75 AMAZING PICK UP LINES

Anxiety

A/N: POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING. This is the longest one by far, so brace yourselves. It's also the cheesiest. Sorry not sorry. I hope all my American readers had a happy Thanksgiving, and enjoy! :)

"Are you social anxiety? Because you haunt my every waking hour."

The first day of school was always a pain in the ass for Mitch. It was always the same old white walls and the same old judgemental people and the same old boring teachers. He wasn't exactly thrilled about the upcoming year as he took a seat in the back of his first-period calculus class. AP Calc, great. He knew he'll be wanting to give up on life in less than a week.

Right as the bell rang, an unfamiliar blonde boy slipped into the classroom, a look of awkward mortification on his face as all eyes were on him. Nodding straight-lipped at the teacher, he proceeded to the only empty seat in the class - right next to Mitch. He smiled at Mitch as he took his seat, setting his backpack down at his feet. Mitch didn't so much as smile back, turning his attention to the teacher who had begun going over the class syllabus.

After she had finished going over the class guidelines, she allowed the class the rest of the period to themselves. Everyone began chattering to each other, except Mitch, who kept his gaze focused on the ground, and the new kid next to him.

"Hey," the blonde boy said, smiling politely. He glanced at Mitch, expecting him to say hi back, and looked uncomfortable when he didn't. "Um...I'm Scott."

Wow, he was hot. Normally, Mitch was nervous around strangers, but a cute stranger? That made matters even worse. Nervously, he kept his gaze down, unlocking his iPad and opening his text-to-speech app. With a few quick keystrokes and taps, a male, slightly robotic voice floated out of the speakers. "Nice to meet you. My name is Mitch."

Scott stared wide-eyed at the iPad. "Whoa," he murmured. "That's cool."

"No," Mitch's voice spoke as he rolled his eyes only slightly. It's cool for maybe five minutes until people start treating you like you're a psycho who's secretly plotting their murder. Not that you aren't. Maybe. But he couldn't say that. One, because it would probably scare Scott off, and two, his system's vocabulary wasn't programmed with such violent words.

Scott tilted his head to the side a bit in confusion. "No?"

Mitch gave up, placing his iPad face-down on his desk and staring down at his lap. Hopefully, Scott would get the hint that he was not in the mood to talk right now. It wasn't Scott's fault, he just didn't feel like talking. This is how it always was. People would make an effort to talk to him, but it turns out that they only wanted to check out his text-to-speech program, trying to get him to explain why he wouldn't talk. Mitch was sick of it, and that's why he was uncomfortable talking to new people. It was best to shut them all out before they had the chance to disappoint him. Only Kirstie, Avi, and Kevin understood him.

To his pleasant surprise, Scott didn't say anything else about it. Mitch watched him from the corner of his eye as he took out a notebook and began scribbling down words, his slender, graceful hands tracing the letters. Was it poetry? Mitch couldn't really read it from that far away, before he remembered it was rude of him to be snooping on Scott's stuff especially when Scott hadn't been a douche about his disability, so he just let it alone until the bell rang. Mitch hurried out of the classroom like always without looking back at his new seatmate.

After a boring day only improved by physics class 7th hour with all three of his best friends, Mitch headed out to his car and drove home. When he pulled his car into the garage and walked into the kitchen, his mom was in the kitchen starting dinner. "Hi, sweetheart!" she said cheerfully, pulling him into a tight hug. "How was school?"