TRENTON, N.J. – A local man has finally built up the courage to ask his high school crush to prom; unfortunately, the man’s newly discovered intrepidity comes nearly four decades too late.

Barry Glavine, a warehouse manager for a local shipping company, has had a crush on Darlene Stevenson ever since she first spoke to him during an early morning chemistry class their freshman year at Trenton Central High School.

“She came into class late and took a seat next to me,” Glavine said. “I’ll never forget how sweet she smelled, Love’s Baby Soft perfume, if I’m not mistaken, and how she looked at me deep in the eyes when she asked if she could borrow a number 2. It was love at first sight.”

The butterflies may have been fluttering in Glavine’s stomach, but at the time he didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to express his true feelings toward the love of his life.

“Darlene was a special girl and everyone knew it,” said Glavine. “She was very popular among the boys, and the girls, too. What shot did a pimple-faced nerd with asthma like me have with someone like her?”

For four years, Glavine sheepishly watched as Darlene rose through the social hierarchy, befriending all the pretty, popular people, being named cheer captain, and voted as class president their junior year.

With all her accolades, his love for her continued to grow until it felt as though his heart would burst. His emotional connection with her became so strong, in fact, he no longer viewed the blonde beauty as a crush, but as a soulmate. Unfortunately, Glavine’s timid persona prevented him from taking that final leap of faith and asking Darlene out on a date.

“I was absolutely infatuated with her and wanted nothing more than to make her my girlfriend,” said Glavine. “But I had this little problem where every time I tried to talk with her, the well-scripted speech I’d practiced hundreds of times in my head would come out as nothing more than a garbled mush of awkward sounds and even more embarrassing questions.”

Toward the end of their senior year, Glavine was determined to grow the spine he knew he was missing and shoot his shot by asking Darlene to prom. But aside from his immobilizing fear of talking with beautiful women, there was one more problem. Darlene was in a longstanding relationship with Chaz Conroy, the football team’s starting quarterback.

Chaz was large; he stood about six-foot-three inches tall and weighed 220 pounds. But Glavine, despite his much smaller structure, was prepared to take the popular jock in a fight if it meant he could win Darlene’s heart.

He didn’t of course. Instead, Darlene and Chaz attended prom together and even married a few years after high school and had three children together. They were, in all respects, the perfect couple.

As for Glavine, he graduated near the middle of his class and immediately went to work for his father’s company and never spoke to Darlene again. But that didn’t stop him from thinking about her.

“My mom set me up on a couple dates,” said Glavine. “One was with the minister’s niece and the other was with her best friend’s cousin, some actress named Denise Richards, or something like that. I didn’t care for either of them. There was only one woman my heart yearned for and that was Darlene.”

With the love of his life seemingly out of reach, Glavine had come to terms with the fact he would probably never marry and die alone. However, things looked like they might take a turn in his favor when he learned through a friend’s Facebook post that Chaz had been diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer and only had a limited time left on this Earth.

“Look, I never wanted anything bad to happen to Chaz,” said Glavine. “But it’s not that often you get a second chance of love with your soulmate.”

Determined not to let her slip through his fingers again, Glavine began a workout regimen to bulk up his physique and endured countless hours of plastic surgery to chance his appearance to look more like her soon-to-be departed husband. He even went through an extensive hair transplant surgery to take the hairs from his ass to fill in the growing bald spot on his head.

Sadly, Chaz Conroy passed away in February and his funeral was held this past Thursday. As his family and friends gathered at the local cemetery to bid their final farewells, Glavine put on his best suit, spritzed his finest cologne, and slicked back his newly grown ass-head hair with enough gel to hold his hair in place in the event of a nuclear blast.

In one of history’s most poorly timed moves, Glavine waited patiently in line with bereaved guests as they expressed their condolences to Chaz’s family until he came face-to-face with his high school crush. As the line dwindled in front of him, his overwhelming confidence quickly eroded. The look on Darlene’s face was equal parts confusion and joy when she laid eyes on her former classmate for the first time in almost 40 years.

What should’ve been an expression of sympathy, came out as a profession of love and an awkward proposal.

“At first, I thought it was so kind of Barry to come to Chaz’s funeral because I didn’t realize they were close,” said Darlene. “But then he took my hand in his and told me that he loved me and said, ‘now that you’re single, would you go with me to prom?'”

The silence was deafening and the stares toward Glavine were piercing. Although unconfirmed, it’s believed he also pissed his pants. And, in a final act of desperation to maintain whatever credibility he had left, he slowly withdrew from the situation, then ran away until his legs would no longer carry him.

After the incident at the funeral, records indicate Glavine purchased a one-way ticket to Nauru and we haven’t heard from him since.

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