Prologue:

Jealousy. It rages inside of me. I feel that if people look me in the eyes, they can see a fire burning.

I take out my iPod and turn it to the angriest-sounding song on it. It doesn't really pertain to my situation. And it really doesn't make me feel better either. I want to put myself through pain. I don't want to be happy. I know I don't deserve the angst, the torture, the depression. But I can't put anyone else through it. The only person I can torture... is myself.

I fall asleep listening to angry songs. Nightmares lurk around every metaphorical corner of my mind. I have no where to hide. I must suffer until morning.

One:

I had no idea that waking up could actually be a good thing. Most times, I never want to wake up, but last night, the nightmares kept coming, one after another.

I dread dragging myself out of that bed. I should probably just stay home. School will just consist of more suffering. But do I really have a say in the matter? No, not really. Unfortunately, school isn't optional.

Eating has become nothing more than a chore to me anymore. Food used to be my life. I worshipped and prayed to it. It made me feel good when I was eating it, but guilty afterwards. But no matter what, it was there for me, and I knew that.

I walk into the kitchen and see Mom taking out the milk.

"Morning," I mutter wearily.

"Morning sunshine!" she shouts to me. Mom's never been a fan of speaking with her 'inside voice'.

"Ow," I reply. "Ever heard of inside voices?"

She apparently hears the annoyance in my voice. "What's your problem?" she snaps back at me.

"You," I lie. Sometimes, I have to be harsh with her so that she understands that I don't feel like arguing.

She sighs and trots back upstairs to her room. I know she doesn't mean to be so overbearing, but she should know that I'm easily annoyed.

Since I sleep in the clothes that I'm going to wear the next day, I'm already dressed, so I grab a poptart, yell upstairs to Mom, and walk out the door, binder in hand.

Everyday, I walk to my bus stop, sit on the huge rock in the grass, and eat my poptart, silently watching what everyone is doing. Kind of creepy, but it's interesting. I've been told that I'd make a really good anthropologist. Such a big, scary sounding name for a person who studies the behavior of people.

Anyway, every now and again, the bus comes early, and we're not allowed to take food on the bus, so I throw the poptart in the road so I can watch the bus run it over. But today, I've come to realize that I'm kind of like that poor, helpless poptart. Alone, cold, left there for someone to come along and pick up the pieces of me.

Except, no one comes.

Two:

And there he is again, where he always is; Sitting there in his usual seat with all of his friends around him. Mocking me. Silently mocking me. All of them.

Do I dare sit back there?

Do I dare to even look back there?

No.

I sit down in the fourth seat from the front and lecture myself about what an idiot I am. God, I'm such an idiot.

As the bus starts moving, I take out my notebook and doodle little hearts all over the page with his name inside each one. Wow. I must be feeling bold today. I've just wasted a whole piece of paper. And they call me a tree-hugger. How wrong they are! But I'm sure that trees would like to take a stab at me now. I have betrayed them.

I laugh at myself every few minutes. I mean, how stupid of me to even think that I have a fighting chance with him. Because seriously, it's him. The same him that most girls want to be with. That same exact him who has dated every cheerleader on the squad and is currently dating his way through the girl's soccer team. Which reminds me that I should really try out for soccer this week...

The bus insists on hopping up and down, ruining my perfect hearts in the process. I decide to surrender my efforts. We're almost at school anyway.

We file off of the bus, one by one. I'm the fifth person to get off. I walk slowly toward the doors of the school. Maybe he'll catch up to me and walk next to me. Maybe we'll strike up a conversation. Maybe there will be a part of that conversation where he confesses his undying love for me--'accidentally' of course.

Okay, forget it. After about two seconds of walking slowly, he's right behind me, so I break into a run because I am a stupid, cowardly loser. I'm the first person to reach the doors. I open them and the cool air rushes through my frizzy hair.

I walk in and the doors slam right in his face.

Crap! That was really stupid.

"Are you okay?" I ask him as he walks in, holding his face--that beautiful, flawless face.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he answers.

"Yes you are," I agree.

"Huh?" he questions me.

"Oh, um... I'm glad you're okay. See you around. Bye." Well, if sounding like a babbling idiot was my goal, I totally aced it. I really need to work on my people skills.

