'So, Tommy, your Mom thinks you are a wimp. huh?"
Tom felt annoyance begin to rise but it suddenly flattened out like a fallen cake.
"Yeah, I guess she does."
"It must have been really embarrassing," Geri said with glee.
"No, not really. I knew it would happen when the newspaper made me into a hero. She did not know I was playing football. Dad kept the fact he had signed the waiver a secret from her. If he had not been on a business trip he would be dead by now.
She did scare the hell out of Coach and that was embarrassing."
"I guess I should congratulate you for getting the game ball. I understand it was the first ever for a punter."
"Yes, that was embarrassing too. All the guys were happy for me and that made me happy but embarrassed."
"You spend a lot of time being embarrassed and rightly so."
"Thank you. I believe you were in a hurry to get somewhere."
"Oh, yeah. Pilar is meeting me at the quad. Why is it that you never join the group there?"
"Your friends are too much like you, annoying. I would be embar...."
"Yeah, I understand. It must be embarrassing to be you. Bye."
It had been a typical encounter for them. Friendenemies was a term coined with them in mind. They had known each other since kindergarten and had never gotten along for more than ten minutes at a time. Sooner or later one would say something that would send the other into a tirade.
Everyone around them knew they were in love with each other but had decided to let them discover that by themselves. Tom understood he loved Geri but he had never considered she might be in love with him. She felt the same way so they assumed the roles of antagonists in self-defense.
They had always been mostly civil to each other. Once Geri had begun a cuss word laded tirade and saw Tom shying away from her. She immediately promised to never use cuss words again.
That altercation ended with her kissing his cheek in apology, their first kiss.
Five years had passed since then; they were now seniors in high school. They had kissed each other's cheek just three times since that first.
They had at least one class together since their first day in elementary school.
She was a pert, cute, friendly, intelligent redhead, barely five feet tall and less than a hundred pounds; she went through life at full bore.
She had just won state championships in two long distance races and had come in third in another. She was not very fast but she never slowed down. She would catch up with the others after a thousand meters and pass all her competitors before the finish line.
Tom had called her turtle for a couple of years until he saw how good she was.
Geri considered herself a basketball player.
Tom was a tall and lanky black haired nerd disguised as an athlete. Several universities had contacted him about playing baseball for them. His football career had lasted just two games in the second of which he had kept the opponents away from his end zone with six booming punts into a heavy rain. The last punt careened off an opponent and landed in their end zone and was recovered by his snapper and best friend Burt. It was the only score of the game and the win had clinched the district title for them.
Geri and Tom always had straight A's and had served in the student council each year. Some of their most memorable altercations occurred at those meeting and everyone marveled at the florid way they put each other down. Sometimes they got applause.
The one place they got along was in science classes and they always ended up as lab partners. He did the lab work and she did the write up. Geri was not about to touch a frog or measure the amount of flaming hydrogen released when sodium metal hit water. In fact she stayed away from the lab table as far she could and still be considered a member of the team.
"Sissy," he would call her.
"Demented," she would call him.
Their senior year was nearing its end; the prom was three weeks away. She had told him she had the prefect date and intended to lose her virginity that night. He had admitted he had been having a hard time finding a girl that didn't already have a date.
She had been riding him unmercifully over that since then.
"Who is your date?" he had asked her.
"You will see when you get there," she had answered.
Neither had attended the other's eighteenth birthday party a few weeks before, they had never invited the other to a birthday party yet each had always left a present for the other. They always complained about the gifts but their Moms knew it was their child's favorite each birthday.
That eighteenth birthday he had given her a day at a spa.
She had given him a flight in a P-51 Mustang.
He was three weeks older than her.
One week was left before the prom. By then Tom realized he was avoiding the girls that would have loved to go with him. He did not want to see Geri with the guy she would fuck. He told himself she was taking too big a risk but knew it was probably not the real reason. He had decided not to go.
His mother was upset over his decision and suggested several girls that she knew did not have dates; one of the names was Geri.
"She has a date," Tom said.
"Really. Her Mom didn't think so. I wonder why Geri didn't tell her."
"I have a feeling her mother would not approve."
"Do you know who he is?"
"No. She told me I would see him when I got to the prom."
"Then you need to go if only to find out and tell me so I can tell her Mom."
"Mom, only loners and losers go to the prom without a date. I'm going to the game center; I'll likely run into Burt there. He will never get the nerve to ask Pilar."
"Well, at least I know you're not a loser."
The night of the prom Geri was at the game center with Pilar and two other girlfriends. Tom made sure she didn't see him. He didn't want Geri to see he did not have a date to the prom. The fact she didn't either just barely crossed his mind because he was working hard suppressing his joy to learn she was not fucking anyone that night.
Guys were hitting on them but the girls were laughing them off. He was surprised none of the four had gone to the prom, he was sure each had been asked.
"But why was Geri there? She had planned to end her virginity tonight," Tom asked himself.
He suddenly remembered a rumor that all four had lesbian tendencies. He had decided then that if they did it was none of his business. He decided it still wasn't.
He saw the parents of one of the girls go up and talk to them. All the girls assured them of something and Tom noticed that the guys that were hitting on them cooled their eagerness to show off.
Tom smiled and left. He went night fishing.
The following week was pretty normal for Tom. He grudgingly acknowledged her in their only class together that semester, Marine Biology. It was not until the Wednesday lab that they had a conversation.
"How was the prom?" he asked her.
