Not-So Prince Charming

Love Letters

Strangely, I woke up to an empty bed. Which on any other ocassion would have been a fairly normal thing to experience. But then again, I could've sworn that Rycio had stayed with me the entire night.

Sitting up and staring around the room, I locked eyes with my discarded phone, which I had knowingly dismissed the night before. And knowing that I couldn't ignore my fate for much longer, I reached out and turned it on, coming face to face with another sixty or so notifications.

"Jeez, these people really have no lives, do they?" I muttered, flipping silently through their messages until I worked up the strength to hit reply.

Eva_Xx: Hey, are you still free? I would love to grab a coffee sometime and maybe chat about the party this weekend.

I shook my head and read the most recent message a few more times. Eva? Seriously? Wasn't she Brad's girlfriend?

Curiously, I began to investigate her profile, finding more than enough evidence to prove that I was right. Eva Kokko, a light-eyed, brown-haired Art student standing at the top of the school's average rankings. She regularly volunteered for charities, helped hand out food at our local homeless shelter, and even had her own buisness selling jewelry. Eva was a grade-A genius, so no wonder most people forgot that she was dating my dim-witted teammate.

Sighing, I clicked back to my messages and began writing out a short reply.

Ari_bloom: Sorry, I'm actually already pretty packed with activities this week. And besides, aren't you going to that party with Brad?

Barely ten seconds had gone by before she responded.

Eva_Xx: Oh alright, sorry to bother you then. But who are you hanging out with, if it's alright for me to ask?

I rolled my eyes, annoyed. She'd avoided my question about Brad, so clearly he had no idea that she was hitting me up. Or maybe they had broken up? Sadly, I had no idea. But I didn't want to be a part of it either way.

Determined to fend her off, I wracked my brain for a suitable excuse, whilst attempting to push past my sleeping morning tiredness.

Ari_bloom: A girl named Cherry, she's from out of town.

I sent the message before I could stop myself, and thought nothing of it until I realised what I'd just done. Goddammit. I could of sworn I typed Cheryl. My stupid autocorrect must have changed it out of habit. I'd never even met a girl named Cheryl, so of course it changed it to Cherry.

Eva_Xx: She sounds like a really sweet girl. Have fun with her! I'll see you at school.

Heaving in a deep breath, I clicked away from the conversation and stared down at the dozen of other unopened messages. No way in hell was Eva going to keep quiet about what I said, so it was probably better to just accept it, rather than to dig myself down into a much deeper hole.

So, like all good clear outs, I started with the sluts. They were the easier to get rid of afterall - seeing as how one short message telling them that I was taken, was more than enough to scare them off.

Then, I moved on to the nice girls. Who, argumentatively, were the hardest to deal with. But after a few personalised paragraphs thanking them for their offers, I was done with replying to their messages.

Finally, I tackled the shy ones. Which was surprisingly pretty easy, considering that most of them had only sent me a couple of memes. Meaning that none of them actually required an explanation, and I could just forward them all the same funny cat meme and happily call it a day.

"Ari? What are you laughing about?" Rycio asked, staring at me curiously from the bathroom doorway.

Completely forgetting that he was there, I jolted and almost dropped my phone, a stupid grin still plastered across my face. "Cherry! Jeez. How long have you been standing there for?" I sighed heavily and stood up to stretch my legs, before smiling fondly at his morning bedhead.