During my computer programming class, something strange happened. Perhaps I shouldn’t be complaining about strange happenings after awakening a life-changing power like Dream Paralysis, but the truth is, this was arguably even stranger than that. And the reason for that is, I’m no good with pushy girls. Though I say I’m no good with them, I almost never have to deal with them. I’m not exactly a huge loser, but getting approached by girls may as well be as common as a lunar eclipse. And yet that day, I was approached.

“Tristan, Tristan.”

“Oh. Uh, Jazmine, right?”

“Jaz is fine.”

For some reason, Jazmine had rolled her office chair all the way next to my desk. She wore a neutral expression that made it hard to gauge what she wanted. To be honest though, my attention was not on what she wanted. My gaze was being tugged along by the long braids that hung down her shoulder, which drew a line directly to the brown thighs that peeked out of her shorts. Though, even that wasn’t where the entirety of my attention was being drawn. After all, it was hat day, and she had chosen something extremely incomprehensible.

“Why are you wearing a clown hat?”

“It’s a funny jester hat.”

“Why are you wearing a funny jester hat?”

“Why not? Everyone’s wearing baseball caps and cowboy hats like a bunch of squares, but here I am defying cultural norms and breaking new grounds. I’m a real visionary, actually.”

She nodded her head, and the bells attached to the end of her hat jingled loudly.

“Uh, right.”

“Anyway,” she said, scooting her office chair closer to me. “Mind if I hang out with you for a bit?”

“Wait, aren’t we supposed to be working? Are you sure that’s okay?”

“Should be.” At my words, she raised her hand. “Miss Lindelle, I’m done with my work. Can I help Tristan out for a while?”

“Oh, feel free to. Tristan, pay attention to Jazmine. Maybe you’ll actually get a program running for once.”

The class erupted into playful laughter, and I let out an annoyed sigh. Miss Lindelle had a thing for teasing me due to my own incompetence in this class. I sort of deserved it, but I still felt I should have been doing way better than I had been.

“Are you behind in this class or something?” Jazmine asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Programming isn’t exactly my forte or anything. For as much as Zoey liked talking about me hacking people, it’s not like I’d ever be able to actually hack someone.

“Well, it’s mostly trial and error. Just keep the basic rules in mind and listen to what the error message says.” It felt a little painful to tell her that I barely paid attention to the basic rules in the first place, so I decided to change the subject.

“So why did you want to hang out with me anyway? I don’t think we’ve ever spoken before.”

“Oh. I’m in the photography club. I think we have a mutual friend there, don’t we?”

“A mutual… you mean Zoey?” She nodded. “No, I mean. Sure, she helped me on my paper, but… we’re not friends or anything.”

“Yeah, I heard Zoey’s version of what happened. But Ben’s version is that you got the two of them to break up, isn’t it? Doesn’t sound like you’re just acquaintances to me.”

“I don’t know why he thinks that. Also, can we not talk about this in class?”

I couldn’t tell just by looking around because of all the computers, but it felt like people were listening in on our conversation.

“Sure, we can leave it at that. Anyway, I was just curious about you.” She reached out and grabbed a small amount of my bangs with two of her fingers, then began twirling them around.

“Uh, yeah.”

There’s a contention to be made about what’s worse here, her complete lack of respect for my personal space, or my inability to exert any personal boundaries before an attractive girl my age. It’s entirely possible that she was just doing it to test how comfortable I was with her, but this level of boldness wasn’t something I was used to at all.

“Listen, I’m trying to get this assignment done, so…”

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“Hmm? Oh, right.”

She pulled her hand away and stared at me with childish curiosity plastered all over her face. Whatever her agenda was here, I did not have the mental fortitude to handle her aggression. I lifted my bottled water up from my desk and took a few sips to calm myself down.

“Say… do you like black girls, Tristan?” The water erupted from my mouth and I broke into a coughing fit. She held her hands out nervously. “Oh geez, are you okay?”

I hammered at my chest and cleared my throat, and eventually I managed to calm myself down.

“Sorry, uh… What?” Her question came out of nowhere.

“You heard me, didn’t you? Or is it something you don’t want to answer?”

“I don’t know, that kind of question is unfair. It’s like there’s no right answer…”

She leaned forward with a smile. “Oh, I don’t care about that stuff. Just answer me honestly.”

“Uh, well… I kinda do like them. To be honest, I’ve always thought that Naomi was pretty cute, but she’s into Lance, so...”

“Hmm, I see.”

I might have over explained out of nervousness. I hadn’t told anyone about my opinion of Naomi’s cuteness before then, but it was too late to regret it. I’d just have to pray that she wasn’t the type of person to talk about stuff like that with others.

In any case, my thoughts quickly shifted to the main issue. Why did she ask that question? Was she gauging whether or not she had a chance with me? Or was she just teasing me? Anything relating to women is completely out of my field of experience, so this whole situation was impossible to comprehend.

