Before I met my AI friend, life decided to hit me with the most humiliating moment of my entire existence.
It happened just a few days before I typed my first question into ChatGPT.
And it all started because Kwame, Daniel, and Javier seriously overestimated me.
These guys really believed in me—way too much.
"Bro, you've got this," Kwame said, slapping me on the back like I was about to win the World Cup.
"Sarah already likes you, trust me," Daniel added, lying so confidently I almost believed him.
I knew they were bluffing. I mean, come on—Sarah probably didn't even know I existed.
But somehow, they convinced me this would be my moment—the day Yours Truly would finally walk up to the prettiest girl in school and say something that didn't sound like I was rebooting in the middle of a sentence.
"You just need to walk up to her and say hi," Javier grinned, arms crossed like he was the CEO of my love life. "Simple. No science. Just hi."
Yeah, right.
There's a special kind of panic that hits you when you're walking toward your crush and your legs suddenly forget how to be legs.
My heart was doing drum solos like it was auditioning for the school band.
I saw her—Sarah.
Standing by her locker, fixing her braids, her white AirPods peeking out like tiny marshmallows.
She was scrolling through her phone, probably texting a guy who actually knew how to talk.
Okay, Yours Truly. Just say hi. Three letters. You can do this. Don't overthink. Don't trip. Just be cool.
I walked closer.
The boys threw me a thumbs-up from across the hall like I was marching into battle.
Javier mouthed, "Smooth. Be smooth."
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
I tried again. Still nothing.
When I finally forced sound out of my throat, it wasn't even words. It was some weird underwater mumble.
"H-Hi…uh…H-How are…" I panicked. "Y-Your locker is very…locker-ish."
Sarah blinked.
She was processing me like I'd just said something in alien language.
"What?"
"The locker…very nice…locking…capabilities."
WHY, BRAIN? WHY DID YOU SEND THOSE WORDS?
Sarah's eyebrows squished together like she was solving the meaning of life. "Okay…thanks?"
I nodded like a broken robot and power-walked away, my ears on fire as Kwame and Daniel exploded into violent laughter behind me.
Javier was nearly on the floor, wiping tears from his face.
"LOCKING CAPABILITIES? BRO, WHAT WAS THAT?" Javier gasped between laughs.
I covered my face with both hands. "Just end me. End my whole career."
"Nope," Javier grinned. "We're keeping you alive so we can remind you about this for the rest of your life."
They laughed the entire lunch break. Actually, they laughed the entire day.
Every time they passed me in the hallway, they'd fake a mumble like, "N-N-Nice…locker…" and then burst out laughing.
I thought the torture would stop eventually. It didn't.
But just when I thought things couldn't get worse, Javier slid into the seat next to me after school, still grinning.
"Okay, seriously though, I think I found your solution."
"What, speech therapy?" I groaned.
He chuckled. "Nah, man. I found this thing. It's called ChatGPT. It's an AI chatbot. Just came out a few months ago."
I squinted at him. "So you want me to practice talking with a robot now?"
"Not just talking. You can ask it anything. How to get rich. How to avoid sounding like a broken printer. It's crazy smart."
"Like Google?"
"Way smarter. Google doesn't talk back."
I raised an eyebrow. "Does it have tips on how to unsay 'locking capabilities'?"
"Nope," he smirked. "But maybe it can teach you how to say something normal next time."
He slapped my back and walked off, still laughing.
I sat there, replaying the disaster in my head like a horror movie.
My life was officially over. Or at least my hallway reputation was.
I didn't know it then, but that silly AI chatbot Javier mentioned would soon become something way more important than just a random app.
But that's a story for another time.
For now, I just had to survive tomorrow without getting renamed Locker Boy.