“Oh my god Jenny! There’s no way you think Nick’s cute!”
“I didn’t say that,” Jennifer replied to her chatty, sometimes-annoying friend Amanda. “I just thought it was nice that he offered to help me with my math homework.”
“He’s such a nerd,” Amanda said dismissively, looking over at the lunch table where Nick and his friend were most likely talking about video games. “And he’s…fat.”
Jennifer joined her friend in surreptitiously looking in the direction of the table across the school cafeteria. “I think he’s working out or something. He has, like, muscles now. But I still don’t think he’s cute. I just sorta noticed it, when he, like, reached over to show me where I messed up my trigonometry problems.” Realizing that she was digging herself into a deeper hole, she stopped talking there and went back to her ham sandwich, allowing Amanda to burst in as she always did.
“Sometimes I just don’t, like, get you, Jenny,” Amanda said. “I can name at least twenty guys right now who have crushes on you and are hot.” She held up her fingers and began ticking them off: “Trevor, Garrett, Matt from chemistry, Ethan, the other Matt…”
Tuning out her friend, Jennifer looked back at where Nick was sitting. He had pulled out his phone and was showing something on the screen to his disinterested friends. She wondered what it was.
—
“I’m telling you fags, I’ll be dunking just like the dudes in this dunkilation, mark my words,” Nick said, pushing his phone towards his friend Dan, who watched skeptically for a few seconds before looking away. “Maybe not as powerful, but I’m gonna do it.”
“You do look skinnier,” his other friend Jake admitted. “But when you’ve turned into an anorexic skeleton who eats like one raisin and feels full, you’ll dribble the ball one time and your hands will fall off, and then you’ll have to get a gay hobo to masturbate your micropenis for you because you won’t be able to do it yourself.”
Nick ignored this roundabout insult. “I actually feel good for once. I don’t even get tired when I’m practically running between band and history because the bitch who does the schedules has no concept of distance.” He poked at his turkey sandwich while wishing he had thought to pack some bottles of BoingStuff to help him build muscle while being sedentary in class. “I already can jump four inches higher.”
“Noob gains,” Dan proclaimed, prompting nods of agreement from the rest of the boys sitting at the table. “It’ll take you two years to get up to five inches, assuming you don’t give up by then.”
“You’re just jealous because soon I’ll be on varsity basketball and you’ll still be at home playing Call of Modern Battlefield with all your butt-buddies,” Nick replied smugly. “Don’t worry, I’ll still hang out with you, but only if you promise not to get angry when girls are talking to me while you get blatantly ignored.”
While Dan made some pointless rebuttal, Nick took another glance over at Jennifer sitting at a faraway table, but now, after the quick progress Nick had made in his quest, she didn’t seem so unattainable.
—
The workouts continued. Over time, Nick had grown not to despise them as he had on that first hellish day, but to look forward to an hour of progressing towards his goals. The buff shirtless man on the DVD had almost become a friend to Nick; the man remained forever unnamed, not even credited in the workout guide that had come with the DVD, but Nick had taken to referring to him as “Dunkbro” in his mind. “Dunkbro would be disappointed if he saw me drinking this soda,” was one oft-repeated chastisement. “If I can just push out one more set of this exercise, Dunkbro would be proud,” was another frequent thought.
The worrying side-effects of the BoingStuff smoothies remained, however. After each one, an uncomfortable tingling feeling would cover Nick’s body, even if he waited several hours after his workout to drink one. He wondered if one of the nutrients in the powder was damaging his nerves or something. The online forums for the product contained no mention of any side-effects other than rancid flatulence, which Nick had also experienced but was unconcerned by. He had considered making an account himself and asking whether the tingling was normal, but didn’t want to seem like the ignorant newbie.
Besides, the BoingStuff seemed to be working; Nick wasn’t a fitness expert, but his quick gains in leaping ability didn’t seem like they could be attributed solely to his workouts, no matter how strenuous they might be. That powder was a miracle in a pouch, and Nick was glad that he had chosen a jump training program that had also helped him improve his diet.
All in all, Nick was immensely pleased with the progress he had made after just four weeks. His parents seemed proud of him to for being showing so much perseverance, and even Becca hadn’t said a bitchy thing to him for a while. But their approval was far less important to him than the approval of the one who this was all for. Jennifer.