Pretty Boy - Ethan Morales

2 - The Proposal

Through out the rest of her day she continued to feel invisible to everyone around her. It's like nothing had changed, and she found comfort in that. But at the end of the day that's not what she wanted. She also didn't want to be in the center of attention like Devi Vishwakumar. Devi was always in some sort of drama. From her dating Paxton, to her cheating on Paxton, plus everything in between. She was always on the drama radar. She always tried to steer clear of Devi until today...in third period.
—

Carmen was placed in between Devi and Ethan. Devi could barely take her eyes off of Ethan and Ethan could barely take his eyes of Carmen. But Carmen kept her eyes on the board while her Spanish teacher moved through her lesson for the day. They were learning about animals in class and the assignment of the day was to name your pets. Everyone had to walk up to the board and write their pet in Spanish. I was in the middle row in the middle of the love birds. The one place Carmen never expected to be.

"Mis Angeles Vera, por favor, escribe a tu mascota en la pizarra." (Miss Angeles Vera, please write your pet on the board.)

If I were to describe the look on Carmen's face it would definitely look like one of those passive aggressive emojis females use as a coded message to their boyfriends. She walked towards the board thinking of an random animal that hasn't already been written. "Periquito" (Parakeet) she randomly scribbled out.
—

Carmen sat back down and continued to doodle in her notebook. As she drew random stars and small 3-d shapes her phone lit up. She figured it was a random notification from an app, until another notification pops up causing her attention to drift to her phone. She see's Ethan's name pop up with the first half of his message displayed at the top of her screen. She clicks on it rereading some of it,

"Do you really have a Parakeet?" he questions.

She looks over to him, seeing that he was already watching her.

"Shut up" she replies to him as he begins to crack a smile, knowing she was just making shit up.

He looks away and she goes back to her doodling, unknowing of the look Devi, next to her, was giving her. Through out the rest of the class he pointed out other people's random ass pets to Carmen, making her snicker here and there. By the end of it she was actually responding to some of his random ass messages. When it was Ethan's turn to write his pet on the board Carmen didn't fail to make fun of it just like everyone else's. By the time he made it back to his seat she was smirking while she continued to doodle.

Her phone lit up but she just ignored it while she continues to etch scribbles in her spanish notebook. It lit up again, by the point she was finishing up her drawing. So she finally flipped it over and read the messages displayed,

"Don't make fun of my turtle, loser" and one from an unknown number "Stay away from Ethan," Carmen was confused, and looked around to see if she could notice anyone who would have send that to her.

She made a suspect list trying to figure out who sent that cryptic ass text to her.
She'd ignored Ethan the rest of class and when the bell rung she hurried out of class and to her locker. Where she swapped out her books and as soon as she shut her locker she was surprised by Devi. Devi was leaning against another locker right beside Carmen's. Carmen waited for Devi to speak, while she adjusted her books in her hands.

"So you and Ethan huh...?" Carmen snickered and shook her head.

"No, never. He's just been bothering me since this morning." Devi didn't say anything as she processed what Carmen was saying.

"So you're not going to tap dat ass?" Devi said trying to sound cool.

Carmen cringed at the terminology. She never even thought of Ethan that way, she'd describe what she thought of him as "surviving hell." Carmen just shook her head no and with that Devi left, no other words exchanged.
—

It was lunch time and Carmen walked towards the vending machines for a snack. Luckily her 4th period isn't super far which means she should definitely find somewhere to hangout and chill for lunch. She walked up to the one of the 2 vending machines and inserted a dollar and got a bag of sour cream and onion chips. She surveyed the area and spotted a small table in the corner. She walked towards it and pulled out one of the chairs. She sat down and dug through her pockets and pulled out her AirPods and began to scroll on her phone again. A couple minutes pasted before she looked up from her phone, she heard slight commotion around the small student area. The hot pockets were being loud as usual and all the girls paying attention to them...as usual. She went back to her phone holding in chuckles here and there as she watched videos on her phone. When she looked up again she saw that Ethan was walking past every staring girl and towards her.

"Wassup princess" he spoke with a smile.

She rolled her eyes and took out a single AirPod. She waited for another sarcastic response but he just continued to stand there awkwardly.

"Do you need something or...?" she asked.

He shifted his weight onto his other leg as he lifted his arm to scratch the back of his head. As he did that, his hoodie rose causing easy glances to his revealing skin. But she held restraint and kept her eyes locked in on his face.

"Mind if i sit?" She nodded removing her legs from the chair across from her, and putting her airpods in their case.

He pulls out the chair and sits across from her, never breaking eye contact. The only time he did was to snatch her almost empty bag of chips.

"Dude," she said unimpressed.

He just shrugged. Carmen looks around noticing the looks they were receiving. She looks back at Ethan and says,

"Did you come to stare at me or did you need something...?"

He smirks before replying, "both."

She sighs before leaning back on her chair crossing her arms waiting for what he wanted from her.

"You want to have a memorable senior year, and i want to get all of the girls off my back..."
before he can finish his sentence Carmen interrupts him.

"Who said i want to have a 'memorable' senior year?" she questions, raising an eyebrow.

He smirks even harder this time, leaning forward on his elbows. "I may have taken a peak at your notes," he says.

She didn't speak for what felt like minutes. "You pretend to be my girlfriend, and i'll make sure this year is memorable for you. It's simple really," he said leaning back just like she had moments before.

She didn't like the way he seemed so nonchalant about the fact that he's basically asking her to be his girlfriend, without the benefits. The bell rung, and she replied, "no" before standing up and walking away with her things. She walked to 5th period questioning everything that is Ethan.