Jon sat down at his first period desk and opened up his textbook, crossing his legs at the knee as he sat.
He paused. It didn't feel wrong to cross his legs, but the fact that it didn't feel wrong, itself, felt wrong.
He uncrossed his legs, both feet flat on the floor. Then muscle memory swung the other leg over and re-crossed them the other way. Somehow, flat on the floor felt even more wrong.
Jon sighed and tapped his pencil eraser against his desk. But the remainder of class period didn't seem to involve his legs at all, and so it proceeded as normal.
But as he left to exchange books at his locker, Jon passed by a crowd of students with star quarterback Biff Meadows at the middle, brazenly offering an anecdote about one of his triumphs on the field. Jon's attention was drawn to the football player, and it felt suddenly very natural to change directions away from his locker, and into Biff's orbit.
"So I get into position," Biff said, "and I look down the offensive line, and I count heads, and one's missing. So I look behind me, and Robinson is like 15 yards behind me, out of formation, and I'm like 'what are you doing back there?'"
Some of the assembled students chuckled at that, but Jon wasn't sure what was funny. But he suddenly felt an itch, a small tickle, coming from his lower abdomen. Jon's hand brought itself up to rest upon the source of the itch, pressing gently on pink denim, but like a bubble, the itch rose upwards under the slight pressure, into Jon's chest, up his throat, and then it exited his mouth in the form of a giggle.
Jon blushed but nobody seemed to pay him any mind. They were all enraptured by Biff's story. Jon was enraptured by Biff's story. As the telling went on, Jon realized that he wanted Biff to notice that he was paying attention to the story. He found himself giggling again, even when he didn't know why something was funny, just to catch Biff's attention, to make sure Biff knew that he was there.
And when Biff finally did look Jon's way, a warmth spread out from where that itch had originated, filling him with a sensation that made him as anxious as it made him excited.
Biff's story ended as he rushed for ten yards, tossed a lateral to Robinson, had the lateral tossed back to him, and then he ran the rest of the way into the end zone. Then the crowd disbursed, and Jon made his way to his locker with a grin plastered to his face which he did not quite understand.
