It would also mean that I finally beat Javier, which I had never done for something so big. I could finally have something to rub in his stupidly perfect face.
"Our treasurer this year is...drum roll please," said Mrs. Montgomery, our overly enthusiastic and animated principal.
Everyone began to stomp their feet in the bleachers, sending large echoing booms across the room and upping the tension.
"Kailey Feathers!" the principal cheered.
Kailey jumped up and erupted in cheers. Ricky kissed her on the cheek while Bella, Justin, and I cheered her on. She skipped down the bleachers and stood next to our principal with a huge smile on her face. The principal congratulated her and gave a small speech about how fit Kailey was to class senior class treasurer.
She then announced class secretary, which was some girl who I didn't even know went to our school. Next up was vice president. That person would be the person that I work with to make decisions and plan events. It would hopefully be someone that I could get along with greatly.
"Our senior class vice president is none other than Liliana Smith!" Principal Montgomery announced before doing a performative cartwheel. Again, she was very animated.
The gym erupted into cheers as Liliana popped up from the bleachers and made her way down to the center of the gym next to the other class officers. I liked Liliana. I had only spoken to her a couple of times, but they were pleasant conversations.
Now it was time for class president. I could feel my heart beating rapidly from nerves but also excitement. Bella and Ricky gave me encouraging smiles, telling me that this was going to be my year.
"Alright," Mrs. Montgomery began, "before I announce class president, I would like to say that this child has been an amazing student since the beginning. Your senior class president is one of the kindest and selfless people, and they deserve this more than anyone."
Ricky nudged me in the shoulder with a supportive grin.
I looked through the crowd until I spotted Emerson and Easton. It seemed like, for once, they were paying attention. Maybe they thought I had a chance, too.
"Everyone who ran this election did an amazing job and I'm very proud of all of you," she continued. "However, there can only be one class president."
Luckily my hangover had surpassed me for the most part because it was now the end of the day. I squeezed my eyes shut and crossed my fingers. My legs felt tingly, and it was as if the room went completely silent.
"Mr. Javier Cortez, come on up here!"
Fuck.
Six
Eli
One thing I had always hated was crying.
I hated the feeling of knowing that you were about to cry, so you start trying to suppress the tears that you don't want to fall. The clenching of your jaw in hopes that somehow it will keep the tears back. The ugly face that you start to make because you're giving it your all to not start bawling, but you aren't doing a great job at it so you just look ridiculous. So, then you realize that you can't stop it anymore and you just let it happen, making all the previous actions pointless.
I hated the fact that being a guy and crying over small things was so frowned upon. When girls would cry over small things, usually people would comfort them. They would tell them that it was going to be okay, and that next time they would do better. They would wipe the tears off of their face and smile at them in hopes that it would cheer them up.
I wanted to be able to break down when something did not go my way. Wait—I needed to rephrase. I wanted other people to be okay with me breaking down when something did not go my way. I was more emotional than I had liked to admit. Honestly, that was part of the reason I had started drinking. It replaced thebad emotions with numbness, and numbness was better than crybaby tears.
I wanted it to be accepted for me to be upset to the point of tears about the fact that in all four years of high school, I had never won the class presidency. Not freshman year, not sophomore year, not junior year, and now not senior year. And who was the reason for that every single fucking year?
Javier. It was always Javier.
So, when I involuntarily started crying in the bleachers of the gym, instead of staying there and letting my classmates watch me bawl like a big ass baby, I left. I didn’t cause a scene like I had initially believed I would. I simply stood up, pushed past the teachers trying to stop me from leaving, and exited without looking back.
I knew that the whole class was staring as I made my dramatic exit, but I didn't care at that point. I also knew that I was going to be in a huge amount of trouble for leaving campus unauthorized, but I did not care about that either. All I cared about was getting as far away from the gym as possible because staying there would have felt worse.
I wanted to feel numb. I wanted the tears and embarrassment to end. My mind immediately went to my coping mechanism. I started to think about how much I wanted—no,neededa drink right then. I surely had something at home, but I already knew that my aunt did not have work that day. That meant that she would be at home, and I wasn't ready nor in the mood for her lecture.
So, I decided to drown in my own sobs at the park about a five-minute walk from our school.
The park was empty. That made sense since it was the middle of the day on a weekday. I was sitting on the swing and kicking my legs back and forth, but not hard enough to genuinely move it. I wasn’t crying as hard as I had been before. I hadcalmed down to mostly sniffing and a few stray tears falling here and there.
"Fucking pathetic," I mumbled to myself as I drew in the sand with my foot.
