Shy Boy

Chapter 4

"Alright, what is it?" Joshua asked Scooter as soon as he got here.

He didn't understand why the need to meet at the quad. A set up was unpredictable and he has known Scooter to not intervene. It was all sudden for him.

"Just wait a minute," Scooter told him. His head looked in the other direction, surveying around. "She should be here in any second.."

"She?" Joshua questioned, his eyebrow raising up. "Who are you talking about?"

Scooter continued to swivel his head around in every direction until something just caught his sight and he began to lift up his smile.

Joshua turned his head to look where Scooter had his attention on.

The girl came closer and closer until she was more apparent. Joshua's face went puzzled.

"You know her, right?" Scooter asked.

"Yeah," Joshua answered, looking at her. "This is Carissa. I was her tutor in Math."

"And now I know what the logarithmic functions are thanks to you," she confirmed, making an obvious blank face. 

"How's it going now?" he asked her.

"Doing great." She nodded.

Joshua faced his attention back to Scooter. "What is she doing here?"

One of his hands is stuffed inside his pants pocket, looking down before he gave his lips a loud smack. "Well, I happen to have her in my Italian class when I asked her about the discussion in class. We got a little off topic and it turns out that she knew you so." He shrugged. "I told her about your situation and she was willing to help."

"And so here I am," Carissa spoke.

Joshua's eyes turned from Scooter to Carissa, looking at each of them a few times before he shook his head. "No, no."

"Trust meee." Scooter patted his shoulder. "You need practice."

"And how is this going to work?" Joshua stood there, asking.

"Pretend that Carissa is Coral." He gestured to her. "Talk to her as if it's her."

"Yeah, come on Joshua." Carissa straightened her standing position, gazing at him. "I'll talk to you."

"I don't think it's going to work." Joshua turned his head away.

"You can at least try a little. I did talk to Coral a few times. She helped me before. I think I could impersonate her well," Carissa said, batting her eyelashes.

"Don't try to be cute. You're not her," Joshua bluntly stated.

Carissa's lips turned into a pout with sad eyes. "Don't be that way," Scooter cut in. "You'll have a hard time with Coral so try Carissa and practice."

When Joshua looked at Carissa, she attempted with her lips curving up and her eyes just wide open. He gazed at her for a little bit before he gave in, sighing.

"Fine," he answered.

"Cool," Scooter said. "Now start."

Carissa placed a hand over her chest, blinking repeatedly until her voice emitted out. "Hi."

Joshua looked at Carissa. He thought there was no way it was going to be easy pretending that she was Coral since she's not her. Due to the practice, he knew he had to say something. Carissa was just waiting on for him.

Okay, deep breath. Deep breath, Joshua thought in his mind, closing his eyes. He let the oxygen in through his lungs before he exhaled out. He opened his eyes to see Carissa still there. At first, all he saw was Carissa. Now the figure standing there was replaced with the image of Coral.

Seeing how he imagined her, she was pretty. "H-Hi..." Joshua slowly spoke, averting his eyes from her.

"How are you?" she asked.

He blinked. It was absurd. It wasn't her voice, but he tried to not let that get to him. "Okay..." he silently said.

"Just okay?"

Joshua shut his eyes, nodding his head in response.

"Could you look at me?" Carissa asked, noticing Joshua was not really focused.

As instructed, his eyes went back to focus on her. 

Carissa's voice went lower, trying to have her voice to be more gentle and sweet like. "So, what are your hobbies and interests?"

"Uh..." Joshua hesitated. Carissa's figure was overridden with Coral and he couldn't handle that. He was trying his best to face her.  "I..."

Scooter's eyes were looking eager at Joshua as he was waiting on for his response.

"I... like looking.. into my t-textbooks... and learning..."

"Really? What do you like about them?"

"There's a lot of things you could know..." Joshua uttered quietly.

"I think you could work on your speech habits and stuttering," Carissa said, breaking out of her role and pointing out his flaws.

"It was slow and it sounded too nervous.."

"She's right." Scooter nodded his head.

"Of course, I would be nervous." Joshua frowned. "It'd be hard to actually face her."

"Don't worry, we could work on improving," Carissa suggested. "It's not easy to talk to a crush."

"Are you going to give me lessons?" he asked, and she nodded.

"I'll give you pointers. I am a girl. I would know what a girl would want to see in a guy."

Scooter looked to Joshua. "I'm going to go," he gestured his thumb backward. He turned his head to glance at Carissa. "You think you could work on him a little more?"

"Totally," Carissa said confidently with a smile.

"Do I need to?" Joshua looked at Scooter with an uneasy expression.

"Just get used to talking to her. It's just like talking to anybody else," Scooter said all he has to say before he waved. "Later." He began walking off and leaving Joshua and Carissa by themselves.

"So, should we continue?" she asked him.

Joshua sighed quietly. "If you insist."

"Great!" Carissa lightened up. "Think of it as a favor I'm returning back to you."

"Fine, go on."

And so, Carissa continued to give Joshua some tips and pointers and using herself for Joshua to practice on.

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Ahhh, Shy Boy got ranked #870 in Short Story. I've never been ranked before. Thank you guys!!! For anybody just silently reading this and adding it to your library and/or reading list. I definitely have seen people adding this book to their reading list and I'm thankful for that. If you want to continue to support this story, any votes or comments would be appreciated. I'm barely just getting started here.