5
HARRISON
I’m not sure what I just witnessed.
The most beautiful woman I’ve ever met just made some complicated courtroom argument over why she should be allowed to bring me in as her guest. I didn’t quite follow her logic, and there were about a dozen holes in her case, but it somehow got Chet to shut up and let me inside.
I was about ready to punch his lights out when Bianca walked in.
I’m glad she did. Beating up the bouncer wouldn’t exactly boost my chances at scoring a return visit in case I can’t find what I’m looking for tonight.
I’m not even sure what I’m looking for, if I’m being honest.
Maybe I’m overthinking this whole thing. Maybe Alissa and Maddox really did just take off on a long-term vacation to celebrate their newfound love.
It wouldn’t be the craziest thing a person has ever done for love.
Far from it.
I know from personal experience.
Regina Sinclair will never notice me.
Or worse, she will notice me, and it will be for the reasons the other kids in school notice me.
My big ears.
Rabbit Ears, they call me.
And then, at my first middle-school dance, wearing the new dress shirt that Mom had worked a double shift to be able to buy for me, I got on the dance floor and froze.
I didn’t know how to dance.
So I just…hopped around.
And I was christened with a new nickname.
Rabbit Feet.
The two names are interchangeable, all depending on the mood of the school bullies, particularly their ringleader, Hector Dimpsey. A rotund boy with a freckled face whose only goal in life is to make me miserable.
Mom sent me to elementary school every day wearing green.
The color of our culture. I was their Irish pride and joy, the little boy born on St. Patrick’s Day.
In elementary school, it was fine. The kids thought it was cool that I got to wear my favorite color to class every day. It was like a game. Would Harry wear emerald today? Lime? Olive?
My mother should have known better than to keep sending me to school in my verdant wardrobe once I hit sixth grade.
Middle school is different. It’s the deadly cross section where kids are at their most immature and their most hormonal.
And the bullies, like Hector Dimpsey, will pinpoint the exact thing that makes you different and use it to make your life a living hell.
Hector made fun of my green shirts first. He called me Leprechaun Boy. I asked Mom to buy me some plain black T-shirts and a dark-gray hoodie.
But then he came for my ears. And I couldn’t exactly rip those off.
And so Rabbit Ears stuck.
