Excerpt: Anomaly

I lead Eric over to a couple of trees a good distance away from his table.
“So what’s up?” he asked, leaning casually against one of the trees. He looked really good when he did that.
Ok this was going to be awkward.
“Well, see, I’ve got this thing to ask of you-no don’t interrupt me!-- it’s not that big, actually it requires pretty much nothing from you, well, that’s obviously a lie since I asked you all the way out here, BUT ANYWAY, you see…the thing is….” I stopped abruptly. I really hadn’t thought this far ahead.
Eric quirked an eyebrow at me, seeming to accept the fact that I was nuts, and hey, that was a start.
“Would you-“ I started again and gulped. “Would you mind…telling people we’re going out?” I winced and had the nerves for a millisecond to glance up from my shoes to look at his face. It was oddly calm; his eyebrows furrowed only a little.
“Is this your way of asking me out?” he flashed a huge grin. Not because he was flattered I was asking him out, because if he had wanted me to be his girlfriend, trust me, I would already know. It was more of a self appreciation grin reserved for the mere thought of being with him. I was just another silly girl pining for him.
Except that I wasn’t.
“Well, no, sorry,” I said and his eyebrows became a more defined expression of confusion.
“Well then why do you want me to go around saying we’re going out?”
“Well, I was hoping you could say we were dating, and you honestly wouldn’t have to anything different! It’ll be me who mainly does everything. And then maybe you could take me to the winter formal, only to dump me in front of everyone and go make out with another girl like Cindy McClinley or something. You know… you could treat me bad in front of people and call me names and I could declare that in private our love was true and firm. Oh! Maybe you could even give me a black eye or something…oh that would be great, and then my girlfriends could try to convince me that you were really bad news and I was just too stupid to leave you….yeah…dude that’d be good…” I trailed off mostly talking to myself excitedly about my newly formed plan of self destruction. I heard a wheeze and turned my attention back to him.
The look on his face…
I don’t think I had ever seen more surprise….no, not surprise, not even confusion…it was more like awe that covered his visage. It…was not really that attractive. I tried to stifle a quick giggle, to no avail. He swallowed, and his adam’s apple bobbed profusely.
“Wait , wait, wait,” he said quickly, thrusting his hands up in a ‘stop in the name of love’ fashion. “Let me get this straight, YOU,” he pointed at me with a fonze sort of finger gun, “want ME-,” he jabbed himself sharply in the chest for effect. “-to abuse you for your own personal enjoyment?”
I don’t know why, but I was rather annoyed that he didn’t get the master plan, although I hadn’t really explained it yet. To him, it was just what it looked like, a sad little psychotic girl begging for a good looking guy to beat the shit out of her for fun and personal drama.
No, this was so much more, this was the creation of a grand excuse.