April gave him a funny look and said, “You don’t talk to girls much, do you?”

His pipe dream of love in the mall burst due to bad mental plumbing and diarrhea of the mouth, Den let his head flop forward so he would only have to look at his knees. Sadly, he misjudged the distance and his forehead collided with a slightly sticky table, worsening his already embarrassed state. He tried not to talk.

But after an unbearable length of time, likely less than a minute, he confessed, “No, not really. Not since third or fourth grade.”

“Yeah, I remember,” April said in a surprisingly kind tone, “You used to sit by that blond girl, Jenny right?”

“Yeah.”

“Whatever happened to her?”

Surprised at how well the conversation was going while he worked to keep his spit from dripping onto his jeans, Den answered, “She’s a skate punk now…shaved her head.”

A pause ensued, but this time April broke it, “Den. Thanks for being honest. What you said…well, it makes a lot of sense, sort of explains a lot.”