I run up the stairs to get to English. I guess I was running so fast that I failed to see the garbage can in the middle of the hallway. I've got to remember that running in the hallway isn't cool. It just make you seem like an eager nerd, ready to learn. I look like "Let's learn!" is my motto. It might as well be written on my shirt: "Let's learn, everybody!"

I look around to make sure that no one saw my second act of stupidity today. Wow, I'm not even in first period yet and chances are I've broken Shawn's nose-or face-and ran into a garbage can. That's got to be a new world record.

I slowly walk around the garbage can. It could be planning another sneak attack! I reach homeroom and open the door. Of course, the eager nerd is the first to get to class. Yeah, I'm talking about me. I sit down in the empty classroom.

Three:

It's almost 7:15. The final bell is about to ring, telling us that we should be in class, and if we're not, we're marked absent. Not that the teachers care. Oh, well. One less unruly adolescent to babysit.

Mr. Moo walks in. Well, that's what I call him. I give all of my teachers secret nicknames that no one else knows about, except my best friend Amber. She thinks it's weird, but she calls them by their secret names too.

I call him Mr. Moo, obviously, because of the size of him. I mean, the size of his arm is like, the size of my whole body. See, now wouldn't you call him Mr. Moo too? That is, if you were smart enough to make up a super cool name like that. Because it takes a real genius to come up with a name like Mr. Moo.

He quickly takes attendance. I know he doesn't want to be here, but he really doesn't need to say, "Come on! Just say here if you're here. I really don't want to be here." Seriously. Who does that?

He gives us an assignment to do from the text book and puts the answers up on the projector. "Now, once you finish the assignment, you can check your work with this." He points to the answers projected on the board and gives us this weird smile and winks.

No one opens the text books. We hurriedly copy down the answers so that we can have the rest of the period to do homework for other classes that were supposed to be done last night, talk amongst ourselves (loudly), or just do whatever we want.

I have all my homework done. We didn't really have any last night except to memorize the whole Periodic Table of the Elements, read all of chapter fifteen for Geometry and do the review at the end, and create abstract art out of garbage. I loved that one. I used soda cans, Starburst candy wrappers, and pretty much anything I found in the garbage can in my room.

I don't have any friends in this class, so I kind of just keep to myself. I work on some drawings in my sketch book. I'm not actually good, but I love it. Right now, I'm working on drawing a gerbil eating a dog. Don't ask me how that's possible because I really can't tell you.

The bell finally rings. I jump up from my seat. I'm so excited to see Amber and tell her about my little mishap with Shawn. She'll be so proud of me for actually saying something to him. It was a sad excuse for a conversation, but it was still a conversation.

Four:

"Amber, Amber, Amber, Amber, Amber, Am-!" I scream her name until she interrupts me.

"What?" she asks me. She seems annoyed. I wonder why.

"I talked to him!" I tell her. "And I think he likes me!"

"Who him?! Him-him?" she asks. This conversation really starts to get confusing.

"Yeah!" I exclaim.

"No!" she argues.

"Yep! I think I broke his nose or his face or something, but I talked to him!" I'm in hysterics here.

She slaps me. "You idiot! You can't break a guys face and expect him to suddenly realize that he likes you!"

She's got a point. "You might be right." I ponder this while she explodes at me.

"Might? Might?! Of course I'm right!" she yells at me.

"Okay, okay, you're right. Don't hurt me. I didn't know what to think," I defend myself.

"You better just hope he forgets that this happened," she advises me.

We begin to walk to our next class together.

She finally speaks. "Do you want to just skip the rest of today? I really don't feel like being here. We can go to my house or something and figure out how we're gonna fix you."

"Fix me?" I question her.

"Yes. You've got to admit, you need fixing. If you want Shawn to like you, you're going to need some professional help. And that's where I come in."

Well, I would say kudos to you, but you've already kudos-ed yourself enough, wouldn't you say? I think to myself.

"Fine. But if my mom finds out that I skipped again, she'll murder me. She'll cut off my butt and hang it over the mantle. She'll-" This girl needs to learn some manners. She keeps interrupting me in the middle of my babbling and ranting and such. Is that what best friends are for?

"Okay, let's go," she interrupts me.

We walk out the double doors at the other end of the school and head to her car. Lucky freakin' duck. Sometimes I forget that she's a year older than me. She can drive and I can't. A friend with benefits. Hey! Not like that! I know what you're thinking! Goodness, people and their sick minds these days...