Song Liu was seriously such a pathetic loser, man. He was nineteen and totally whipped for Emily, who was obviously the hottest, most untouchable girl in their whole goddamn high school. Her stupid, perfect smile gave him major butterflies, and he thought about her all the damn time. He knew he was a total idiot, but he finally decided to stop being a huge coward and just tell her how he felt before his brain exploded from constant crush thoughts. Yesterday, he did the absolute unthinkable: he slipped a super embarrassing, handwritten love letter into her locker, the kind of cheesy garbage you see in bad movies. He told her to meet his sorry ass behind the rusty old gym right after the last bell rang. He was so nervous he almost puked all morning.
When he finally dragged his feet over to the designated spot, his weak little heart did a full-on explosion because, holy crap, Emily was actually standing there! For a millisecond, just one insane, hopeful moment, he actually thought, "Maybe, just maybe, she thinks I'm kinda cute!" But then he saw her whole posse of loud, stuck-up, popular female friends standing right next to her, looking totally bored. The second those bitches saw poor, trembling Song Liu walking over, all their perfectly made-up faces instantly turned totally disgusted, like he was carrying some kind of nasty disease or smelled like actual garbage. He felt his cheeks catch fire with shame, but he forced himself to walk right up to Emily.
He looked down at his shoes, which were obviously too cheap, and tried to speak, but his voice was totally shaking. "I—I... I l-like y-you, Emily," he stammered out, his voice cracking like a useless piece of wood. It was the most embarrassing moment of his entire fucking life.
Emily looked down at him with these cold, dead eyes, her mouth twisting up into this mean, ugly sneer. "Ugh, are you serious right now? Why the hell would you think I would ever, ever like you, you absolute disgusting pig?" she hissed, making sure everyone could hear the entire, horrible rejection. One of her friends, a loudmouth named Jessica, actually scoffed and said, "Look at his shoes, Em. Did he crawl out of a dumpster?" Another bitch chimed in, saying, "Seriously, your clothes look like they came from a homeless donation bin. Just stay in your lane, freak." Emily then continued, "You're just a pathetic ugly nerd, Song Liu, and for your information, I already have a boyfriend who is better than you in every single fucking way. He's rich, super handsome, and like, better at everything you could ever dream of being." Then she and her horrible friends just laughed like hyenas, turned their backs, and walked off, leaving Song Liu standing there feeling completely worthless and totally gutted.
He felt the hot, stinging tears start immediately, but he choked them back. He didn't want any of those rich assholes to see him cry. He went home feeling absolutely destroyed. His house was a total dump, seriously falling apart, and his parents were always stressed out of their minds because they were constantly broke and terrified about paying the next damn bill. He lived in a state of permanent anxiety. When he opened the front door, his mom saw his face right away; she was the only person he'd been stupid enough to tell his crush on Emily to. "Oh, honey. Did she reject you, sweetie?" she asked, looking worried and sad. Song Liu couldn't even manage to say one word. He just sprinted straight to his small, pathetic room, slammed the door shut so hard the cheap frame rattled, and buried his face in his pillow. He cried until his head felt like it was going to split open, the sound muffled by the cheap fabric. He knew, he absolutely knew, that Emily was going to tell her psycho boyfriend, the popular bastard Liang Xu, to start bullying him now. He felt too completely ashamed and desperately terrified to ever show his face at that hellhole school again. His life was officially over, thanks to his one stupid confession.