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“Crushed”
    A short story by A.M. Khalifa © 2014 
     
    Of all the girls who turned me down in high school, only Ashley Sakowski broke my heart. I never blamed her for snubbing me, but I loathed her for leading me on and making me think I stood a fighting chance.
    Back then I was your archetypal geek. Smart and into computers in a creepy, OCD way. Tousled hair, waxy complexion and pudgy. Horn-rimmed glasses a given. Nothing I wore had the slightest suspicion of cutting-edge or cool. I dressed to cover my nakedness, not to make a statement or appeal to anyone. My chances with the opposite sex were at best comatose on arrival.
    I fell for Ashley and came crashing down like a big sack of shit in the worst possible way. The self-immolating, warty, messy, sleepless-nights-crying-in-bed, I-can-hardly-breathe, kill-me-now sort of way. The type of love that forces you to surrender your dignity and self-esteem at the door.
    As a teenager, hitting on girls was a combination of self-indulgence and masochism on my part. Just a horny dork being fresh, knowing I stood no chance and that the harder I tried, the more I would get burned.
    With Ashley, and for the first time in my life, it was my heart doing the talking, aching, and yearning rather than just my loins. I fantasized about spending the rest of my life as her appendage. I knew hell would freeze over first before that would happen so settled instead for the lesser pleasure of worshipping her from far. Every night I would retreat to the safety of my fertile mind and spawn elaborate fantasies and conversations with her. Pathetic things like picking out names for our future children and choosing the fabric colors of our curtains.
    Then one day when I was minding my own business and being the insignificant high school microbe that I was, she begins talking to me in the hallway.
    “We should hang out,” she declared as if I was a newly sanctioned piece of bread, previously suspected of being moldy.
    And hang out we did.
    She was sweet and funny and attentive and pressed my most sensitive buttons. How was I supposed to avoid not falling for her even more when she was saying what she was saying? Like how she preferred the under-stated good looks of a man with brains, far more than handsome men lacking IQ firepower. Music to any nerd’s ears, right? I melted like butter under her innuendos and physical contact. She liked to brush up against my skin as if by accident, then stare at me with sultry, deep eyes filled with endless possibilities.
    For the first time ever a woman was conversing with me as if my opinions really mattered, or as if my life was interesting and worth dwelling upon.
    Then as abruptly as it all started, it all stopped. Ashley led me to the water’s edge but right before I could quench my thirst, she waved a wand and replaced the freshwater stream with a parched desert. She ejected me without the mercy of a parachute.
    Overnight, I went from being her soul-mate back to the invisible dweeb. During our short-lived three-week interaction—I could hardly call it a relationship—she had hinted she may go to the school prom with me. In my inexperienced, love-starved mind, I dreamed she would use the event to declare her undying affection and kiss me in front of the whole school to turn the frog into a prince. To rescue me once and forever from Loserville.
    Not that you didn’t see this coming, but it was all a ruse. Ashley was failing her computer science class and needed someone to help her with the assignments. Unwittingly and because I was smitten blind, I saved her from a big fat F. It must have been a no-brainer for her: flirt with a nerd to get him to serve your academic interests, then, when you’re home-free, dump him back to the swamp where you first found him.
    I wish this story had some original twist I could delight you with, but what happened next was text-book high school angst. Not only did Ashley terminate any contact with me like I ceased to exist,