His love for Myrna was like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—sweet but sticky, with a danger akin to a severe allergic reaction.

He had to pine for Myrna from afar, across the linoleum-tiled lunchroom, away from her adorable snorts between sips of Lactaid. His table served as the demarcation point, the last cafeteria seats reserved for those worthy of labels. Myrna, delicate Myrna, didn’t even have a stamp of cliqueness. She just floated between the PETA vegans and the marching band drop-outs like canned fruit in a jello mold, a delicious surprise in the midst of mediocrity.

He could not let the others know of his affections—the way she gnawed on her pencil like it was beef jerky, the ample curve of her bowed legs, how she always had a tissue ready for her post-nasal drip.

No, Delmar Swift could not succumb to Myrna’s quirky mystique. A football captain and the president of the Future Feline Rescue Workers could not date without violating the vicious equilibrium of high school politics.