The Popular Jerk and I

CHAPTER 1: The Lucky Girlfriend

Lily's POV:

I was sitting on my bed, reading the last chapter of The Hunger Games Trilogy: Mockingjay. I didn't notice that it's already dark outside until mom called me from below for dinner. All I did for the whole day was read. I don't even remember going out from my room unless mom calls me to eat.

Actually, all I did the whole summer was read a book or watch some boring chick flick movies, because those are the only movies we have since they are my mom's favorite. We also went shopping because I was being dragged to do so, and shopping isn't my thing. How much does my life suck? Oh yeah, A LOT. You wonder why I didn't spend my summer with Jenny? Well, my best friend was happily enjoying her whole summer touring Asia. Pfft, lucky her! It makes me think that my life is such a boring book.

Summer's almost over, I thought.

I sighed looking outside the window, staring blankly at nothing. How could summer end so soon? I prefer reading books all day than going to school and doing a lot of homework, which to be honest, I hate the most. And the exams... ugh, those torturing exams. Don't even get me started.

I know. I complain a lot about school because I'm not a geek. I hate school not the education, just to be exact. I'm not a loner. I have friends. Well, I don't really have lots of 'em. I'm pretty normal and I don't have it all together. Sometimes, I cuss when I'm so mad and pissed off. I'm not perfect and believe me, I like being imperfect. It makes me - me.

I don't like being the center of attraction, so obviously, I'm not one of the popular kids in my school. I like to hide in the background. I don't like popularity. Seriously, why are people so obsessed in becoming popular? Well, maybe because their life will be full of sparkles and shimmers, and-oh-so-amazing compared to my sucky life? Or is it their way to fit in? Or they just want to be popular so they could have a lot of followers on i********:? Like, seriously.

Anyway, let's move onto the one thing I hate the most at school -- Mr. Popular Jerk and his disciples.

***

"Good luck on your first day of senior year, cupcake," mom said as I was about to open the door on my side of the car.

I gave her a quick peck on the cheek and climbed out from the car. I waved goodbye as mom drove off.

Okay, here we go. Senior year, huh. Les do dis!

"Lily!" a familiar voice called out from behind. And from the tone of that girl's voice, I knew it was none other than my best friend, Jenny Smith.

I turned around with a big grin on my face, and beamed, "Jenny!" She hugged me tightly, making me feel like I couldn't breathe anymore.

"U-uhh... J-Jen..." I stammered as I tried catching my breath. "Can't... breathe... can you g-get off now?"

She pulled away as I gasped for air then she pinched my cheeks. "I missed you, you little cutie!"

"Ow, ow," I exclaimed in pain. "Stop it, Jenny Anne Smith!"

She finally stopped, yet kept giggling. I can feel my cheeks turning red from the pinch. She really did miss me A LOT. She only pinches me when she misses me, or when I won't tell her something that she really wants to know.

"So, how's your summer?" she asked while we started walking towards the entrance.

I sighed. "Don't ask. I became a book geek the whole summer."

She chortled. "Seriously?! You managed to read tons of books this summer?"

I nodded.

"You're so boring, Lily," she said while tucking her blonde hair behind her ear.

"I'm not boring. I'm just bored the whole summer," I replied with a laugh while entering my doomsday -- school.

"Whatever. I'm glad my life sucks less than yours," she said with a cheeky smile.

We walked and talked happily together in the hallway until we reached our lockers. Jenny talked about her unforgettable experiences while she was in Asia this summer.

"You've gotten really fat," I told her jokingly while punching in my locker combination.

She hurriedly took all her stuff, put it directly inside her bag, then scooted quickly towards me with her mouth wide open.

"Did you eat a lot of sushi and ramen lately?" I asked, teasingly.

She shook her head, still gaping. "Have I gotten really fat?"

I chuckled. "I'm just kidding, silly."

"I ate a lot of food in Asia this summer," she said looking at her feet, feeling devastated. "Seriously, I gained 5 pounds. That makes me so mad!"

"You don't look mad," I glanced at her and saw her pouting. I laughed.

"I know," she said in a dramatic tone. "I just look fat."

"You'll be fine, Jen. You'll lose all those fats in no time since we're gonna get tortured this senior year anyway," I said trying to comfort her with my sarcasm while closing the door of my locker.

Jenny took three steps then suddenly halted.

"Oh my b****y goat," she said while gawking at what she just saw in front of us.

Not her goat again, I thought as I rolled my eyes. "What?"

She pointed her index finger to the direction she's gawking at. I followed her gaze and found all the people in that particular moment staring at that same direction.

