A Bad Idea I'm About to Do by Chris Gethard Page B

you?” He sighed, heavily. “Let’s solve this right now.”
    Then, before I knew exactly what was happening, Will dialed Veronica up on three-way. She picked up to hear her boyfriend of nine hours and her weepy best friend on the line together. With him listening, I poured my heart out to her.
    â€œIt’s just,” I sobbed, “I think you’re so nice, and you’re beautiful, and we have so much fun together, and I’ve wanted to ask you out for so long, but I never was brave enough, and I wish I was, because now I maybe lost my chance and I just can’t handle—”
    Wisely, she cut me off.
    â€œChris,” she said. “I don’t think it would work anyway. You’re my best friend, and I need you for that. But we wouldn’t work together.”
    â€œSo we cool?” Will said. I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him.
    Somehow, though, life went on.
    Veronica and Will dated for nine brutally long months. As summer moved forward and we entered our senior year, I couldn’t shake my crush on Veronica.
    Strangely, and independently of all of this, I somehow became just a tiny bit popular during my final year of high school.
    The head of the cheerleading team, Debbie, was my lab partner in physics class, based purely on the fact that the only other
available option left was a Greek guy known as “Shit Lip Larry.” Debbie and I sat together, and at first she cold-shouldered me. But the teacher of the class was a club-foot-stricken creep named David Harding whom everyone called Mr. Hard-on. He had a habit of bothering female students. Debbie was at the top of his list.
    â€œIf you apply that formula, you’ll see how fast the plane rises despite gravity,” he’d say, grinning at Debbie as he leaned over our table and pointed toward a physics worksheet. “Sometimes things rise real fast.... Real fast. . . . ”
    â€œMr. Hard-on, I got a question,” I jumped in and said.
    â€œFine,” he grumbled, turning his attention to me.
    â€œHow much force does it take for a roller coaster to go in a loop, and also do you think the way you’re behaving is appropriate?”
    I was trying to be a wiseass mostly to break the tension, but as a side effect Debbie came to find me both funny and a pretty good guy.
    When people noticed that she and I were palling around, it gave me credibility among a whole new social class. For the first time, those tanned, athletic gum chewers had decided I was okay enough to hang around their periphery. It gave me a bit more confidence.
    At year’s end, Veronica and Will were still dating. But she somehow broke rule 3 of my well-trod cycle. Instead of feeling betrayed or duped by my feelings toward her, Veronica actually made an effort to remain friends.
    We even still hung out. Albeit in a platonic way.
    She worked a few nights a week as the receptionist at the rectory of a church. She was convinced that a ghost haunted the building. While terrifying for Veronica, this was great for me. She’d sit on the phone with me all night to avoid getting too scared.

    I did my part to be a good guy and make her feel better, but don’t think for one fucking second that I wasn’t fanning those flames every chance I got.
    â€œYou know,” I said. “Ghosts respond the most to teenaged girls.”
    â€œShut up,” Veronica answered. “You’re just saying that to scare me.”
    â€œWell, I am trying to scare you,” I admitted. “But I saw a show about it on the History Channel. For real. Girls between fourteen and seventeen drive ghosts completely nuts.”
    After enough of these conversations, she hit her breaking point. One late evening I was off on some tangent about how ghosts are sometimes good and sometimes bad, but poltergeists are always bad, when she interrupted me.
    â€œCould you come up here to keep me company?” she