My message icon is displaying that I have 1 message. I tried sending myself a text than deleting it but it did not work. I have the ZTE blade max, and have only had it 5 days.
Try going into several text threads, since the unread message might not be in the most recent one. What version of Android are you on? Can you hold the icon on the home screen for a couple of seconds to bring up a menu of options? There should be a "clear notification badge option" there.