Chapter 1

"If someone kicks you down get up and kick them harder."

-J.Evans

Listen to F**kin Perfect by P!nk

"You are perfect to me." I woke up to my alarm song sung by pink. This song is probably the best alarm to wake up to. It makes you feel good after hearing your parents come home late at night tired and hungry. I had forgotten to make dinner cause I got home from the first day of school pretty depressed. When my parents saw how tired and sad I was they instantly forgave me and my mom helped me quickly make something for all of us to eat. I was told that I didn't have to go to school the next day if I didn't want to but this year is my last year and I'm determined to get way better grades than I have before. In my first hour is the popular jock Jake O'Donnell. My first hour just happens to be, gym class.

I snapped out of my thought and my stomach growled as I sat up in my bed looking down to see my month-old husky Athena on my bedroom floor. "Hey, hun come here." I leaned over on my bed to pick her up and she took off running taking me by surprise so I fell face-first onto the floor. "Okay Athena real funny now my face hurts." She ran back to me whining so I knew that my parents didn't feed her so I got up, put her on my bed, and got in the shower quickly before getting ready. Once I was done getting dressed I walked halfway down my stairs to the first landing just to stop because of my dog whining behind me. "Come on Athena you can do it!" she slowly came down with me "Good girl!" we went all the way down the stairs slowly only to see her dish empty and my parents have gone to work. I looked down at Athena with a guilty look. "I'm sorry girl they must have been in a hurry." I quickly filled her bowl as I grabbed a blueberry muffin I had baked a few nights ago with a small glass of milk. We both were about done eating at the same time so I grabbed my school bag and Athena's doggy harness. "Alright, Athena let's hope Grandma Betty will watch you." I walked up to my truck climbing in and setting my pup in the small dog bed on the passenger side. On the way down her long driveway, I tried to think of a way to completely avoid Jake today but I honestly couldn't think of a good way except having my earbuds in and ignoring everyone. Shaking that out of my head I ignored it focusing on getting my pup to GB. When I got out of my truck I saw a few guys to the right of her house maybe 20 feet away but I disregarded their stares even though I got a weird feeling that one of them was extremely familiar. I ignored the feeling and got out of the truck with Athena in my arms seeing Grandma Betty smiling at us. "Hello, Scarlett it has been way too long." I chuckled "It's only been two days Betty." She huffed reaching out to us. "Still I missed your amazing smile sweetheart." I laughed again hugging her with Athena in my arms. She took a step back analyzing the pup. "Now who is this?" I sighed nervously "Well this is my puppy Athena and I was hoping you could look after her?" She smiled warmly opening her arms and taking Athena "You know I have no trouble watching her." I nodded kissing her on the cheek. "Thanks so much." Jumping into my truck I waved goodbye to her and before leaving I texted Jamie.

Jamie is one of my good friends and someone I can get along with no matter what situation we are in. If we have a small fight we sit and bicker then just laugh it off cause we aren't going to have some silly argument come between us. When it comes to her love life though oof. I have a feeling this year might be different though but we'll see what happens.

As I was texting Jamie my phone started ringing and, guess who? "Hello Jamie, I totally wasn't texting you or anything." I could hear her snicker for a bit "yeah well maybe I'm just psychic." I propped my phone up on my dash and started towards her house knowing she was gonna want me to pick her up. I sighed knowing she wanted to rant "so what's up, Jamie?" She huffed "my Ex rides my bus that's what's up." I chucked "I'm on my way don't worry." She hung up and I continued my way towards her house.

