CHAPTER 41

The date didn't go too well… Carson and me aren't together was her reply.

Aaaaand temptation. Great. Especially in light of recent events, one might think I would have wised up by now, seen the true value of girls as people, and accepted that I can't just screw with people's feelings just to satisfy my own desires.

"Hey Nicole, what do you think is the best way to get May to fall for me?"

Yup, nope, it wasn't going to happen. I'm still the same guy.

Nicole opened her eyes and scowled at me. "You're a lot more shallow than I gave you credit for, squirt." She said bitterly.

"Please?" I begged her. "I didn't know why Megan would want to do that, and I still like May. This might be my only chance left. I promise I'll be good to May, I promise. No more hurting her, no more hurting Megan. I just really want to be with her. Didn't you ever really want to be with someone, to the point where you'd do everything?

Nicole threw her head back in her seat and sighed a long sigh. "Fuck me," she muttered, then opened her eyes. "Fine, God dammit, I'll do it. But in return, you're going to have to listen to me. Deal?"

"Deal." I said all-too-enthusiastically.

"Firstly, for Christ's sake, a girl is upset. Ask her if she wants to talk about it. You're a shoulder and she's crying." Nicole ordered.

I nodded and went right to my phone. Aw, I'm sorry to hear that. :( Do you want to talk about it?

"Secondly, I'm shocked I didn't do this earlier, we're getting you some new clothes." Nicole barked. On cue, the car made a sharp turn as we headed in a direction other than home.

"Where are we going?" I gingerly asked her.

"The mall." she answered. "They got Hollister, Old Navy, Sears if you wanna be modest… Everything any two-dimensional shallow fuckwit would wanna wear if he wanted to announce his true colors to the world."

"Hey!" I protested, offended.

"Tell me I'm wrong." She replied with a bark in her tone. I sensed that she was angry. Nicole clearly didn't want to do this, and I actually felt really bad. "Thirdly, I bet May, or anyone else, likes guys to be more than twigs. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, every day after school we are going to the weights room, and you're going to get some actual muscle. On Wednesdays and Fridays from seven to nine PM, I'm signing you up for karate. Okay?"

Nicole was almost scaring me with her tone. "Okay."

She sensed my discomfort and sighed. "Look, if you're really going to behave like this for some girl, and you're going to ask my help about it, yeah, I'm gonna turn up the attitude. At least I'm helping."

"I understand, I'm sorry." I said submissively.

She flashed me a smile. "And don't worry. The karate is on me. And the clothes."

"Wait, really?" I asked her. "How can you afford that?"

"Scotiabank." She replied sarcastically, and overly enthusiastically added, "I'm richer than I think!" after a few seconds of silence, she waved her hand dismissively at her. "That joke works way better with Canadians." She muttered.

"Well, thanks." I muttered back.

"Least I could do for a friend." she replied. She was now faintly smiling at me – her attitude had changed completely. I didn't know what to make of that.

I sat back in my seat and smiled as we made our way to the mall. Nicole and I were on our way to making a new me. Look out, May. You're about to meet a new Adam, a better Adam. This was awesome… I was gonna be a better me. Better looking, more confident, getting a shot at the girl I liked… Life was good. My troubles were over – there was no way my life was going to get worse or more complicated from here on in.

Actually, the clothes shopping was kind of fun. Luckily for me, Nicole retained her casual, fun-loving attitude the whole time we were there, and didn't go serious on me again. My entire wardrobe was changed by the time we left, and as much as I hated critiquing my younger self for fashion choice of all things, I had to admit I looked better in my new clothes.

The most painful part of that trip was when Nicole convinced my to cut my hair. I actually loved my long, kind of messy blond hair, but if Nicole said it didn't look good, I believed her. Once I saw myself in the mirror with my hair cut, half of me was confident, believed I looked good. The other half was scared to admit that I didn't recognize who who staring back at me.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I hastily agreed to do karate, though. From the second I walked in, I was overwhelmed. People were doing punches and kicks and weird moves everywhere in weird white suits, and what unnerved me the most was that everyone there looked like they knew how to fight. All of them. I sure as hell wouldn't be able to keep up with that.

I was even uncomfortable standing next to Nicole, who was in her own white suit, tied together with a brown belt. Right as we walked in, the toughest-looking black belt whipped her head around from what she was doing to look at us. She had short, brown hair and a naturally stern look on her face. As soon as she saw Nicole though, her face broke out into an unexpected grin.

"Hi, Nicole!" she cheerfully said, walking over to us. "We haven't gotten to see you in a while."

Nicole responded by bowing, keeping her head up, and uttering some kind of noise. It sounded like she was saying 'osu', but I'm sure it meant something in Japanese or something. "Sorry about that, sensei." She continued. "School and other stuff just happened to get in the way."

The black belt waved her hand at Nicole dismissively. "Of course, of course." She responded before clapping her eyes on me. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Adam," Nicole proudly said, giving me a less-than-gentle push forward. "He was looking for a good outlet, and he could use a little more confidence."

The black belt nodded and turned to me. "It's very nice to meet you, Adam." she said, bowing to me. I just stood there dumbly.

Nicole subtly jabbed me in the side. "Bow back, knucklehead," she muttered without moving her mouth. Hesitantly, I bowed back.

Class started shortly after. At the start, everyone gathered in a line, sorted by level of experience. I went right to the end of the line, with no experience and no white suit. I found out later from Nicole that she ordered it with the sensei while I was off looking around before class began, and that it would arrive by next week.

Once we were in the line, we did this bow ritual, and luckily the sensei was casual enough to explain it to me personally in front of the class as we were doing it. However, she was still strict enough to damn near scare me as she was doing so. Afterwards, we were all ordered to spread out as one student led opening exercises.

By the end of the exercises alone, I was wheezing and bending over, catching my breath, and naturally, I was the only one. No one else was even breaking a sweat, of course, including Nicole, who casually strode over to me.

"You okay, hotshot?" She asked me with more humor in her voice than concern.

"It… the… I…" I managed to get out between breaths.

She giggled. "You'll get used to it soon enough. Now come on, back straight. Let's make a good first impression on the sensei."

The sensei, now that the exercises were over, was dividing up the class by the time I had the strength to look up.