Chapter 4 Another in the List of Many Regrets

𝔐y mom always used to tell me that rejection was worse for women cause not many women get rejected. Well, mother, I am calling bull on that cause there's no way anything could match what happened to me that day.

Taking pep talks and random lessons from your parents is like a double-edged sword.

On one part, you get to spend a little time with them and hear some of their disgraceful teen stories which would make you think, maybe I'm not so bad after all. On the other part, you take their advice and you realize that these lessons only worked in the fucking 90s and you end up disgracing yourself.

Fortunately, the one good thing I picked from my dad was the three R's you should have at the back of your mind when going to ask a girl out, especially if it's a girl you really like.

One is the unfortunate chance of Rejection. I don't care how good-looking you are, not every girl in the entire world is gonna wanna date you. If you're in high school, your chances are much higher if you drive a really cool car, play some football, work out and stuff, so for me, chances of Rejection are really high cause I do zero of those stuff.

Number two is the rapid development of Regret. Yup, when someone tells you 'no,' you're definitely gonna regret why you even bothered asking in the first place. You could have kept your feelings to yourself and everything would have been alright, but you had to ask and now you're sulking in Regret. Yeah, life sucks but no one asked you to ask her out.

And finally, three is the Reality check. Once you get rejected and you're done regretting why you even asked, you then start asking yourself questions like"Am I really it?""Have I been overrating myself all this while?""Am I even good-looking?"

Then you realize that there's actually nothing really going on for you, nothing really special about you, which is probably why you got rejected in the first place, that's your Reality check and boy, does it hurt the most.

Now, you're probably wondering why am telling you all this or perhaps you've already guessed it but let's just say, asking Sloane out wasn't exactly the brightest idea in the world.

"I'm telling you, man," Dave continued trying to discourage me that morning as we walked down the hallway, "don't do it. Didn't you get anything I told you yesterday?"

"I did," I replied, "I got you."

"Yeah that's the thing, I don't think you did."

"Look Dave," I said, opening my locker and taking out my Geography textbook, "I think she has a thing for me like you didn't see the way she was looking at me yesterday."

"I would be looking at you too, like have you ever used a comb before?"

I looked up, trying to take a look at my hair-that was stupid, so I took out my phone and looked at my reflection. "What's wrong with my hair?"

"My point is..." he grabbed my phone and threw it inside my locker, "Sloane could be looking at you for countless reasons."

"She waved at me, Dave," I smiled cockily, "waved."

Dave didn't talk for a while, his eyes moved to my left and I could tell that he had seen something interesting behind me.

"What?" I asked, not wanting to turn around. "It's her, isn't it?"

"Yes," Dave said, rolling his eyes, "but Dag-"

"Alright, I'm going to do this, wish me luck."

"Dag, just listen," Dave grabbed my arm, "I think you should listen to Kylee, she told you to stay away from her for a reason."

"Look, Dave. I like Kylee, she's a nice girl, but I'm not going to live my life under someone else's rule. If there's a chance that things can work out between a girl like Sloane and me, I can't live without knowing," I can't believe I actually said that, "Okay?"

"Alright then," Dave let go of my hand, pouting childishly, "Break a leg."

"Thanks," I said, I adjusted my tie and checked my breath, "how do I look?"

Dave smiled winningly, "Like a freaking nerd."

"Good enough," I turned around and my legs started walking, "wish me luck."

My heart beat faster as I got closer to her and her array of friends, I arrived just in time to hear one of her friends who had very long earrings laugh so blaring that I thought she was being possessed. She stopped as soon as she saw me and a sudden silence befell the gathering when they noticed my presence.

I smiled timidly at all of them cause it felt like their eyes were all studying and assessing me for some reason.

"Hi," I said to Sloane.

"Uhm, hi." She smiled like she was surprised to see me and I don't wanna talk about her voice again but it was such a beautiful voice.

"Can I talk to you for a sec?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure." She signalled her friends to ditch and they all slowly walked away, smiling as they left.

"What do you wanna talk about?"

"Uhm, first of all, I just wanna say I wasn't like making a move on you when I answered the question for you in class, it wasn't like a grooming technique or som-"

"I know," she said softly, "and I never really said thank you. I'm sorry about that, thank you."

"No, it's alright, it's nothing," I said, "But..."

I was silent for a second, rethinking what I was about to do.

"But what?" she asked, chortling.

"But I am making a move on you now, I couldn't stop uhm... looking at you, after class and uh..." I stopped talking when her facial expression suddenly changed to a small frown.

"What... what's wrong?" I asked her.

"Dagwood, that's your name right?"

"Dag," I corrected her, "just Dag."

"Okay, Dag, I'm really sorry if I sent you the wrong message but-" Those words hit really hard, they came piercing into my heart like a needle to a water balloon.

"But?" I asked her, bemused for a second, "I thought you and I had some kinda... uh I don't know."

"You were new," she said, "I was just trying to be nice."

"By staring and flirting with me?"

"I wasn't flirting with you, Dag," she said, "You helped me in class, I was honestly just being nice and playful with you, it wasn't any kind of anything."

I wasn't exactly sure if I should have been confused or hurt or maybe find a way to feel both emotions at the same time but I just stood there staring at her. I heard her friends giggling and laughing at a corner and that was when I understood what the whole thing was and I felt so stupid to have fallen for it.

I looked over at Dave who had a pitiful look on his face and turned back to Sloane, looking straight into her eyes as I felt mine redden. I didn't have to choose which emotion to feel again cause hurt had taken over. I closed my ears to the cackling and laughing the friends made while Sloane just stood there with a straight face.

"I'm really sorry, Dag," she said sarcastically, "I wasn't trying to lead you on or anything."

"It's alright." I forced a smile and walked away.

"Yikes, nice one champ." I heard a guy say as he passed me.

"Hey, you good?" Dave asked me when I returned to my locker.

"Can we not just talk about it?" I asked him.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, "Oh shit."

"What?" I asked him noticing the worried look on his face.

"It's Kylee."

"I knew I'd find you here," Kylee's voice rang in my ears and I felt myself shiver a bit.

"Hey Kylee," Dave said. She didn't reply, she just stood there with her books in her arms, as usual, looking at both of us.

"What?" She asked, "What happened?"

Dave and I exchanged glances, I darted my eyes around trying to signal him not to-

"Dag tried to ask Sloane out."

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩.

"Seriously?" she looked at me disappointedly, "even after I warned you, huh?"

I shamefully refused to reply.

"And then what happened?" she asked Dave.

He shook his head and replied, "It was a prank."

"Of course, it was a fucking prank," she sounded so pissed, " she does it to every new guy that shows up in school and out of the new guys this year, you're the one who falls for the dumb prank cause you wouldn't fucking listen."

"I'm sorry, I..." I tried to apologize and that was when I realized that I had absolutely nothing to say.

"I'll see you guys later," she said and flounced away.

I sighed deeply and facepalmed, 𝘞𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘋𝘢𝘨𝘸𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘈𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘦𝘺.

Dave looked at me, shaking his head slowly, "You know, I'm not really the kind of person to say I told you so but..." he shrugged, "I told you so."