Scraps ~ Ben Parish

2. From a distance

Ben Parish is a hopeless case. Miraculously the teen had managed to fall for the only girl in his year who wasn't head over heels in love with him. The beautiful and quirky strawberry blonde with green eyes that shone like emeralds when she smiled, Dakota Joseph. The girl who loved everyone and no one. The girl who saw everyone as equal, to her no one deserve any less of her attention then the person next to them.

Ben doesn't believe in her theories, she is the only one who deserves his full attention. The only one who's ever had his full attention. It's hard for him to keep up with his feelings for her because there are so many, though love would always prioritise itself well ahead of the others.

The butterflies started when he was 13 and by age 15 he contracted the wobbly knees, sweaty palms, tightening in the chest, he even lost the ability to speak around her. It was like someone had ripped his tongue out of his mouth and he could no longer form sentences.

One time when he was warming up for football training she flashed him a smile and he had to stop running to make sure he didn't fall over. For a while he'd felt special, she'd smiled at him. He should've known better though, after watching her all these years he realised it was just a common gesture for the cheerful redhead.

Unfortunately Bens interest in the girl is now a full-blown-stalker-weirdo-infatuation. He does whatever he can to see her, other than doing what normal boys do. For example; asking her out, hanging out with her, even talking to her. Not Ben, he just likes to stalk, stalk, and stalk. Why talk to some when you can just watch them from behind a tree instead?

If others could see the flawless teen through his eyes they would know he had the best intentions. To him she was the definition of perfection but others found her strange. "Yeah she's pretty," they would agree. "But what's with the books."

Apart from her beauty, Dakota perfectly fit into the nerd stereotype. She always had about 5 books tucked under her arm, a pair of glasses perched on her nose, and the intellectual capacity of... Well someone very smart.

Ben liked to take note of the books she read and would sometimes read them himself. He thought that if he read a book she liked maybe they'd have something in common. That would be one of the only things though. Ben and Dakota were the definition of polar opposites. Dakota, though she got along well with everyone; wasn't considered to be popular, meanwhile Ben, the young jock with his good looks and an abundance of friends was sitting high and mighty on the top rung of the social status ladder.

It was strange that one girl on the complete opposite side of the spectrum could have such an effect on him. Ben thought about this as he admired the stunning teen who had buried herself in another book as she waited for the bus to pull up at the school bus stop.