James stared at Natalia from a couple of desks back. She was the most amazing person he'd ever seen in all his thirteen years of life. She had pale skin and long, golden-brown hair that he found irresistibly sexy, but knew would be even more so if it was curled. She was on the shorter side, but he found that fine. He only dated girls shorter than him. She had an amazing sense of style and the cutest laugh he had ever seen coming from an eighth grader. But she would never notice him.
James was an average guy. Being his second time in seventh grade, he found everything easy, so that just gave him more time to daydream of Natalia. He was average thirteen year old height, around five foot five, and had dark skin that led to a head of short black hair. He didn't much care what he wore, as long as it was clean and in the category of black, red, or dark purple. His days were usually the same. Wake up, shower, deodorant, brush teeth, and then school. But then came seventh hour, the best time of day. Seventh hour classes had both seventh and eighth grade classes at the same time, so it was James' only class with Natalia. He was currently failing seventh hour.
There were only a couple of months to go until summer vacation. James knew that if he didn't make a move, he probably would never do it. And the perfect time would be at the school dance. Or so he thought. That's when Cory walked up. He was the schools star football player, swimmer, and asshole. He was the reason why a few of the scars on James' wrists existed. Cory walked straight up to Natalia's desk and bent over talking. He couldn't hear what he said, but she started laughing. James leaned forward.
"So anyways," Cory was saying. "Do you want to go to the dance with me?" Natalia gave a small nod of the head, and with that, James' dreams were ruined. Cory stood up straight, a smug look on his face, and walked back to his desk. James got up to leave the room. He was failing the class anyway; it didn't matter if he wasn't there. As he went to go, Natalia's best friend, Jessica, turned sideways in her seat, and stuck out a leg. James went flying down to the floor, his arms shooting out of his sleeves in an attempt to catch himself.
As he did, his palms flat on the floor, his body in a push-up position, Jessica leaned down. "Nice scars, emo boy." She whispered with a devilish smile on her lips.
"Nice face, ugly bitch." He countered. A look of shock came across her. Without another word, James got up and left the class.
Blood was crying from James' wrist as he got up from his bed in the basement.
I'm an idiot, he told himself. I blew my chance. He was extremely mad with himself, but he needed to get some gauze for his wrists, pronto. As he walked into the downstairs bathroom, his cell phone rang. He pulled out his old flip phone and looked at the Caller ID. It was his best friend, Chris. "Hello?" he said putting the phone to his ear. "What?" He screamed, the sound echoing throughout the house. James finished wrapping the gauze around his wrists and hopped in his black pickup truck. He gunned the engine and headed off for school.