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Chapter 1: Her

James's P.O.V.:

*Bell rings*

Everyone starts grabbing their shit as we are being dismissed. I noticed this one charming girl. She has a beautiful necklace that makes her eyes pop. What was her name again? 

Come on, James. You've been in class with her for about half a semester now. I thought hard. Alexa. There it is.

My buddy Luke nudged me hard. "Yo! Earth to James. You good, my dawg?" He said. I let out a deep sigh.

"It's that girl over there. Pretty brown eyes. I wanna talk to her, but I don't know what to say without trying to make it seem like I'm tryna get in her pants." I said, with genuine fear that I may royally f*ck up with her. 

Luke nods his head and gives a devious smirk. "I got you, brotha." He says as he gets his things and bum rushes out of the class after her. 

I quickly follow him to see what he was trying to do. 

The hallway had its usual traffic, but Luke just bumped into Alexa, making her drop all her book. I see what he's doing. I walked up to the scene but stood silent, so I could hear what they were talking about. 

"Really, Luke?! Don't you ever watch where you're going?" She said, letting out a sigh of frustration as she lowered herself to pick up her now scattered books and papers. "Sorry," Luke said, but not in a genuine way. 

Luke gave me a nod. "Let me get that for you, Alexa," I said, as I bent over to get all her things. She stood up straight as I handed her things to her, and she smiled. "You remembered my name? I'm surprised." She said as she chortled a bit. Cute laugh. 

"I would never forget the name of a beautiful woman," I said, giving her a big smile. She smiled sweetly with her pearly whites. We locked eyes for a good few seconds as I rendered her speechless with my compliment. 

She glanced over at the clock. Oh shit. She has another class to be in. I do too. "Well. Thank you for your help with my books. I'll be off now. And next time you see your friend Luke, slap him for me, would ya?" She asked, with a hint of playfulness ringing in her voice. 

"Will do, Miss Jones," I said, with a fake country accent while tipping my invisible hat as a cowboy would.

We both headed our separate ways, but I glanced back at her for a second. I wanted to say more, and I wished we had more time to talk. But she's got a drama club after school, and I have football practice. The coach would kill me if I tried to sneak out of practice to see her. 

*Next Class Period*

I was late for class, but Ms. Blake didn't care. She loved all the football players. "Take your seat, Mister Parker." She said, with a hint of annoyance in her voice. Guess someone pissed her off good today. 

I took my seat and pulled out my English book from my stack. I looked to the board for a page number. The board read: Pop Quiz. "Fuck." I whispered. 

"Take a piece of paper out, number it from 1 to 30, and take a pen/pencil out, class. This counts as a test grade, so I expect everyone to do their very best on it. Don't even think of cheating either because every test is different. And I'll be watching everyone like a hawk. If I see a cellphone, I will take it, and you will receive a 0. Good luck." Ms. Blake said while handing a stack of assorted tests to the scrawny looking dude that sat at the front of our row. 

Fuck me. In the ass. With a pole! If I fail this test, the coach will bench me for the next 3 games, killing my chances of being noticed by a scout.

I put my phone inside my desk and turned the brightness down to zero. There is no way in hell that I'm going to fail this test. Fuck that. Mr. Google is about to give me a 100. 

My phone was set to silent so that I couldn't get caught if one of my asshole friends decided to text me during class. The test stack got to me, and I grabbed mine. I passed the stack on the slutty girl sitting adjacent to me.

 What was that hoe's name? Tammy. White trash. But whatever, she got passed around my squad. She gave good head, though; I'll give her that. 

I grabbed my pencil and wrote my name at the top right corner of my paper. I wrote the date as well. Yes, my teacher has to be nit-picky about that. 

First question: "Which of these works is an example of allegory?" I read inside my head. My choices were a) Animal Farm by George Orwell, b) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, c) The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers, or d) all of the above.

Well. Every time I see all of the above, I automatically assume that is the answer; otherwise, it would not have been there. Let's go with that. I write down "d" as my answer.

I pretty much breezed through the test because most of it was easy, but there were some I straight-up Googled. Let's hope for the best.

I got up and walked over to the teacher's desk with my test. "I'm finished, Miss B," I said with a smile as I handed her my test.

"Here, let me grade it for you now. Which test did you get?" She asked. I scanned the top of my test document. "It's D.," I said. She nodded and grabbed her answer key. I stood there patiently as I stared out of the window that was behind her.

I wonder if I'm going to see her at lunch. Speaking of lunch, I'm so fucking hungry. I'm ready for the tacos. The one good thing about lunch on a Tuesday. Bomb. Ass. Tacos. 

"Mister Parker. " Ms. Blake called out. "Yeah?" I said, looking at her now. "Your test." She said, clearly annoyed. She handed me my test. 

75. Close enough. It's passing. I'm good with that. I made that "not bad" face. Ms. Blake just looked at me and squinted.

 "It's a 75 because I know you need at least a 75 to play Friday night's game. It's not because you got that much correct. I'm going to suggest you get a tutor because that will be the only thing that helps you pass the final at the end of the semester." She said, sounding a bit disappointed at my facial expression. 

All I could do was nod and accept it. I took my graded test back to my desk and placed it inside my binder. 

I pulled out my headphones, put them into my phone, put one earbud in my ear, and then put my hoodie over my head and turned on some chill-step music. I fell asleep on my desk. 

All I could see was her. 

*Author's note: I hope y'all enjoyed this first chapter (: I just wrote it on a whim. I'm trying to hone my writing skills, so I don't lose them. Thanks for reading. :)*