Carla Martinez

If you don’t know, I have a business called Robin Writers where I provide educational content and resources to content writers. And FINALLY, I just published my business’ first ebook!! If you’re trying to write a book, start a blog, start a freelance business, or any other hefty writing goal, this ebook will take you from overwhelmed and unsure to organized and confident!

With this exciting news, I wanted to share a snippet of it with you. In the ebook, Stop Aspiring. Start Writing, I dive into how to develop the mindset and establish systems that will finally get you to start your writing goals and remain confident throughout the process. I also challenged myself to write a short fiction for each main section inspired by each topic to hopefully better illustrate the concept or at least provide some sort of escape from this crazy world we live in.

Please enjoy Carla Martinez, a short fiction I wrote inspired by the idea of not judging yourself. I wanted to see what might happen to a kid who didn’t judge himself too harshly and didn’t let any self doubt get in the way of what he wanted…for a couple minutes at least.

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There I was, putting one foot in front of the other, like a man. Right, left, right, left.

And there she was, looking…like she was definitely way too out of my league to ever consider going to the eighth grade dance with me. 

I could take it. 

Right, left, right, left.

“Do you wanna go to the dance with me?!” I blurt out. My god, what was I doing? Sweat started to drip down my temples.

The lights went out except the one right above her locker. She didn’t seem to notice, so I pretended it didn’t happen. Gotta act natural.

She twirled around and her smooth, wavy brown hair swept against my arm. Her eyes sparkled under the light. Her lipgloss glistened. She gave me a huge smile and started jumping up and down and clapped her hands. 

“Oh, of COURSE, Georgie!” she squealed. Nobody called me Georgie. Whatever. “Oh, I thought you’d NEVER ask!” she squealed again, except this time, loud enough for the whole school to notice and everyone in the halls looked at us.

But who cares, right? Carla Martinez actually said yes…to ME.

She did a 360-degree twirl at her locker as she squealed again and then jumped into my arms. This seemed slightly out of character for her, but I was trying to keep cool as she squealed again into my chest and her hair covered my shoulder. Her sweet perfume swirled around my head.

I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Put them around her waist? On her shoulders? On her back? I settled for the middle of her back.

Then I saw Jared McDonald among the crowd of students staring at our scene. I knew he had an eye on her. I wondered how he felt to be beat out by someone like me. Hah. 

Carla took me by the hand and started skipping away toward the back of the school. The crowd of students parted down the middle and everyone started cheering for us. I didn’t know what to do other than kinda half skip, half jog next to her. She led me out the back door and we were met by the band blasting music and the school choir singing to us…

Carla and George, goin’ to the dance

Carla and George, gonna get a chance

Carla and George, take a second glance

Carla and George, it’s true romance

“Uhhh…this is…um, unexpected,” I stuttered.

“Oh, GEORGIE RUSSEL, but this is so EXCITING!” Carla shrieked, and hugged me as if I was about to run away. Which I considered.

Then she leaned back out of the hug but kept her arms around my neck. She looked straight into my eyes. 

“This is all you’ve ever wanted, isn’t it?”

I didn’t think she even knew I existed. The band and choir continued blaring. I could barely hear my own thoughts.

“I mean, I’ve always thought you were—”

She placed two fingers to my lips before I could finish and kept her eyes locked into mine. Her other hand rested on the back of my neck. My heart started racing. She was inches from my face. Carla Martinez’s fingers were touching my lips. Oh my god. 

“What are you looking at?” she asked, as if it was weird that I was looking back at her. Wasn’t she making all the moves here?

“Um…”

“Helloooooo, are you ok?” she asked again. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Helloooo??” she asked again.

I shook my head and snapped back to my unfortunate reality. She waved her hand in front of my face. We stood in front of her locker. Some kids in the hallway stared and definitely failed to hold in their laughs as they walked by. 

“OH! Uhhh, wow, sorry….I was, um, just thinking about that science project Mr. Somerson just assigned. Crazy, huh? Ha…ha.” Oh my god, I looked like an absolute fool.

“Yeah…” she said and walked past me.

She headed towards the front of the school where Jared McDonald walked up to her and put his arm around her. She leaned right into him. He must have cracked a good joke since she threw her head back and laughed. He rubbed her shoulder and then walked her outside, her arm linked in his. Ugh.

Well, I never wanted to see her again. I absolutely could not, under any circumstance, show my face to her ever again. Like, ever. Some kids were still staring, giggling. Maybe I’ll transfer schools. Or convince my mom to homeschool me.

I was deep in thought about my future when Mr. Somerson walked up to me with a sheet of paper.

“Don’t worry, kid. I got you,” he smiled, winked, and showed me the paper. It had the lab partner assignments for the science project.

George Russell and Carla Martinez