Suddenly, all the girls were trying to fix their hair and clothes while giggling and smiling brightly and acting all flirty. Eugh. I knew it.

It's them.

It's the three boys walking down the hallway like they own it. Three stupidly handsome boys with hot physique, gorgeous hair, and honestly, quite a good fashion sense. They always walk these hallways like a boss as if they own the entire place without even glancing at anyone and giving any care to the girls who were blushing and deep inside wishing for those guys to glance at them.

Oh please, this isn't a movie! You're not the Mean Girls!

I mean, boys. Oopsies, my bad.

The guy in the middle with his shades on is Mr. Popular Jerk -- Matt Austin. The other two guys beside him are his disciples.

He took off his shades and hung it on his white shirt which is under his black leather jacket. Then he runs his fingers through his hair, making all the girls swoon. That's too cliché of him.

That thing that he does is so sexy.

Ok, voice, you gotta stop. It's not sexy. He's obviously doing that on purpose.

Whatever you say, he's gorgeous.

Could you please shut up?

You think he's hot don't you?

No. So, shut up.

The three boys finally walked past us and headed towards their own lockers.

Pfft, I bet they were practicing all night for that cat walk. This isn't the runway, wannabe models!

At Matt Austin's locker, there stood a gorgeous girl with a perfect body and cheekiest smile -- Stacey Jones, the queen bee, or that's what she calls herself.

"Stop drooling," Jenny whispered directly to my ear which made me come back to my senses. I was actually staring at those two uglies like a person who's aiming to shoot an arrow at their faces.

"I'm not drooling!" I exclaimed. "I was planning a way to kill them in one shot."

She chuckled. "Yeah, right. Like you could do that."

I rolled my eyes. "You know, that guy with the yellow shirt on is so cute," she added.

"You mean, the guy they call Jay?" I asked without a surety if that was his real name.

"Duh," she rolled her eyes. "His name is Jay. Jay Anderson."

I replied an 'ahh' just like people do when they understand something. "So, you think he's cute?" I asked while raising an eyebrow.

"Yup and he's gorgeous too. Look at him!," she said in awe.

I stared at her intently. She looked like she was daydreaming about that guy Jay. This thing that she's doing right now should stop. She was never like this until now. She used to hate them like I do. What happened? Is this the effect of Asian food in her body system?

I smacked her back to reality and she squealed in pain. "That's not fair! You already know that your hands are as hard as a rock!"

I laughed and the bell rang. Ugh. This means, first period. Just great.

"I'd better scoot. See you later, rock hands." Jenny waves then scooted her way to her class. I waved back and headed to mine.

***

My classes weren't that bad this morning. The teachers were pretty fun. I'm glad my morning went by quickly. Thankfully, the teachers didn't give us homework. I'm pretty lucky today, aren't I? Surprisingly, I'm in a good mood.

As I walked towards the corridor leading to the cafeteria, everyone seemed to be in a rush. They all scurried their way into the cafeteria. Girls were giggling and looking all excited about something.

What on earth is happening?

Then a guy bumped into me. "Sorry," the strange nerdy guy said.

Before he could run into the cafeteria, I grabbed his arm. "What's going on?"

"You know, same old thing," he responded in annoyance. Then he rushes to the cafeteria.

O-kay. What does he mean by that? And where in the world is Jenny?

I was the last one to enter the cafeteria and I found everyone was gathered in a semi-circle in the middle of the cafeteria. I searched for Jenny's blonde head.

Where is she?

Just then I saw Jenny waving at me mouthing, "I'm right here." I scooted directly towards her then stood beside her.

"What's happening?" I asked.

"You know, the thing that he does every first day of the school year," Jenny answered. I saw a guy standing on the table where everyone was gathered at. The guy was smirking. "Everyone's looking forward for this since it's our last year," she added.

"Everyone, listen up!" shouted the blonde guy who's standing on the table. Obviously, he's one of the three popular guys whom we saw this morning. I don't remember his name because I just don't really care about them and their monkey businesses. The only name that I know is Matt Austin, their leader. Because everyone's talking about him every day in my whole high school life and I'm getting quite allergic to his name.

"What's his name, again?" I asked Jenny who's standing right next to me.

Jenny rolled her eyes. "His name is Brad Cox, the fox."

"Why is he called 'the fox'?" I asked curiously.

She rolled her eyes again. "Because he's a fox. I heard he's good in bed."

"Ew," I replied in disgust.

"And I heard he also screwed a lot of girls in this school and the other schools," she added. "If you're not hot, you can't bed the fox. That's his motto."

"Wow. Are you serious? How shallow."

