Tanner William Olson was another artist. I met him in Art Class, in fact. If he found out he was in a book of mine, he’d love I had designated him the second chapter; he was very proud of the fact that his initials spelled ‘TWO’.

At first glance, Tanner is an asshole. At second glance, he’s a bigger asshole. Despite that, he liked me.

We shared a love of DND and art. And that was perfect. The only reason I held back from going along with all the invitations to his guild was that he bragged. I thought he was lying most of the time (nope. It ended up being the truth. He did, in fact, destroy the multi-verse on a campaign). Lying did not fly by me. But, after his tenth time begging me to come, I obliged. Tanner also knew about my attempts at seducing Cecil, and he said he’d invite Cecil to the guild and try to hook us up. He really was the best wingman to have when I think about it. Even if Cecil and I were hopeless.

‘’Ursa’s Cave. 5 o’clock to 9 o’clock,’’ he said.

Although Tanner invited Cecil, I threw away my attraction to him—-along with the love-note I had half-drunkenly written the night before—-approximately 4 minutes after walking into the door of Ursa’s Cave.

Tanner introduced me as ‘The Pink Gay One’ and a pair of ears perked up in the background of the store. I hadn’t yet noticed.

 Why 'pink'? Earlier this year, I decided to dye my hair pink for the high school Hunger Games. I was the announcer for the games, I needed to look as flamboyant as possible. It was my chance to show the high school how gay I really was. It was a show of pride, really (Also, my best friend Shane dared me to). When I took the beanie off of my head the next morning, I heard everyone gasp. That was the best sound. But that was the sound of those who hadn’t seen my Instagram posts the night prior. Daniel was expecting it. So was Shane--Showing him my hair in person was the best part about it. He looked at it and chuckled like "wow, you really fucking did it". 

Hosting the Hunger Games was a shitshow by the way. I was nervous, stuttered, gave out pointless comments, and overall, annoyed every classmate I had and more. By the end of the day, I was so exhausted I slept on the floor in the hallway until mom picked me up. But at least my pink hair stayed to make memories with me. 

The nerds in the building did not strike me as being very polite people, especially considering the following interaction with a long-haired dude:

“Um. Pronouns?” he asked.

I cleared my throat, “uh, ‘he’?” I said reluctantly, feeling a little too exposed for my comfort.

“And that’s why I asked.”

The biting connotation of that sentence made me angry. But a human distraction doused the anger, crawling towards me from the corner of the room.

“Gay? I’m gay! Join the gays!” the person shouted.

I assumed from the profile that this was definitely a trans boy. Tanner escorted me to another table before I could say a word — “New guys need to fill out their character sheets.” the long-haired one said—; that included me.

Tanner ended up filling out my sheet for me. As small talk, I mentioned the guy that had come up to tell me that he was gay.

“Oh, that’s Erin.”

“Aaron?” That was a good name.

“Hey, ERIN!” he called to the boy who was getting his character sheet filled out by Long-Haired.

But the trans boy looked down, face red with anger at the call. This was clearly not the right name. Tanner was a tad insensitive to the whole LGBT community, which wasn’t unexpected for a closeted bisexual Mormon.

‘’Okay, I think the guild’s going to just fill out newbies’ sheets and chill for the day.’’ Tanner went.

“Sounds good,” I replied.

As soon as Tanner left to talk to an old teammate, I stalked over to the boy incorrectly called ‘Erin’. He was wearing a Deadpool hoodie. Already a likable quality.

The boy asked me to come closer. I did. And then a hand was pinching my butt. I could’ve considered it an assault, but I barely knew what an 'assault' even was. For such a sex-fueled high school of mine, it didn’t have a good (or existent) Sex Ed program. So, I convinced myself that this was normal and fun. I laughed.

“Why not come sit at my table?” I asked him.

''Sure."

I showed him the Deadpool watch I wore that matched with his hoodie. We chatted a little about general nerdy stuff, and he gave me his phone number so we could chat more about general nerdy stuff. Then, I finally remembered that I had just forgotten to ask the essential questions for getting to know someone.

“Are you a freshman?” I asked.

He fake-chuckled, “I’m a junior.”

“What? Really? But you look so boyish!” That may have been an inappropriate comment.

“Yeah, well, that’s the whole trans thing.”

“Right.” I cleared my throat again, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Oh, I’m Zeke.”