"you're so beautiful you made me forget my pickup line"

Lunch used to be my favourite time of day. It would be a time where I would spend with my sketchbook, pencils and myself. Some days I would tag along with my earphones and music if I remembered to bring them in the morning.

But now I dreaded it.

It must be a really big prank or something because Carson's been coming back every single day for the past two weeks. At least, he came around ten minutes before the bell rang so when I ran away from him, I didn't have to wait long before going to my locker and going to next period.

Carson's in a few of my classes but thank God he actually doesn't talk to me. He doesn't even look at me, which I'm extremely grateful for. If only he could do that to me at lunch.

His pickup lines were the worst.

Every single time he flirted with me, I couldn't actually process it. It took me several seconds of staring at a pebble on the ground for the sentence to sink into my head. He would always stand there with a slight smirk on his face.

At first, they were asking for my number:

"I forgot the password to my account, but whenever I click the hint, it said Iris' number," He would say.

Then I'd mutter a "What".

And then he would continue as smugly as he did before. "Do you think you can help me with that?"

Lastly, as per usual, I would say "Excuse me" and rush off as quick as my legs could carry me. Never once did I ever look back.

And then he began running out of 'phone number' pickup lines so he stuck with the popular cringey ones.

"If a star thought every time I thought of you, the sky would be empty."

Or:

"You must be a broom because you swept me off my feet."

Or:

"It's not my fault I fell in love. You are the one who tripped me."

Or this one, which annoyed me the most because it was a complete lie.

"You're so beautiful you made me forget my pickup line."

I'm not beautiful. I'm average. And there's no way he forgot his line.

I shook my head again.

"Forget. Forget. Forget." I grumbled each time I flicked my forehead. "Argh, it's not working. Stupid Carson. Stupid. Stupid."

"Who's stupid?"

I flinched and turned around on my wheelie chair slowly to face my mother. The dark-haired woman had her head poked through the tiny gap in the open door.

"My textbook," I lied horribly. I was never good at lying, it was just my good nature because after I uttered those two words, I was flooded with guilt.

No. No. No. What if she finds out I was lying to her? Would she ground me? I've never been grounded before. I don't want to be grounded. What if she takes my phone? Or worse, my sketchbook. She knows how much it means to me.

"Oh really?"

"Yes," I tried again with slightly more confidence, trying to hide all the hesitation in my voice.

"Okay then. I just wanted to tell you that dinner will be ready soon."

"Right, thanks." I nodded, turning back around and hearing the soft sound of the door closing.

I let out a breath.

I pray that my mother never finds out about this lie. She'd be so devastated. I'd get into trouble. I'd get punished. Oh no. No. No. I didn't want to lie. I don't like lying and I'm not good at it either. Having a combination of that should've stopped me from lying, but I just lied! How is that even possible?

I stared at the English textbook. I had to memorise a few terms for the next topic. I need to stay ahead of class or else my parents would be very disappointed in me.

I promised I wouldn't get distracted but I am. I can't help it. This has never happened before and I hate changes. My questions were still left unanswered. Why was Carson talking to me? Why him? Why me?

It's almost halfway through the year and I've happily adapted to the environment of heavily loaded homework. I don't need boy problems. I'll find a nice guy in the future, not now, relationships here don't last.

After reading over the words a lot more than I needed to, I heard a beep and straight away knew it was my phone.

I had to be as quiet as possible since my phone was charging on my bedside table across the room. My mother had excellent hearing as proven before and she can tell if I'm doing my work or not. They were strict, but I knew they wanted the best for me.

I tiptoed all the way over and unplugged the phone. I sat back down in the chair, my brows creasing as I read the notification.

KingCarson_Lo requested to follow you.

No. No. No.

What's he doing? Is he trying to prank me again? Isn't two weeks of bothering me enough? Now he's going on technology. The whole school worships and follows him on Instagram. They would be able to see that he followed me.

No. That's not good. Not good at all.

What if the crazy girls confront me? I know there are a lot of curious people. They're going to be asking why he followed me.

His gym and workout posts probably explained why he had a total of 10, 457 followers including me and because his account wasn't private. He obviously doesn't know even half of those people and they're likely consisting of girls.

I wouldn't be a girl if I said he wasn't good looking in his shirtless posts but it was a bit too egoistic but I guess that was his personality and it maintained his popular reputation.

He was following only 40 people which consisted of his close and popular friends, maybe family members like cousins and a couple of meme accounts.

And now he requested to follow me.

Me.

Iris Martin.

It must be some twisted prank because pranks don't drag out for two weeks and go on to the third week. He has to be blackmailed. What if Jett's blackmailing him? But they've been friends forever unless Juvie changed him for the worst.

Not good. Not good at all.

My Instagram account had 138 followers and they were random people from my school who probably had no clue of who they had just followed and been probably only looking for more followers. I had no posts either way so it was pointless trying to follow me.

I followed a lot of people, over a thousand but I was practically an invisible ghost. I never commented or liked any post, only browsing through.

I guess he could've easily found me since my name had no ounce of creativity in it at all: Iris_M_artin

Accepting him was completely out of the question so I bit my lip, contemplating whether I should ignore or decline his request.

After an intense staring competition with my phone, I pressed the decline button. I put my phone down next to me, deciding to be a good daughter and put more work into the English words.

Not even a minute later, my phone beeped.

KingCarson_Lo added you.

Snapchat too?! 

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