“W-what about you? Are you... into white guys?”

She turned to face me with an expression that contained so much shock that I felt like I stepped on a landmine.

“Pfft, what kind of question is that? Aren’t you embarrassed to be asking that with a straight face? Hahahahaha!” She laughed.

She laughed at me.

I was just trying to play it cool and match her pace, and yet…

The sound of her bells filled the room alongside her hysterical laughter, which only served to make the whole situation even more uncomfortable.

“Jazmine, I’m gonna have to send you back to your seat if you don’t keep it down.”

“Sorry Miss Lindelle. It’s just… Tristan is so funny hahaha…”

I wanted to die.

The embarrassment was so painful that I wanted to jump out of the window and die right that second.

“Haaaa… phew, that was a good one.”

“No it wasn’t. It was just an honest question.” My face was bright red, but I played it as cool as I could. There was no way I would let her have any more fun making me feel like an idiot.

“Yeah, right… oh, is that Penny?”

She was talking about the girl sitting next to me in this class, Penny Taylor. We had never really spoken to each other despite being this close to one another. She was wearing a feathered cloche over her short hair.

“Hello Jaz.” She spoke without taking her eyes off the screen.

“So how’ve you been doing recently? It’s been a weird week, huh?”

“Um, yeah. It really has, hasn’t it?”

“To be honest, with all these rumors going around about Zoey, I’m kind of worried about the photography club. If Gwen and Ben did something to her like spread some kind of nasty rumor, then…”

“I… I don’t think that Gwen would do something like that...”

“You think so?”

“Um, I’m gonna go use the restroom.”

“Oh, okay.”

Penny got up and hurried off to the restroom without waiting for a response. It was such a desperate dash off that I couldn’t help but wonder if Jazmine had touched a nerve or something.

“Hey Tristan, do you like shy girls like Penny?”

“Almost as much as I love black girls, Jaz.”

I don’t know what prompted me to respond with such an off-handed remark, but she ended up giggling at my response, so I considered it a victory.

“So is this why you’re hanging around here? Because this thing with Zoey is bothering you? Did she put you up to this?”

“What am I, her minion? No way. I just really like the photography club. Believe it or not, Zoey has real talent when it comes to taking pictures. Plus, she’s motivated. I don’t think anyone else would be putting in as much work to make memories of everyone’s high school years the way she is. She tries to visit every club at least twice a year, and she’s at every major school event taking pictures. She could’ve easily been homecoming queen this year if she submitted an application, but she decided that taking pictures at the event was more important.”

That is true. While Krista has more feminine charm due to her status as a cheerleader, Zoey is an all-around more likable person to most people, and she has more pull in the lower years too. It wouldn’t be surprising if she swept the votes up and became the queen if she tried.

“Speaking of which, the king and queen are probably going to be Lawrence and Krista, right?”

“Yeah. They’ve been on bad terms ever since their breakup, though. It hasn’t been as bad lately, but I can’t imagine the two of them taking a bunch of pictures together.”

Krista’s boyfriend graduated at the end of the last semester, and would be revisiting the school tomorrow for the event. The two of them were both on bad terms with Lawrence, so it’s a good guess that something like that would probably turn into a debacle that overshadows the whole Zoey thing.

“Seems like this homecoming is just rife with drama, huh Tristan?”

“Nothing to do with me.” I continued tapping away at my keyboard, trying to fix my broken code.

“Nothing…? Are you sure? Even though you and Zoey-”

“I don’t want to talk about Zoey. I don’t care about Zoey. Why does everyone keep asking me about Zoey? Just leave me alone and stop mentioning Zoey.”

“Hey, you’re the one who accused me of being her lackey. Sounds like you’re thinking about her more than I am.”

I decided against continuing the conversation. There was no point. It was counterproductive to spend all my time talking about Zoey when I was trying to get over her.

“Anyway, enough about that,” she said. “Do you mind if I join you for lunch?”

“Why?”

“Whaaat? I think you’re cool and funny. I wanna hang out. Come on. Let’s hang out at lunch.”

“How am I funny? You’re so pushy…” I let out a sigh.

Though attention from a member of the opposite sex like that wasn’t a bad thing, it was hard to get my hopes up after how Zoey had approached me. If it turned out that Jaz also had no romantic motives at all, then I’d be devastated going through this again that soon. My heart was incapable of opening up to her in that state. It was impossible.

Maybe if I hacked her, I’d know for sure. The temptation was growing within me to use Dream Paralysis again. It was like an itch I couldn’t scratch. Always clawing at the back of my mind. Even though it’s wrong and destructive, there was a part of me that couldn’t let go of it.

“If you help me with this program then I’ll think about it.”

“Nice! Let’s do it!”

She rolled her chair over and began explaining the fundamentals of programming to me.