Chapter 14: Operation: Don’t Die a Virgin 1

เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มี.ค. 2569 05:10

Chapter 14: Operation: Don’t Die a Virgin 1 The rest of the school day passed in a blur of academic white noise and existential panic that would have made Charlie Sheen’s meltdown look stable. I sat through AP Literature pretending to give a shit about symbolism in The Great Gatsby while my brain ran through every possible scenario of what might happen at Madison’s house. Most of these scenarios ended with me embarrassing myself in ways that would have required therapy and possibly witness protection. By the time I got home, my nervous system was operating at the frequency of a TikTok teen discovering their video got ratio’d into oblivion. "Hey, sweetheart," Mom called from the kitchen as I walked through the door, giving me that concerned nurse look like she was about to check my pulse. "How was school?" "Educational," I managed, which was technically true if you counted learning that hot girls might actually want to touch me as a groundbreaking scientific discovery. "Good! Dinner’s at six if you want some—" "Actually, I was going to study at a friend’s house tonight," I interrupted, the lie sliding out smoother than a Kardashian’s PR team handling another scandal. "Working on a project." Mom gave me one of those suspicious‑parent looks that suggested she had seen enough teenage bullshit to detect lies from space. "Which friend?" "Madison Torres. She’s in my chemistry class." Also technically true, if you counted whatever chemical reactions might happen between us as legitimate science. "That’s nice, honey. Just be home by ten." If only she knew her virgin son was about to attempt seducing the hottest girl in school. She’d probably have a stroke. Or start a GoFundMe for my therapy bills. I escaped to my room and immediately locked the door, because what I was about to do required privacy and the kind of focus usually reserved for defusing bombs or watching James Corden try to be funny. Operation: Don’t Die a Virgin was officially in effect. But first, reality‑check time. I pulled up my banking app because maybe, just maybe, I could buy an actual decent outfit for this historic occasion that didn’t scream "clearance‑rack refugee." Current balance: $47.23. Yeah, that wasn’t happening, no cap. Forty‑seven dollars might cover one sock at the stores where people like Madison shopped. I had a better chance of Jake Paul winning an Oscar than affording anything that would impress her. Guess I was working with what I had, which was basically the wardrobe equivalent of trying to make fetch happen. First priority: personal hygiene that didn’t make me smell like a basement‑dwelling goblin who bathed in Mountain Dew. I grabbed my phone and headed to the bathroom, pulling up YouTube because apparently I was about to crowd‑source my preparation for potential sex like some kind of WikiHow disaster. "How to smell fire for a date," I typed, then immediately deleted it because my search history was already sus enough to get me put on several government watchlists. "Personal hygiene for men" got me a video by some guy who looked like he moisturized with liquid confidence and probably had a skincare routine more complex than NASA’s rocket science. Dude had that Ryan Gosling energy but with the personality of a motivational poster. Forty‑five minutes later, I had scrubbed myself with enough soap to clean a small apartment building. I’d used face wash, body wash, and somehow convinced myself that the fancy shampoo my sisters used was essential for this mission. My skin was now approximately three shades redder than normal, but at least I smelled like a Bath & Body Works had a baby with heaven, fr fr. Next challenge: facial‑hair management—"Operation Remove the Patchy Disaster That Was My Face." Here’s the thing about being sixteen—my facial‑hair situation was what you might charitably call "patchy as fuck" and what less‑charitable people would have called "abstract art created by someone having a seizure." I had this weird collection of whiskers that made me look less "ruggedly handsome" and more "forgot to finish puberty while also possibly being related to a scarecrow." I needed to find a razor, which meant venturing into forbidden territory: the medicine‑cabinet archaeology expedition. Mom had one of those fancy women’s razors, but using that would have been like admitting I’d hit rock bottom harder than Britney in 2007. I remembered seeing a razor in the hall bathroom medicine cabinet—probably bought by mom for whoever my mom was secretly dating back then while we were at school before she gave up on men entirely and decided her children were less disappointing. I crept down the hallway like I was conducting a covert operation worthy of Mission Impossible, which I basically was. The medicine cabinet creaked open, and there it was: a classic men’s razor that looked like it would survive the Clinton administration and possibly witness some historical events id given enough time. "This is nasty," I muttered, but desperate times called for desperate measures. At least it was better than borrowing my mom’s pink monstrosity that probably cost more than my bike. YouTube tutorial number two: "How to shave like a man and not like a confused toddler with sharp objects." The video was hosted by some bearded guy who probably started shaving in the womb and treated facial hair like it was a religious experience. He had that lumberjack aesthetic that screamed "I chop wood for fun and intimidate bears with my masculinity." "Start with short strokes," Beard Guy instructed with the authority of someone who’s never accidentally turned his face into a crime scene. "Always go with the grain first."

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