It’s not my fault; really, it isn’t. A long time ago, maybe when I was like, six, Momma told me that you can’t help who you fall in love with, and I've stuck to that motto in the years to come. Love is a potent poison, a chain-reaction snowball effect. And love has ultimately been my downfall, the very thing that has drug me down this year, my freshman year in high school.

Accelerated English is a class that should be worshipped. No, I’m not particularly fond of Shakespeare or deciphering the deep, hidden messages in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, but I do appreciate the earth-bound god that sits besides me. His name is Roger Shaw, and he has been my reason for living for nearly nine months.

My enamor for him will never be met; I’m simply not his type. Brandon cannot be bound by a young girl such as myself who romanticizes everything. I am too average for him, too full of childish wishful thinking. I have boring, straight brown hair and hazel eyes; I wear glasses most of the time. I am normal when it comes to body proportions: not supersmall or biggie-sized. Just medium. A plain Jane by anyone’s standards.

He can only fall for the girl who bathes in the exotic perfume of pot, noxious fumes that gently sweep across your cheek and sing ever so sweetly into your ears, lulling you into a hazy stupor. I smell like Dial Antibacterial Soap. His girl would be one with dyed black hair, which would greatly contrast with her snow white skin and crimson lips that curled around a joint; at least I had the paleness going for me. She would be tall, petite, lanky: a gothic ballerina garbed in a tight Ramones t-shirt and dark-washed skinny jeans, her feet housed in battered Vans sneakers.

I stroke my pin-straight brown hair and watch with solemn eyes as he fingers his throat, those spidery fingertips so light against his bulging Adam’s apple, which would bob seductively up and down in an entrancing dance whenever he talked to his small group of friends. He had perfect hands; long, slender fingers and knobby knuckles, rough palms that I could just imagine cupping my cheek as his thick lips neared my own, parting in yearning. Sometimes, at night, when my parents were tucked away in the cubby they called their room and I was alone in a queen-sized bed, draped in a heavy comforter, I’d envision him besides me, strong arms around my waist. He’d be a gentle lover, so different from the image he portrayed at school, badass bad boy. Oh god, how intoxicating.

I often wondered if he could feel my eyes on him in the middle of class, while the teacher droned on and on as she explained the plot of To Kill a Mockingbird, watching while he cradled his pretty little head in those calloused palms. He had such a strong jaw line. I dreamed of kissing along the well-paved trail, my teeth grazing against his olive-toned flesh; my lips would massage the surrounding skin, keeping irritation at bay. My fingertips, quivering with excitement, would traverse across his skin; a flat stomach, not particularly toned or airbrushed, but just right, and on farther south. It was a thought that perhaps wasn’t suited for a freshman, but god did it feel so right.

Every once and a while, I’d find his dual pools of blue against the side of my face, and I’d feel the cold tendrils of a shiver running down my spine, goosebumps prickling on my arms. Those looks were evanescent, rare moments that I cherished, lived for. I could only dream of the problems that kept his clockwork mind ticking. He was a slacker in English, and probably every other subject he was enrolled in, but that was only because the deep inner workings of his mind were troubled with something more important, something less flippant than acing a test or even showing up for a certain class.

He tugged on his lip ring when he was thinking about something, I’d figured out; his quiet mannerisms prevented him from speaking up during long discussions about the book of the week, or the state Biology test, or whatever. When he spoke, though, it was in a soft voice that wasn’t too urgent, yet demanded respect; he had a charismatic way about him, a certain slacker appeal mishmashed with a rock-star mentality. He had tones like honey, soft and warm and fluid like liquid, but hidden somewhere beneath the gentle words was a razor-edge ready to cut and tear away at the bone. A scalpel, raised to the light so that a gleam could reflect off its shiny surface before it plunged into a thick layer of skin and fat and muscle, blood dripping off it like crimson tears.

Once, we were reciting the prologue from Romeo and Juliet. We hid a cheat sheet underneath a book of this douche bag in the front row; he’s British, nicknamed the Sloth. Never cheated a day in his life, he felt really awesome helping out some of our grade point averages. Anyways, Roger decided to use it, a beautiful smirk curving his perfectly sculpted lips the whole time, all fifteen/eighteen/whatever lines. Cue the angelic choir. I'd mark that day, a Friday, as one of the best in my mundane life.

There are days when I wish I could profess my undying love to him, mirroring the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet; there are other days when I can picture myself straddling him, the whole class surrounding us, as he gently plows into me, soft moans issuing from my lips, head held back and neck craned expertly. His fingernails would dig into my fleshy, average hips, comforting, tangible. Mostly, my obsession was fed by my quiet observation, webs of wishful thinking forming in my mind.

And then, the bell would ring, denoting the end of third block on your run-of-the-mill A-day and shattering all my obsessed, mad ideas, and I'd gather my things, sighing and watching with hungry eyes as he stalks off, catching up with a group of friends.

It's not my fault. He is my drug, and I am the addict, one who has been deprived of an intervention because her obsession is so well-hid. A carefully kept secret, locked away in the confines of my heart that beats only for one, whose graceful lips will never find my name.

Probably one of the most honest pieces I've ever written. Review.