Nice Guys Finish Last

Chapter 7

"So... Lemonade or Punch?" I quietly said as Rohan started to scribbling furiously at a paper. What is he writing?

"Okay, look here, Tyler," Rohan said, gesturing toward a bubble with my name in it. "This is you. Above you is Maria." I noticed the Maria bubble. He wrote down a few more notes in the column at the right. 

"Maria has dated Taylor, Darrel, John, and Tim. What do they all have in common? That's right, young pupil. Muscles. What else? They're also really intelligent. And if you want one more similarity, they're all popular. Then again, I think dating Maria made them popular. Anyway, you're halfway there. Not with muscles, I can tell you that, but with your intelligence. Now, I think you can get there with the lean meat you've got. You need two other appealing things about you. Can you think of any off of the top of your head?" Rohan seemed to be more into this than I was. Not that I wasn't into this... 

"What do you think of Jay?" I blurted out. My God. If I wasn't already awkward enough around girls, now I'm awkward around Rohan? 

"Actually, I wanted to tell you something. About Jay." Rohan sighed.

"Yeah, me too..." I confessed. I wasn't totally sure what I was about to say. After a long pause, Rohan spoke.

"Okay, you first, bro." He smiled and nudged my shoulder. Well, he actually hit me. It wasn't much of a nudge.

"I think I might like her a little bit... I mean, I do like Maria, but I also like Jay... In a different way. Not like friends, but different than how I like Maria. Maria is pretty, nice, and well... I don't really know her. I feel like I know Jay. I'm just confused." I sighed, slightly startling myself.

"Yeah, Ty? I like Jay too. But I like her a lot. Last night, she was in my dream. She was teaching me how to spell a really big word, and I smiled and then she told me that I was sitting on... Well it was a dream, so the rest wouldn't really make sense to you, but I really like her. I like everything about her. Except that you like her too. I get it if you don't want me to date her. I just feel like she could be different than all of... I've just been a busy boy if you know what I mean... I just thought she could be... I don't know... Better than the rest of them." Rohan sighed as he trailed off and studied the ground. 

I felt like a teen girl more than anything right now. 

"Dude. Go for it," I said after a long and admittedly awkward pause. This day just gets better and better, huh?

"What? Tyler, you don't have to-"

"Dude, if you love her, then go for it. Just look into my eyes and tell me you love her," I said, with surprising confidence in my voice. Rohan scribbled on the paper a bit and then looked up at me.

"I love Jay," he said as we made eye contact. 

"Then-" I began as Maria stepped into the room. I forgot we were in the Prom Committee's meeting room...

"What? Ohhh, Rohan! I've never seen you like this," Maria said as she walked over to our table. "You're so sensitive, I never knew that about you." Rohan flipped over the piece of paper as she came closer. Thank the lord Rohan caught that. She could've walked right over and seen all of the embarrassing things we just-

"Hey, what's this?" Maria said, reaching for the paper. Without really thinking, I just grabbed the paper and shoved it into my shirt. 

"HA HA HA... OH, NOTHING MARIA GONZALEZ," I said as I smiled really wide through clenched teeth. I had no idea what I was doing, and looking back on it, I laugh every time.

After a bit of staring and me forcing myself to laugh. Maria burst out laughing. So did Rohan. I think I'm done talking to girls. And maybe even Rohan.