Chapter 1: Free Falling

I was on top of the world, yesterday; today, it's more like I've been tossed into Dante's Inferno. At least, that's how it seems to me. Apparently, I'm the kind of guys the girls love for a friend, and that's it. It isn't that I'm bad looking. Hell, I've been told often enough I'm anything from cute to good looking, so that's not the problem. What is the problem is that I'm just a nice guy and the girls feel safe around me. In fact, I'm so "safe" (damn it) that my openly lesbian friends have made made me an "honorary woman". I don't know if that's good or not. Maybe both, but it just solidifies my "nice guy" label.

Oh, I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm James Underwood. My family moved here in the summer the year I turned 13. I just turned 15 and I'm in freshman in Wormwood High. Just so you understand, my birthday is January 1st. I was the first born in the entire United States of America in the contiguous united states, no small feat, but also not something actually planned. It does have some benefits, or did for my family when I was a baby; apparently, it has benefits for me, too, if I go to college. Right now, that's no looking so good. Maybe I need to become more studious ... no, that's not going to happen. I'm too damned bored with classes. Everything is, too, easy for me. Well, with the exception of my English classes. It's a bitch getting English grammar right and spelling, too, when you learn a different language for two years in a foreign country in their schools. Let me tell you, the kids in the USA have it too easy in school. Not enough discipline. No one is really pushed. It's all geared to the averge and maybe a little lower. I've actually forgotten what I used to know of German, and Russian. I recognize some words and phrases, but speak either one? Not any more. That's kind of too bad and I'm rambling now.

So, back to where I started. Yesterday I asked Brenda to go out with me and she said she would and we made plans to meet up and see a movie and hit the local Five Guys. I thought of it as a real date; I found out later, that it was just going out with a friend, for her. I guess I don't understand girls. I like them. I fantasize about them. I want to engage in intimate acts with them. Apparently, that's not reciprocated. I'm just a "friend" and that hurts.

I suppose that it would help to understand what happened that lead to this fall of mine from that high place. Well, I arrived to meet up with Brenda and she was there, but so were a gaggle of other friends of mine, all female. They'd already decided we'd be going to see the current chick flick and off we went, with no further input from me. The movie was good, it was a funny romance and had me laughing with them. The trip to Five Guys was good, as the food is always enjoyable (if you don't have allergies to peanuts – never go there if you do).

My problem began in earnest when I got Brenda alone to the side while we waited for our orders to come up and I asked her about our "date". It wasn't a date and she would not have agreed to go on a date with me.

"Brenda, I thought we had a date tonight. What happened? Why are they all here?"

"Date? James, I like you a lot. You're a great friend, but this was never a 'date'. I thought you understood that. When you asked me to go out I thought you understood that it would be with a group. We girls always go out in groups."

"I meant for it to be a date. I had hoped..."

"James, we're just friends. All of us adore you and trust you and feel we can tell you anything. We know we're safe with you, including what we tell you. But, we're just friends, you and me."

"Is it that way with everyone here?", I asked with a bit of a tightening of my throat and my eyes watering.

"Oh, James. I'm sorry. You're a great guy, but I just don't see you as the boyfriend type."

Turns out it was the same with all the other girls there. All girls I would have loved to have gone out with. All girls I fantasized about. All girls who were girl friends, but apparently, not ones who considered me boyfriend material. So, I put up a brave front, enjoyed the remainder of the evening with them, though I was feeling gut punched, and went home and cried myself to sleep.

I know it's not a "manly" thing to do, crying, but I did. The next morning I was up early, as always, got on my bike and went for a long ride. We live in a nice middle class suburban area that is still pretty new and because of that was designed with biking lanes from day one. I'd gone from being sad, depressed, and crying to mad and needed to burn the mad off. I guess I need better pedals as I managed to actually cause damage to my right pedal and it would need to be replaced. When I got home I had to shower, I stank so badly.

The rest of the day I spent reading. I had homework but never did it, much to my mother's consternation. I'd make a lot better than a C+ average if I turned in homework, but never did. In class, I helped others who were having problems with the work. In fact, helping them understand it helped me to understand it even better than I had before. Who needed homework? Besides, haven't they read that studies prove homework does not help with the learning process?

My mother must have noticed something because she asked me, at dinner, what was wrong. We have a good relationship, she and I. There's not a lot I don't talk with her about. Hell, there's nothing I do that I can't tell her about, except the few times I got high. So, I told her about what happened yesterday with Brenda and co. She listened, she's good at that, and told me something I will never forget.

"James, life is not fair. It never was. It never will be. You can cry all you want over this, or you can find out why you're in the "friends" box and why. I don't want you to change who you are, but you do need to grow up and learn to deal with things in your life." As a reminder of what she meant, mom pulled her dress up over her knees and exposed the prosthetic she wore. She'd been wearing one since she was eight years old, due to an accident. From what the family has said, and pictures I've seen and my own experiences, losing her leg never slowed her down. Well, it did, but only in physical speed. She still played sports when and where possible. It was her way of reminding me that people could overcome adversity and she was my own personal proof of it.

Chapter 2 »