Bad Boy Religion

Chapter 1 - Michael Wilkinson

Michael Wilkinson

I'd had a crush on Michael Wilkinson for 4 years now. He'd been in almost all my classes growing up. With a data scientist dad and biomedical engineer mom, he was always doing at least 0.1% better than me every time. No matter how much I studied, no matter how much I prepared he always beat me. It made me hate him, envy him and fantasize him all at once. 

A silly, high school crush, one might say.

This was the last year we would spend together before going off to our separate colleges, to forget our home town and make a name for ourselves. 

This was also the last year when I had finally given up trying to get him to notice me as a woman and not as his physics lab-partner. Being some of the highest scorers in the class also meant that we were constantly pairing with each other, great minds think alike they say. Given our history of being great friends also helped, despite the competitiveness that would arise when we got our grades back we always made a great team. 

I didn't stop trying to wear mascara or unbuttoning the second button on my shirt because I had given up trying to get him to notice me more, I stopped because he had a girlfriend.

It was new for him, a summer fling turned serious. It turned all my drives to get him out of the platonic zone to a complete halt.

We'd sit huddled over a physics lab on the countertop and he would gush about how in love he was with his girlfriend.

It's crazy because even though he was talking about his girlfriend who wasn't me I could still listen to every word and hang on to everything he said.

Needless to say, I knew everything about his girlfriend thanks to him.

She's 5'11, Bulgarian, long dark brown hair, liked to knit but is also a cheerleader at our rival high school, does this cute thing with her nose where she scrunches it up when she's thinking hard that Michael just absolutely can't resist, and she works at the mall at Urban Outfitters. She was only a junior while Michael was a senior. She was president of the dance committee and best of all she was going to model for Wilhelmina models after high school was over thanks to her Instagram success. And that's just some of the details I had come to learn.

They were perfect for each other, on paper at least.

Me? I was a brown skinned, 5'5, curly haired, skinny lanky thing. A poor excuse of a woman, with hallow cheeks and big eyes, I was far from the seductive siren types that seemed to catch Michael's eye. I was president of science olympiad, had a total of 800 followers on instagram, and I worked as a barista at the local vegan gentrified cafe that my eccentric aunt owned, spending my days charging people $7 for a cup of joe. Essentially, I was not Michael's type.

So here we were, first period of the day in the cold November morning sipping on our hot coffee as I held a stopwatch and he slid a mini cart over our ramp.

His eyes twinkled as he lined the cart to the magnet strip on the ramp and his hair fell forward covering his eyes. I watched as his long slender fingers brushed them back and peered up at me. 

"I think we just have to do a few more trials on this ram-" The bell cut him off and I watched him groan from frustration.

"I guess we'll just have to finish the lab tomorrow," I say, forcing myself away from his gaze to pack up our stuff and grab my backpack.