees that the student body had dubbed 'The Woods'.

And it was the very last place I wanted to go.

"Sure."

Oh, Cyrus, you lovesick idiot.