One
Eli
Ihad always wondered what life would be like if I didn't exist—if I had never been born. The people that interact with me would have changed lives, but whether it would be for the better or worse varied. For my close friends who truly cared about me it would be for the worse, but for most I'm sure it would be a delight for me not to exist.
It had always been crazy to me how one little thing, one tiny action can change one's entire life. If one thing did not happen at that one moment, you could be an entirely different person. If one particular person never came into your life, you wouldn't have had all the amazing memories that you created with them. You would never get the chance for the relationship to blossom into something spectacular. Then again, maybe that person was not a good addition, so never meeting them would be for the better.
In the end, I did exist. I was born into the world, and my presence was given to those around me. The only thing left to me was to choose how I wanted to present myself to everyone, to choose the way I wanted to go about the world and the things in it. I never wanted to be a bad person. I never wanted to use my existence to treat others poorly, and I didn’t. I did notgo through life treating others badly. Though, I wasn’t treating them very kindly either, no one besides the few that were close to me. Hence why I said that the majority of people would be alright if I were not around, but I had always believed that, so it was nothing new.
"Where's my paper?" Ricky asked as he frantically searched through his backpack. Ricky was one of the few close to me who would genuinely care if I one day disappeared.
“Did your dog eat it again?” I asked as I struggled to suppress the cheeky smile creeping onto my face. That was what had actually happened to him last week, and I knew it would piss him off. He turned to me, rolled his eyes, and then went back to searching.
"—and then Hitler and Stalin signed a Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact," my history teacher lectured.
My teacher had an incessantly annoying voice. It was scratchy and it sounded like she smoked fifty packs of cigarettes a day. She was only in her thirties, so one would hope that was not the reason. I tended to tune out her lecturing because of this, only checking back in every now and again to hear the important things.
She continued, "Hitler broke the pact days later. Can someone tell me what this led to?"
Silence fell upon the room. My history teacher looked in hopes of anyone answering,anyone. I was in an honors class, but these were the least interactive honors kids I had ever been in a class with. It was like they were afraid to speak. In all my other classes I had to fight for my turn to speak. I kind of liked it though. It was annoying to constantly have others trying to answer questions faster than I could.
I raised my hand since clearly no one else was going to.
Her eyes glossed over my raised hand for a couple of moments before she reluctantly settled on me. I watched her suppress a sigh. "I guess you can answer, Elias."
Despite the fact that I answered questions aloud often, I did not like doing it. Most of the time my answer was correct, but when it was not it was embarrassing. However, answering questions helped me to understand and remember material better, as well as force me to keep somewhat focused during class. These were the only ways I was going to be valedictorian at the end of the year.
I cleared my throat. "It led to the start of World War II."
"Correct again,” she mumbled dryly.
My teacher had never taken a liking to me for a reason unbeknownst to me. Maybe it was because of my siblings, though they were never terrible students. Or maybe she thought I was just another obnoxious know-it-all kid, and she didn’t like that. Luckily, it never bothered me too much. Someone not liking me was not a new concept for me, so I was confidently able to say fuck my history teacher and her scratchy ass voice.
“You just know everything, don’t you?" my best friend, Ricky, teased as he held the paper that he was looking for before in his hand.
I shrugged. "It is not my fault that none of you guys want to answer questions."
He uncrumpled the paper and set it on the table. "Well, if you'd give us a chance to answer…"
I rolled my eyes as I chuckled, knowing that I did in fact give them a chance to answer. Adjusting my foot as I laughed, I ended up kicking something. I looked down to find a bag full of Oreos that had fallen out of Ricky’s backpack when he was searching for his history paper. I assumed they were meant to be eaten during lunch, but lunch was not for another couple of hours, and I was practically starving.
I poked my best friend in the arm. "Ricky."
Ricky averted his eyes from our teacher who was still lecturing. He furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"
I silently gestured to the cookies and he immediately knew I was asking for one. He replied with a groan. "You're always eating my shit, but fine."
I happily grabbed a few cookies out of the bag. Ricky was sometimes reluctant to share, but he would normally give in. At least to me, anyway.
Ricky and I had been best friends since elementary school, we met the year I skipped the second grade. I had no friends and was intimidated because I was now in a class with all new faces, but Ricky befriended me quickly. He had been with me through the good and the bad, and he knew more about me than pretty much anyone else. He knew more than my brother, my sister, and my aunt. Hell, I could even say that he knew me better than I knew myself.
Being so close we shared lots of things with each other. Food, clothes, games, retainers. Okay, the retainer thing was one time and anaccident, but we still shared it.
"Elias," Ricky caught my attention as I stuffed an entire Oreo into my mouth. "Do noteat them all."
***
"Are you pissed at me?" I asked hesitantly, my lip pouting slightly.
