Somehow while I hadn't been looking my life had turned into a mess of epic proportions.

This fed great hilarity to my brother, who had been unable to stop laughing for a solid five minutes. I counted.

"Stop," I told him through gritted teeth as I combed my hair in front of the mirror. I couldn't believe I was doing this, getting ready for my first date ever. And it was with a girl. I'd never really been boy crazy or anything, and I also wasn't so romantic as to be heartbroken that this milestone, monumental to some, was going to be a complete charade for me.

That was what had my stomach in knots. The whole pretending thing.

I thought about nothing else since the weekend. The easiest way out was to be a complete dirtbag during the date, enough so that she'd be put off from me forever. But I also didn't want to do that. I was a bit fucked up, just not that much. But if I behaved like I'd like to be treated maybe she'd want to go out again. And I couldn't be honest at all.

Miguel seemed to have stopped laughing at last. At the sound of my sigh he started back up again.

And then there was Hunter. I didn't think he hated me, but he'd been surly every time he saw me. Every time I got teased for being the lucky lad to get the town belle, it seemed like he grew grumpier. Today at practice I had enough. I skated over to where he was lining up before going through one of Coach's interminable skating drills.

"Hunter," I said. He turned to me with a frown and a pout, which set his freckles in stark relief and almost made me smile. "Listen, we need to talk."

He folded his arms. "I don't wanna."

I rolled my eyes.

That was the moment I thought of a third option. If I couldn't be a turd on a stick or a charming young man during my date with Lena Lee, I could act more like a friend and at the same time pitch Hunter to her. Maybe that could work.

I grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him closer to me. "I did it all for you."

This drew his eyebrows upwards. "I fail to see how."

"Well, she was flirting with me, that's true, but I'm not interested." I shook my head at his obvious disbelief. "No, I'm serious. She's not my type. I like, er, city girls."

This excuse seemed plausible and he relaxed a little under my hold. "Then what do you mean?"

"Between us," as I said this I looked around and leaned closer to him. Everybody was either resting from the drill or in the middle of it. Coach was talking about something with his Captain Hyde and a weird looking man I'd learned was the school nurse and team assistant. Hunter leaned closer to me to share in the secret that I was going to reveal to him. "This is going to sound like I'm a piece of shit, but I just asked her out so that Dean and Pace wouldn't think I was a wuss."

His expression changed and understanding dawned on him. "I get it. They're so cool that it makes everybody else feel like a fly on the wall. Been there, done that."

I was honestly shocked at his admission. In our conversation I'd been mixing half truths with some lies, but he was honest and when I examined everybody's interactions with the pair, I found it to be true. We were all, including me, some way or another looking for their approval. This revelation made me even more uncomfortable than the conversation itself.

"So," I announced pulling back and faking a smug smile that I didn't feel anywhere past the surface. "In tonight's date I'm going to be your wingman."

His eyes widened. "You will?"

"Oh yeah, I'm going to spend all the time talking about how great you are. Lena Lee is going to become more interested in you and leave me alone."

This put me back on his good side for the rest of practice until I came back to the hotel to shower and get ready. As I got dressed I called Miguel to ask him for advice on how to use male charms to manipulate girls, and when he asked what the heck for I explained the whole story to him. Without missing a single bit. I regretted it the moment he started cackling like a hyena, but the fact of the matter was that I would never be caught alive admitting it, but he was my best friend and I was way in over my head.

"Ahh," he said at last, taking deep breaths. "This is so precious."

"Shut your yap," I told him, frowning even though he couldn't see it. "What do I do?"

"Well, you made the plan, didn't you? Go on this date, bore the girl to tears by talking your friend up and come back with your lesbian maidenhead intact."

"I hate you. I don't know why I told you any of this."

A low chuckle came from the other end of the line. "Because you couldn't contain yourself any longer. Good luck, chiquita. Or should I say little bro?"

We hung up. I walked over to the bed and picked up a pillow. I put my face in it and screamed my throat raw. Then I dropped it and clapped once. I was ready.

I picked her up at the diner that Thursday night. I decided to make the date on a school night so that I had that excuse going for me to call it a night early. I was sure she'd dressed nicely under the super thick layers of winter clothes, and she blushed either because she was excited or because it was cold. Maybe both. I glared behind her at the booth full of boys giving me all sorts of gestures. Brian was by far the most mature and he just gave me a thumbs up. Hunter glued his face to the window as he pointed at himself, a reminder for me to follow through with the plan. Shane was behind him pretending to hump the air as Pace laughed his head off. The only one not doing anything was Dean. He was sipping from a milkshake and looking at his phone like nothing was amiss.

And nothing was, I reminded myself. I had to be like him, cool as a cucumber.

I took a deep breath and asked her, "Shall we?"

We walked together a short couple of blocks to the town's theater. It had the multi-purpose function of being a theater, cinema and events room. Everybody in here seemed to do more than one thing at once to make some money. I shivered as the cold bit through my clothes.

"Are you cold?" I asked her with a rasp to my voice, wondering if she was as affected by the freezing temperature as I was.

"A little."

As she said this she shifted closer to me and I wondered if she was expecting me to put my arm around her. Snowball's chance in hell. Even though it was mean, I moved away from her until the original distance separated us. I didn't want her to get any further ideas.