Jenny nodded in agreement, then averted her attention back to the guy standing on the table.

"Now is the time," the guy named Brad Cox continued after everyone silenced. "Let's hear the great announcement from my man, Matt Austin!" then he went down from the table and gave a high five to Matt.

Matt smiled smugly and winked at a girl with a blue top on whom I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know. The girl blushed and she fell to the ground in deep awe. Her friends helped her to get back up. Stacey Jones shot her a wicked glare.

Matt Austin was now standing on the table, still smirking. Then he started to speak, "As you can see, I'm standing right here on top of the table in front of y'all. Why? Because I'm about to do the same grievous thing in my life every year. Jay, give me the box please."

Then it hit me, now I remember. He does this every school year. That mean jerk.

Jay handed the black box to Matt Austin with pride.

"Inside this box are wonderful names of all the girls in this school written in small pieces of paper," he continued. "I will pick a name from this box and the lucky girl will be my girlfriend for the whole school year. You guys, excited?"

Everyone cheered and whistled. Excited much? Huh, lucky my butt. When he says 'lucky girlfriend', he means 'lucky slave'.

"And to the lucky lady, when I call your name, please raise your right hand." He added.

Silence came and everyone's attention was on the black box.

Matt Austin put his right hand in the box and took out a folded piece of paper. Someone even made a drum roll for him. He smirked as he opened the paper.

"Kristen Moore," he read.

Silence.

No one raised her hand.

Everyone looked at the person standing next to them. Others started to murmur.

Then the nerd girl standing beside me with big thick eye-glasses and yellowish teeth smiled while trembling. I think she forgot to brush her teeth this morning. Just sayin'.

You're mean, Lily. Stop judging.

Sorry.

"You're shaking. Are you okay?" I asked, trying to get rid of my judgmental thoughts.

She nodded enthusiastically.

"He called my name," she said in a very dramatic tone. Even her body was trembling so much, she still managed to smile widely making her teeth and gums show. Then she slowly raised her right hand.

Everyone in the cafeteria looked at her. Then they all started to burst out in laughter after realizing what she looked like. Brad laughed the hardest making his voice echo in the room.

"Dude, pick someone else! Unless if you wanna spend your whole year with an ugly geek," Brad said mockingly.

The girl beside me named, Kristen Moore, put her hand down and looked at the floor obviously feeling embarrassed. Her wide smile faded into a frown. Tears started coming out from her eyes.

"Are you okay? Do you want me to help you?" I asked in a worried manner. She just shook her head replying with a 'no'.

Of course she's not okay, dummy.

She wiped her tears with her left hand, but the tears won't stop falling from her eyes. Then surprisingly, she cried out loud like a baby that made everyone laugh even more. She ran towards the door to escape from her embarrassment.

Gosh, I wanna rip everyone's head right now! How could they do that to an innocent girl?

"Woah, woah, woah," Matt yelled signaling everyone to stop laughing. Others are still giggling softly. Then he continued speaking, "Okay, I'll pick another one. Sorry about that."

Bastard, I swore in my head. He doesn't even look sorry at all. Instead he looked like he was having a lot of fun. Shallow head.

"Okay now, I will pick another lucky name," he said smugly while placing his hand inside the black box.

Silence came again.

Matt then pulled out his hand from the box. He's now holding another folded piece of paper. Everyone's eyes were on the paper.

"I'll just go to the restroom," I whispered to Jenny.

She nodded saying, "Okay."

I glanced at Matt Austin, who was currently opening the piece of paper on his hand. I glared at him and shook my head. He was staring at the paper when it was finally open. His eyes looked kind of surprised as he read the name on it. He searched the crowd with his blue eyes looking for someone. I don't want another of this drama so I started walking towards the door.

"Lily Christova," someone called.

I halted. Did someone just call my name?

I turned around just to be sure if I heard it right.

Everyone's eyes were on me. Girls were giving me death stares and others were glaring at me like they're going to eat me alive any second from now. I saw my best friend, Jenny, totally in her shock mode with her eyes wide open and her mouth hanging from her face.

Uh-oh, this is not good.

I can't move my body. I feel like a statue. My heart was beating so fast. I can't breathe normally. What is happening to me?! Why can't I even move a finger?!

Relax, Lily. Relax, I told myself.

How can I relax when everyone's looking at me!?

"Lily Christova," Matt Austin said my name as he swayed the paper in mid air with his hand. I looked at him and he's smirking at me like the devil he is.

That jerk.

"Congratulations, Lily Christova! You are now my lucky girlfriend." He winked at me and grinned like it's the greatest thing that ever happened in my entire life.

Aw, hell no.