While I pulled up into her driveway the bus went by and Jamie ran out very quickly jumping into my vehicle. I just shook my head and started heading to our school. Jamie grabbed the aux cord and started playing some of her favorite music and I just allowed it knowing she's in a mood. We pulled into the parking lot and I parked where I usually do, near the door. Jamie and I got out of my truck and walked into the building and towards our first class, gym. Jamie kept making huffing noises so I finally snapped, "okay, spill, what's going on?" she huffed "Will is just pissing me off again. He kept texting me last night and even tried calling me but I didn't answer him this time." I nodded in approval "well I'm glad you listened to me for once." She rolled her eyes and we walked into the gymnasium seeing a couple of people there before us for once. We both set our bags down against the wall and sat against it as well. That's when Jake and his small group walked in and he looked straight at me. Jamie nudged me raising her eyebrows suggestively but I just rolled my eyes and looked down at my phone, raising the volume on my music higher. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jake almost stomping towards me with this adorable, I mean, a weird look on his face. I kept my head down looking at my phone until his black gym shoes came into view and I tried my hardest not to look up. For some reason, I felt like I was tiny compared to him when he is near me, another reason I don't like being near him. Jake nudged my shoe with his until I finally huffed "What do you want?" We had about 15 minutes until the class started but for some reason I wanted it to go faster so he wasn't able to talk to me. "We need to talk." I growled, "No I don't think we do." I finally looked up at him and the emotion in his eyes made me flinch. I sighed "Fine." I got up signaling for Jamie to stay as this conversation was to be private and followed him into the hall away from people's sight and hearing range. Once we were far enough he pinned me against the wall, suddenly I completely lost my breath as I was very close to him. I was honestly unsure of how to think. He was too close. "Why aren't you talking to me anymore?" I couldn't answer him. I couldn't breathe. He was too close. I managed to choke out a weak sentence "Please back up." His eyes widened at my shortness of breath as he realized I was having a mini panic attack. "Scar I'm so sorry I totally forgot." I nodded slowing my breathing down by crouching down low and held my breath for a few seconds then slowly exhaled. I stood up again with a little more confidence and scoffed at him "That's strike one this year, get to three strikes I'm never answering you again, understood?" He looked so confused "Why arent you talking to me anymore in the first place? What did I do for you to just shut me out?" I rolled my eyes "If you can't open your eyes and figure it out you don't deserve to be friends with me, because seriously my best friend would have seen what was wrong and instantly did something about it." He growled to himself then nodded "Okay give me till the end of this semester and if I don't figure it out ill leave you alone, deal?" I nodded shaking his hand. "Can I ask for only one thing?" I nodded getting annoyed and just wanted this conversation to be over. "Can I have one last hug?" I looked at him with such confusion he chuckled "I just miss them you know? your hugs." I sighed at his puppy eyes "Okay only one hug." I loosely put my arms around his neck and put my head in the crook of his neck and his arms wrapped around me tightly almost like he never wanted to let go. The firmness of the hug took me by surprise and once I finally got used to it he let go. "I'm sorry for causing that attack by the way I truly didn't mean it," I spoke softly this time my heart feeling soft and I got very nervous all of a sudden, "No it's okay you just wanted answers and hopefully you get them this semester. I'll see you around." I rushed back into the gym, Jamie eagerly wanting to know what happened but I just shook my head answering all of her questions with one sentence "He still doesn't know."

Now for anyone who is confused about why I'm so upset with my childhood friend, let me explain. When we were growing up I was a little bit overweight but jake was the only one to see past it and we actually had fun outside. He even tried to help me figure out how I could lose some weight but eventually, we gave up and just focused on having fun every day. When we started school he made some new friends and they would hang out with us a lot but Jake never heard some of the things they would start saying to me as we got to middle school. I tried to tell him one day by asking him if he wanted to hang out but he showed up with one of the friends that also made fun of me so I just stayed quiet and from that day forward I told my parents if he showed up at the door again just tell him I can't play because I need to focus on schoolwork. You may have a lot of questions but the main reason I'm mad is that he did hear some of the things they said but he didn't do anything about it and that's why I'm so upset.

During all of Gym class, I was able to avoid his friends and their comments towards me. Yes, they still pick on me to this day but now it's "aw she finally lost some weight." I know it's stupid. My next class was a cooking class and sadly he was in there too but only he was, none of his friends had the same class so he always chose to sit at the table I sat at no matter what. He even asked someone very politely to move yesterday and he started realizing that something was truly wrong if I still wasn't going to talk to him during a food class. He knows I love cooking and I always have. That's probably why he stopped me today and wanted to know what the hell was going on. Everyone settled down in their seats and then my teacher made a big announcement.

"Now class I have a big announcement about this semester and what we will be doing. I'm going to be partnering you guys up and you are going to be designing a 3-course meal for the city of food I'm going to be assigning to each pair. You will have till the end of the semester to do it and I want at home videos of you guys designing the meals. Now time to partner you guys up." She walked around the room with her clipboard and wrote down the names of the pairs together and then she got to our table. A girl on the cheerleading team was sitting next to jake and she obviously wanted to be partnered with him and I had a member of the computer club sitting next to me and he seemed nice so I was okay with getting paired with him. She looked at me and jake and the cheerleader and the guy and then paired me with jake and the girl with the other guy. I instantly raised my hand to reject and the teacher asked if there was a problem. "yes there is." Jake cut me off by grabbing my hand and lowering it down. "No there's no problem we are all good here." The teacher smiled and nodded and continued onto the next table. I growled and glared at him but then just pulled out my phone and put my earbuds in until the teacher was done assigning the pairs.