We made it to the theater and I bought both tickets. This earned me a sweet, big smile and I could have kicked myself. I had to remember that I wasn't here to impress her. I was here so that the guys thought I was a man's man.

"So," I started, scrambling my brains to see how I best introduced to the topic of Hunter and kept it firmly there for the whole rest of the date. "Do you know the guys?"

Boy, I was lame at this.

We got in line to buy some popcorn behind an elderly couple. She took off her red hat and blinked at me from behind her glasses.

"I know the Bears, yes. Everybody in town does."

"They're pretty cool." I rocked on the balls of my feet. "I'm kind of confused about why you're not dating any of them."

My comment startled her. She looked down with a little frown. Lena Lee peeled off her gloves and stuffed them in the pockets of her coats. I sighed softly, missing the days when I didn't have to wear eight layers of clothes to go to the corner.

"They're all the same," she said as the elderly couple started finally placing their order. "Obsessed with hockey in a town that worships them for it. I... want something different, I guess."

"I get it." After I said this I realized that by that she probably meant I was different. She had no idea just how much, and she had to stay in the dark. "Uh, but they're good guys, the lot of them. They adopted me into their group pretty easily, even though I'm the uh, son of the town's enemy."

"Not going to lie, your dad's not very liked around these parts."

No kidding.

This was starting to feel like a real conversation, so I shifted the course away from anything that actually mattered to me. I had a mission to fulfill. I had to find a way to deter her from wanting to hang out with me and steer her towards Hunter. I decided to stretch a truth very thin.

"You know who's one of the best of the lot?" I asked her, taking a step forward as the couple in front of us moved away. She looked at me with a question etched on her pretty face. "Hunter," I said, nodding as if it were so obvious I needn't have said it. "My dad fired his, and yet Hunter is like my best friend here."

"Really?" she asked in a way I could tell was more out of politeness than interest. She turned to the middle aged lady manning the concessions and asked for a small popcorn and a Coke. I did the same.

"Yeah, he's a really good player too."

That was so not smooth that it gained me a weird look from her. I paid for just my snacks and I could tell this upset her in the way her expression drew taught. We found our seats in the theater and made only small talk as we watched the trailers.

This was so awkward that it was making me shed years off of my life.

The movie started and I made sure that my hands were nowhere near hers. We'd chosen a horror movie because she said she liked them, but as she drew closer with every scary thing on the screen, I realized I'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book. The problem was that I was scared too, and in truth I hated horror movies. We both jumped once the killer appeared on screen before the leading actress, clutching at each other as the actress let out a blood curdling scream just before getting stabbed in the fucking face.

I couldn't help screaming, "That did not just fucking happen!"

And then I realized that her face was too close to mine. A second later I could not believe what was actually fucking happening outside of the silver screen. Lena Lee had grabbed my face and planted a kiss on my lips.

Well, my first date and first kiss ended up being with a girl. At that second all I could think about was Miguel's laughter ringing in my head. But then Hunter's excited face came to mind and I pulled away with a gasp.

"Whoa!"

Lena Lee sat back now so disappointed that I nearly took offense. Was I so bad of a kisser? Although, er, I hadn't been trying. I felt like I should apologize just as much as I was gut wrenchingly upset that this had happened in the first place. What had become of my life? How could I fix this?

"Sorry, I just — you caught me by surprise," I said.

She sighed and her bottom lip trembled. "You didn't like it."

It wasn't that I didn't like it. It was just that when I closed my eyes and imagined that I was kissing someone, it wasn't her face, or another girl's what I pictured. I was so startled by the face I saw in my mind that I jumped to my seat and dashed out of the theater in an attempt to run away from the image of an arrogant smirk and dimpled chin.

The problem was that Lena Lee thought I was running away from her. She ran after me, apologizing profusely. I turned around and she smacked into me. I was taller and definitely stronger with all the training, so my legs didn't falter even as hers did. I held her by her arms so she wouldn't fall backwards, and as I looked down I saw tears about to stream down her eyes.

Oh my God. What was I doing?

I took a step back.

"I need to be honest with you," I said as I ran my hand through my short hair. I avoided her eyes. "But you have to promise me that you won't hate me and that you won't tell anybody."

I had a mission to fulfill, and by golly I would, even if this was the most disastrous night of my life. Even if my life was going to take an even wilder turn after this.

"Okay," Lena Lee said meekly, looking down and also avoiding my eyes.

I took a deep breath. The only way I could cut her off without breaking her heart was this. Here went nothing.

"It's not that I don't like you. I just don't like girls."

Her face whipped up and her jaw stayed close to her chest. "You mean-"

I nodded and let her think I was gay.

I was going to hell for this.

now, on a serious note for those in the back:

WHAT CHARLIE IS DOING IS WRONG

i'm not condoning it. there are so many people out there who struggle with the fear of how their real selves will be perceived in hostile environments and i am not making light of those struggles.

THIS STORY IS SATIRE!

please keep that in mind after reading this chapter, especially if you're wondering what it is that i'm satirizing 😊

thank you for coming to my TEDTalk and happy reading y'all.