The Chasing of Moons

Petition to Get the Word "Woo" Banned From the Dictionary

"Okay, so you ever wonder who in our grade has a crush on you?" Frank asks.

"No, because I know that the answer is everyone," Brendon replies.

"And you wonder why I tell you that you have an ego the size of Mount Everest."

"Is it really an ego though, if it's completely true?" Brendon asks.

"Yes," Pete nods.

"The answer is still everybody though, okay. I mean look at me, I'm gorgeous," Brendon says, and surely, if he had hair long enough, he would do a hair flip of some variety to help prove his point.

"You just keep telling yourself that."

"My point is that, if you did happen to know with certainty that someone has a crush on you, would you tell them that you know?" Frank asks.

"What? Absolutely not!" Pete says, his mouth open widely like the mere thought of it astounds him. "Who is it that you think has a crush on you? Is she pretty?"

"I... why should I tell you, and yes, she is extraordinarily pretty," Frank says.

"Well I don't see why you need to tell her that you know she has a crush on you, when you could just as easily ask her out, and save yourself on the awkward. You need to find a prom date, Frank, you've only got a month and a half left."

"What? No, I've got two months left."

"No, you have a month and a half, because you've gotta ask them at least two weeks before," Pete says, "and you gotta make a big grand gesture of it too, buy a cake, get a skywriter, hire a pony, blow up some balloons, write a song, book a rocket to take you to outer space, and most importantly, find some backup dancers."

"Or I could just ask," Frank offers.

"Nope, big gesture. Chicks dig grand gestures."

Frank shakes his head, "Well it's not really that easy anyway. I can't tell you what makes it so difficult, it just is. If you knew who it was that had a crush on me you'd understand how complicated it was."

"Why? Is it a teacher?" Pete asks, with this face like he's hearing the latest celebrity gossip.

"No!" Frank says quickly.

"Good. Oh, are they dating someone else?" Pete asks.

"Not that I know of," Frank replies, but then curses to himself because that would have been a good excuse.

He's known that Gerard has had a crush on him for all of two days and he hasn't been able to do anything about making him own up to it. The first day after reading the letter and he'd cozied up to Gerard about as well as he could, but failed to get anything out of him. He barely even talked to Frank at all. He sat with them at lunch again, and still nothing. Yesterday was about as fruitful as the day before it. Frank got him to smile during class for a few seconds before it turned into that blank face he tries to maintain whenever he's talking to Frank. Gerard is a stubborn guy, Frank will give him that much.

At least he knows now why he's so reluctant to admit to anything though. Gee's letter made it pretty clear that Gerard really is just angry about that whole speech thing and ignoring him, and he feels kind of extremely awful about it. He wants to take that back and have a history where he was best friends with Gerard, but he can't do that. Time isn't that kind, and this whole wacky business won't allow him the chance to go back in time to change things either.

Now it's Friday morning, and Frank hasn't seen Gerard yet, because they're standing in front of the school, waiting for the doors to open, but Gerard is nowhere in sight. If Frank has made any progress though it's that he's gotten closer to Mikey which is a good thing. Pete sure has too.