Only If She Stayed

02. I'll Cut Your Poké Balls Off

I HADN'T BEEN introduced to the wonder-boy yet.

I wasn't too sure if I wanted to either. Anyone who basked at that amount of attention on the first day had to be on cloud nine right about now with an inflated ego bigger than Tyler's collection of photoshopped nudes.

Most would probably think that "photoshopped nudes" meant he elongated certain body parts. If that was your first guess, you're wrong.

Sadly, my friend Reagan Pike was the one who told me about the weird things he did to his photos. I knew the guy was into photography, but I didn't know he was that into it.

Instead of sending off unsolicited dick pics at awkward angles, he sent photos of himself - completely in the nude - standing in various settings. He did this, believe or not, to "spice things up." I still hadn't figured out if he did this for a comical purpose or because he genuinely thought they were tasteful. Reagan and I decided that he thought they were created for sexual stimulation and for comedic relief.

With some of them, he places himself on the moon, striking different poses. And in another one, had himself in photo-shopped cowboy boots, leaning against a wooden fence and staring off towards a animated farm house. He had sent Reagan three other ones, but I had refused to see them after checking out the first two.

In life, there's just some things you can't un-see. Tyler Green's nudes happen to be one of those things. I desperately wanted to get a time machine, go back to that day, and stop myself from ever seeing them in the first place.

If it hadn't been for Reagan's persistent nature to share them with me and my curious imagination, I think I'd be ten times happier. I just couldn't look at him in the same way.

The funny thing though was that Reagan hadn't said anything that meant she wanted to see them. She only asked for notes from class.

To save myself from revisiting those images, our teacher cut through the sea of students, saying an apology to the students that were waiting for her.

Michael started to get up off the tiled floor when Mrs. Bradley unlocked the classroom door. I got back into a standing position as he stuffed his book into his bag.

"Girls are so weird," he commented, zipping his backpack close. "I can never understand you guys."

"Why do you say that?" I asked, smirking a bit to myself and brushing a hand over my curly hair. "It's not like I'm a walking, talking quiz you have to answer at every corner."

"Wait, weird isn't the right word." He corrected himself. "Surprising is more like it. Girls are really surprising. I haven't seen this much excitement emit out of the female population at West Vista High since we got that history teacher Mr. Leighton."

"That's not surprising." I exclaimed. "That's because Mr. Leighton is the epitome of hot. Have you seen the man's triceps?"

His eyes widened as they observed me from behind his thick glasses. He was peering at me like he had just witnessed me run over his grandma with my car. "Never ask me that question ever again. Of course I haven't seen that grown-man's triceps. On top of that, I have no interest to see them either."

I suppressed a chuckle, moving my hand up to my mouth. "You know you want to. Last week, he was helping out coach Fillmore pump up some basketballs after school for the game. The moment people found out about that, I lost nearly my entire team. They all rushed over to watch him through the doors. I hear it was great because he was wearing short sleeves."

Michael's shiny blonde hair swayed as he shook his head in disbelief. "Wow, I always thought the dance team was less boy-crazed than the cheer squad."

"Who told you that lie?" I puffed. "Anyway, moral of the story is I'm not the only one who thinks he's hot. I think you should just focus in on his triceps more often when we go to history class."