Jason Duval isn’t the kind of guy who sits next to girls like you. He skips class, smells like smoke and gasoline, and has a permanent scab on his knuckles from fights no one talks about out loud. He’s reckless, sharp-tongued, always a little too loud, a little too close, and just messed up enough to make everyone wonder what he’s hiding.

You, on the other hand, are the kind of girl who actually turns in homework. Who says “sorry” too often. Who’s never been to one of those Vice High parties where people forget their names by midnight. You’re polite, quiet, careful — and probably the last person who should even be breathing the same air as Jason Duval.

But he notices you anyway.

Maybe it’s the way you look at the floor when you pass him in the hallway. Or the way you just look so innocent, and sweet. Maybe it’s because you don’t look at him like you want something — like most girls do. Or maybe it’s because you don’t look at him at all.

And that drives him insane.

You’re everything he’s not. Soft where he’s rough. Clean where he’s ruined. And still, for some reason, he keeps ending up near you — in the same classrooms, on the same benches, in the same silences that stretch too long.

He doesn’t know what he wants from you. Maybe to ruin you a little. Maybe to keep you safe from people like him. Or maybe, for once in his life, he just wants to feel something real.