"AmI?" My best friend stopped in his tracks, causing me to bump into him. He swiftly spun around and faced me. "You ate all of my cookies, what do you think?"
I crossed my arms and sighed. Ricky whirled around to the front and continued to the lunch table. I tried to keep up withhim, but damn, he walked fast when he was upset. It was hard to keep up when weaving through two thousand other students.
Ricky plopped down on the bench next to our friends and glared at me, his eyes filled with more annoyance than actual anger. Our friends looked between both of us with confusion on their faces. I sighed again and put an apologetic smile on my face.
"I'm sorry I ate all of your cookies," I said as I suppressed a grin.
It truly was an accident; I was not paying attention to how many I was eating. It also helped me focus more, oddly enough, maybe because I could focus on chewing instead of the itchiness of my teacher's voice.
Once they heard my apology, the confusion on our friends' faces was quickly replaced with laughter.
"You're not sorry," Ricky’s eyes fell to the ground and he sighed. "You greedy, curly-haired asshole. You knew what you were doing."
"Is curly-haired supposed to be an insult?"
Ricky did not give me a response; he merely shook his head.
I watched as one of our friends, Bella, rolled her eyes. She then patted Ricky's shoulder a few times in an attempt to comfort him. "I told you to stop letting Eli around your snacks unattended. Sometimes he’s a thief, even if he doesn’t mean to be."
"I am not," I defended myself. "He literally gave me permission. Just because I ate a little more than he said I could does not mean I stole them."
"I agree with Bella," said Justin, another person part of our friend group.
Yeah, of course you agree with Bella.
Justin was part of our friend group, but to be honest, I didn't like him. Everyone said that I was reading too much intoit, but I felt like he was constantly making passive-aggressive comments toward me specifically. He was the newest addition to the group, and I felt like he did not like me from the start. He would make jokes, but they didn't seem like just innocent jokes. Because of this, our relationship was seeing who could make the slyest comments toward the other and tolerating each other's presence.
"Do you want some chips?" Kailey asked Ricky.
Kailey and Ricky were dating, and they had been for a year. They were the type of couple that made you want to puke. They were overly affectionate, had obnoxious nicknames for each other, and were just all around annoying. Don't get me wrong, they were both my closest friends, and I could never have thought badly about them. I never showed my irritation at how overly affectionate they were in front of everyone, even though it was a bit much at times.
Maybe part of the reason for my feelings about their relationship was simply because I was a jealous hater.
Ricky shook his head. "No, what I want is my cookies."
I averted my eyes when Ricky shot another glare my way. I probably shouldn’t have eaten all his cookies.
"Anyway..." Bella drawled, attempting to discreetly change the subject."Who's ready for student council elections?"
"Student council?" Justin asked, a smug look on his face. "Wow, you guys would be the ones to get excited for that nerdy-ass shit."
Justin didn't start hanging out with us until the beginning of the school year, which was two weeks prior. He didn't have any other friends and Bella felt bad for him, so she invited him to be with us. In my opinion, he didn't fit into our friend group.
I shrugged. "It's not our fault you’re too dense to be part of the student council."
“If being in it means being around more people like you then I’m glad to stay away.” Justin flipped me off with a condescending smile.
"Both of you calm down,” Kailey said with a sigh. “Let's focus on the fact that this year is the year Eli will finally be class president!"
The table erupted with praise and encouraging words for me, I assumed everyone besides Justin. I didn’t bother to look at Justin because why harm my eyes?
My friends' encouragement gave me a feeling of warmth. "Thanks, guys. This year is my year for sure."
It was our senior year, so it was my last chance to become class president. I was tired of giving Javier Cortez's stupidly perfect face the satisfaction of beating me every year.
Javier Cortez was another person who irked me to my core. I also happened to share a few classes with him, but I did every year. We were both in all the honors classes because we were both overachieving straight-A students.
He was the perfect golden boy. Very tall, extremely handsome, in line for valedictorian–right next to me, of course–great personality, girls all over him. He did everything better than I, no matter how hard I tried. It had been that way since middle school. He always managed to come out just the slightest bit above me, sometimes so close that there was no way he wasn’t doing it on purpose.
