IN A COMIC BOOK STORE

In the unlikeliest of places, inside a comic book store, not a book store, a comic book store, I saw her again. And miracle of all miracles, she recognized me. Shy, skinny, geeky, unremarkable I, was for the first time in my entire life, recognized. By a girl. And a pretty one at that.

“Jason?” she said, and I didn’t even mind that she wasn’t sure.

“Whoa-hey!” I managed to spit out, still in shock of the fact that a girl was talking to me. In a comic book store.

Okay, don’t get me wrong. I know girls read comic books, too. I’ve met and talked to most of them. But they’re usually the girls who are overweight, have forests on their head, or have eyeglasses the size of coke bottles. Okay, okay, there are some who are actually hot, but they’re the kind who are always in black and talk about nothing else but the end of the world or some other dark crap. Girls in comic book stores were never, and I mean never, the pretty, well-rounded, Miss America types. Never, I guess, until today.

“What’s that?” she asked, gesturing to the graphic novel I’d just picked up.

“The new Fantastic Four,” I replied, immediately regretting that it wasn’t a witty remark.

“Is it any good?” she asked, looking genuinely interested.

“Well,” I started, and without my complete knowledge, I began to tell her everything I knew about comics. Okay, maybe not everything, but comic books was my thing. It was my passion. It was the one subject on Earth I could honestly say I was knowledgeable about. I just couldn’t shut up.

It didn’t help that every time I finished a sentence, she’d ask another question that would make me start talking again. If I wasn’t so wrapped up in all the comic book talk, I was sure I’d have melted, just by the mere acknowledgement of the fact that I was talking, with a hot girl, and one I particularly daydreamed a lot about in high school, about the very thing that I thought made me repulsive to all humans female.

“So, you really think it’s worth the 50 bucks difference from this?” she said, holding up the comic book she’d been planning to buy earlier.

I nodded. “It most definitely is,” I told her and then flashed a smile that I hoped she would find charming.

She smiled back. “Wow, thanks a lot,” she said, looking directly into my eyes.

I couldn’t move. Ask her out, stupid! a voice in my head said. And for a moment, I let myself believe that if I actually did ask her out, she actually would say ‘yes’. I opened my mouth to talk, but words came out hers first.

“And here I thought I was never going to find a present for my boyfriend,” she said, sighing in relief. “Thanks a bunch!” she said, taking the comic book from my hand, and without so much as a nod, turned towards the counter and walked away.

I heave a sigh, looking down and if I didn’t know it would hurt a lot, I would’ve slapped my own face for being so stupid. Instead, I pulled at the card hung around my neck by a string, staring at the Filbars logo, and under it, the big black letters, spelling out my name.

END 20:20 02.08.06