Benny Proctor is eager to make a good impression this last week of junior high. His sleek new Oakley’s should do the trick.

This short story (~2,800 words) is about the terrors of growing up, and the bittersweet taste of love requited a little too late.

EXCERPT
Benny had never asked a girl out. He got by on his good looks. Throughout much of his junior high career, his classmates had called him “Vinnie,” based upon the best friend from the TV show, Doogie Howser, M.D. Girls would comment on his dimples, and call him “cute,” which he hated — he would have preferred to have looked “cool.” In this way, every few months, a girl's friend would ask Benny if he wanted to “go with” said friend. This didn't mean they would go anywhere. Benny would talk to her on the phone every night for a few months.

That was about how long, Benny surmised, it took for them to realize deep down he was really a nerd. Try as he did to hide it, it came out of him, like the time Jamie Longton's friend, April, called and asked him what he was doing. Benny had excitedly shared that he had built a makeshift slingshot by forming a kneadable eraser around a rubber band, and stretching said rubber band over the edge of a wooden ruler, pulling back the payload. April had been silent a moment, before she had diplomatically explained to Benny she had been calling on Jamie's behalf — to dump him.

Lisle Durst