Page 6 of Perfect Chemistry

Mr. Tinneson looked confused for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I just can’t stand repeating myself or wasting time. Yet, here you five are, repeating this class. Try not to piss me off any further this year.”

This was a sophomore level class, and five of us were repeating it as seniors. Bradley never turned in his final project which automatically failed him. I had been too distracted by the opposite sex to pay attention, and blew up more labs than I completed.

Kat barely passed the final and had failed the midterm. She couldn’t graduate with the D in Chemistry, and that’s how we ended up in class together. Again.

I just smiled like I always did and hoped to hell that this year would end my obsession and fascination with Kat Preston. I needed to just get over her. I was not dating anyone. I ensured that I wasn’t even talking to anyone just in case she came back from summer break single.

But watching her flirt with Bradley, just reinforced what I knew deep down. She would never see me like I saw her.

Why, why, why was I torturing myself? Because I had had a crush on her since the sixth grade. I had liked her since before she even knew I existed. If I hadn’t asked her friend Michelle out in the eighth grade, I never would have gotten into her circle of friends.

If it didn’t work out, I needed to move on and pretend to be another friend like I always had.

The first week was awkward as hell. Everytime she looked my way, or brushed against me walking to labs my traitorous dick twitched. It got to the point where I just couldn’t even make fucking eye contact with anyone in class. I have never focused so hard on classwork before. I just needed to stay focused and not think about Kat Preston’s juicy ass squeezed into her jeans.

“I’m going to fail,” I whispered to Bradley as we headed to lunch.

He looked at me like I had confessed to being an alien. “Dude! You have the smartest fucking lab partner in the damn class. Get a fucking grip,” he scowled at me.

“That’s not the point and you fucking know it!” I growled back. “Does she even know I can see down her jeans when she wears that shit?”

“Tell you what. I’m going to a party with Alex and a few of the guys. Maybe we can find you a distraction for a night… Eh??” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows up and down.

I couldn’t help but shake my head and chuckle. I had slept with two of my previous girlfriends, and it wasn’t good for any of us. Since then my hand was the only intimate partner to touch my dick in months. I don’t know why Bradley thought meeting someone else would change that.

September was another torturous month of blue balls being around Kat. She had to know that I was getting a front row view of her ass every time she leaned forward in class. Her jeans just didn’t quite fit around her small waist, leaving me a perfect view to stare at her underwear. Thankfully, Bradley kept dragging me to parties with Alex each weekend, so I wasn’t stuck home stewing about who Kat was out with. A few beers could always help to keep my thoughts off of Kat.

Alex’s cousin went to some snooty private school two towns over. It was a pain in the ass to coordinate shit with him, but he had pretty big parties. I had gone to a couple with Bradley and ended up talking to the same girl, named Kristin, two or three times. She seemed nice enough, but I wasn’t really interested in flirting with anyone there. My head was constantly circling back to Kat. Unfortunately, Kristin heard Bradley talking about homecoming, and asked if I had a date.

Somehow that turned into me agreeing to take her as my date. I couldn’t remember when I agreed to bring Kristin to Homecoming. She had asked me while I was drunk at the last party, then called me the next day to coordinate our outfits. I couldn’t remember even talking to her. She was pretty, but super high maintenance. Not my type at all.

Bradley and I agreed to ride together so that I wouldn’t be stuck with Kristin by myself. I picked up him and his date before we picked up Kristin. She talked nonstop the entire way to the school. By the time we got to the gym, I couldn’t help looking for Kat. I was certain that her date would be some jock or dude she met at work. There was no way that she wouldn’t have had a line of guys waiting to ask her out.

I was standing there under the billowing canopy, my ears ringing from the blaring music, regretting coming with the wrong date. I was so fucking annoyed. I honestly didn’t think it would be this bad. Kristin was a mean girl.

From the moment we walked in, she began bad-mouthing every other girl in here. Who was fat, whose makeup was wrong, who she thought was ugly…. Then she stopped talking, and I couldn’t help but sigh with relief in my head.

I didn’t hear what she said, but it sounded like, “I don’t fucking think so.” The next thing I knew, she had grabbed my chin and was kissing me. I returned the kiss without thinking.

Then I remembered Kat.

I pulled away and tried not to be obvious about wiping my mouth. Nothing about that kiss did it for me. Even as desperate as my dick was, it wasn’t interested in anything Kristin was offering. “That’s all you get,” I told her, trying my best not to cause a scene. “I told you, we’re here as friends, Kristen,” I whispered in her ear.

She just laughed and said, “We’ll see about that. I can be very persuasive.”

At that moment, Bradley’s pointing finger caught my attention. I turned my head to see Kat Preston. She looked amazing. Her dress hugged every curve when she moved, and she danced like she didn’t care who was watching.

My date must have seen me staring and followed my line of sight. “She knows her place,” Kristin muttered, wrapping her arms around me.

I didn’t understand what she was talking about, and I wasn’t comfortable with her touching me. I put some distance between us, and did my best to ignore the bullshit that came out of her mouth. I wasn’t feeling it at all and made an excuse about feeling ill so that I could leave early. I took Kristin home first and didn’t wait for her to get to the door before I was pulling away from her house.

By the time Monday rolled around, I was fucking exhausted. Kristin had messaged and called me all weekend. I didn’t know how many ways a guy could say he wasn’t interested, but it felt like I had used them all. I finally got to the point that I just asked her to stop calling me and blocked her number. When she started calling from an unknown number, I shut my phone off.

Now I had to sit behind the girl of my dreams, and be content with the fact that smashing my head into the desk was the closest I was getting to her. She was cordial with me when she sat down which meant she was seeing someone new. She always distanced herself when there was a new guy. I’d have to find out who and put an end to that shit.

Unfortunately for me, the nightmare that was Kristin kept me busy for weeks after Homecoming. I wasn’t sleeping, my grades were slipping, and Kat was giving me the cold shoulder.

* * *

---