There he stood, so perfect, across the room from me, in his stupid sweater and stupid shorts and smiling his stupid perfect smile. Ugh, all of it just makes me angrier. And then he slowly put his little red solo cup down and made his way toward me, still smiling. What was he trying to do? 

 

I stood my ground, but I could feel the air changing. Maybe half of the people just decided to leave. My head started doing little laps until all my thoughts were jumbled and he was too close for comfort. 

 

It was suddenly really hot in the room. I could feel myself flush, and I slapped my hands over my cheeks before he could see, trying to stare him down like I had always done. But he just laughed, those stupid pointy incissors peeking out of course, classic hell demon monster pervert manwhore. 

 

“What’s up?” He asked, as if we had always just talked like this, as if we had always just gone up to each other and asked what’s up. 

 

“What do you mean, what’s up?” I laughed dryly, still trying to cover as much of my cheeks as possible while not looking like an uwu girl. “Do you really want to know what’s up with me?” 

 

Suddenly, his hand snuck up behind me and reeled me in towards him before I had the time to react. This sneaky little jdfkjslfjlds had the audacity to drag me into literal ballroom dance position and stick me onto him like a piece of duct tape. 

 

“Yeah, I really, really do.” 

 

He buried his head into the space between my right shoulder and neck, tightening his grip on me the more I struggled to free myself. Then I felt his lips on the back of my neck, and nearly released a hell-bent scream. He was whispering on my skin, still holding me flush against his body. Only I couldn’t hear a word he was saying in this position. He really was stupid. 

 

This was about when I realized that everyone was staring at us. All his friends were whispering to each other, and every once in a while they would send some astronomically dumb jeers our way. Emma was shamelessly staring at me like I had just killed her first born son. Actually, that might not be the best description. She was staring at me like she was about to kill my first born son. Or I guess our, now that I have this giant golden retriever literally wrapping himself around me. Fran looked like she was switching between having a stroke and scream-smirking at me (yes, scream-smirking, a combination of smirking and screaming.)

 

If my cheeks hadn’t already been red enough, they were now on fire. I hated this guy. And it had to stay that way if I was ever to maintain any human decency. I tried again to pull him off of me, but he was totally invested in kissing his way up my neck. Too much wine for the little hell monster. I resorted to dragging the both of us out of the living room and towards the guest room, followed by a series of loud monkey sounds and shouts from the manwhore squadron. When I finally shut the door behind us, we fell onto the floor, me first, in the most unromantic, painful way you can imagine. He literally crushed me, I could feel my entire body being flattened. In that moment I lost two years’ worth of progress on boob growth. But he didn’t roll off of me. 

 

Instead, he propped himself up on top of me, looking at me like he was, totally, completely sober. I almost wanted to believe him in that moment, his stupid cute little puppy eyes that searched my face for any bit of feeling, any emotion, any excitement. If in that moment, he had sabotaged me in the worst way and kissed me, maybe, just maybe, I would’ve let it happen. 

 

And then the moment passed. He rolled over and plopped himself onto my lap. I slowly sat up, feeling every bone in my body resuscitate itself after that deadly fall. He looked up at me, and I looked away, embarrassed. He nearly crushed me to death not even five minutes ago, and still I’m blushing whenever he looks at me? 

 

“Hey.” He whispered, in his stupid slurred voice. “Hey.” 

 

“What?” I asked, studying the trash can in the corner of the room with ferocious dedication. 

 

“You’re so perfect.” 

 

I looked back at him, and he was still staring at my face. I went back to staring at the trash can. 

 

“Yeah, I am.” 

 

“No, I mean it.” 

 

“No, you don’t.” 

 

“Yes I do.” He suddenly sat up, and pulled my chin towards him. “You’re perfect.” 

 

We sat there in silence for a minute, and my head did a couple of pirouettes before I decided to give up on thinking altogether. 

 

“You mean it?” I asked quietly, still not willing to meet his eye.  

 

“Yeah.” He reached for my hand, but I pulled away. 

 

“But it’s not just that.” He reached again, sitting up abruptly, his gaze burning into the side of my face. I gave up. “You’re perfect for me.” 

 

Oh, god. 

 

“You are disgusting.” I told him, as he brought our hands up to the side of my face, like we were about to do a joint prayer or something.

 

He used our conjoined hands to nudge my chin again, bringing my face up to finally face his. Why did I suddenly think he looked really pretty? Was it just the lighting? 

 

No, it definitely wasn’t just the lighting. 

 

I realized that we were really, really close again. Like I could feel the way he was breathing really quickly. He was also nervous. I almost wanted to laugh out loud- two arch-nemeses, holding hands, face to face as if we were about to kiss. 

 

And then he said it. 

 

“Can I kiss you?” 

 

I didn’t think. We were already so close. Man, screw it. 

 

That was when I went totally brain dead. I realized that I didn’t actually hate kissing. Because he was really, really good at it. Not that I’m a good kissing judge. I mean, anything probably beats making out with Xavier behind the library. But this was kind of fun. 

 

I could almost hear the cheesy music in the background, and my body felt totally melty, to the point where halfway through he pulled me onto his lap and I couldn’t even do anything. I just let him kiss me, and after who knows how long, until both of our heads were spinning at 3000 miles per hour, he once more gathered me into his arms, and no longer wanting to carry the weight of my head, I slumped against his chest, finding it to be surprisingly warm and welcoming. 

 

In one gesture, he reached out and yanked the blanket off the bed, throwing it over us and leaning his head back on the edge of the comforter. And just like that, in a tight little ball in the heart of this big warm creature, I spent the night, void of nightmares for the first time in forever.