My Short Story About the Homecoming Dance (Too long of a title?)

My Short Story About the Homecoming Dance (Too long of a title?)

By: Matt Carroll

 

This is the part of the story where I say something clever.

            The song played lightly over the gym’s sound system. I couldn’t ask for a better song, Linger by the Cranberries (Talk about cliché writing followed by a cliché song). I sound like a girl, but I’m a guy who knows a good slow song when he hears it. This is where the main character is supposed to lean in and whisper something into the girl’s ear. I watch her body sway like the waves gently crashing against the shore during low tide only to be sucked back into the sea.

            “Are you having a good time?” I asked (Is this one of those sentences where I should say said? Fuck, do you put a period or a comma in comparison to the quotations these days? So many rules). This is one of those mistakes a main character usually makes who isn’t going to get a kiss at the end of the date. She nodded her head and smiled. “You look beautiful.” I smiled back at her making one of those classic, cliché, mistakes (There goes the repetition in my writing. . .again. Coach says repetitions are good. . .or is good? Damn.).

            I’m the captain of the football team (Right because every story ever told has the captain of the football team. Next thing you know we’re going to be in the middle of North Carolina and Nicolas fucking Sparks will make me fall in love with a paraplegic so every girl in North America can watch the straight to television movie and cry on some lucky bastard’s shoulder who is actually getting laid). I’m supposed to be an asshole to girls. Isn’t that how it works in stories? Jock meets girl. Girl doesn’t like jock in the beginning. Girl sees a side of jock that no one else does and decides to change him. Girl changes jock (This is a strange sounding sentence and should be changed. It sounds like she is wearing a jock and changes it. Jocks are protective gear for men…not women). They get married (Most stories forget to tell you about the divorce rate in the U.S. People are always talking about the sanctity of marriage in this country… some people love marriage so much they do it three times in their lives).  

            On the drive home she was quiet. I’m pretty sure I made it as awkward as possible earlier.

             Here’s where the main character is suppose to say something to turn it all around.

            I get out of the car and open the door for her (Her ass looks great). We walk towards the front door.

            This is the part where I say something clever at the front door. Instead I’m thinking about my Facebook  profile, wondering if anyone would comment on pictures from the dance. Instead I get a text from my ex-girlfriend: Horny. Meet me at Denny’s.

            “Have a good night.” I said to my date. She leaned in to kiss me, but instead I hugged her. (That’s a lame copout ending, but I just got a text and have to go). (Should I put a period inside the brackets like this.) Or (Should it be like this). Or (like this?).