I hated him. If he weren't at this school, I wouldn't have to compete for valedictorian. I would automatically get the spot because most of the kids in our school didn't take academics as seriously.
Javier was popular and literally everyone knew him. Everyone liked him, I swear I had never heard one person besides myself say that they had a dislike for him. He had girls constantly chasing him even though he had a girlfriend. Hisgirlfriend was uncoincidentally one of the more popular girls in the school.
I was somewhat known, but it was only by association. My siblings were very well-known. They were seniors just like me, though they did not skip a grade. My brother was on the football team, and my sister was on the cheer team.
My siblings hated the fact that their younger brother was in the same grade as them. People had started to mistake us as triplets, and it infuriated them both. Emerson and Easton were twins, but I was just their younger brother. They did not want people to get it wrong.
That was how the nickname 'Baby Richardson' came to be. They wanted to be sure that people would stop making the mistake of calling us triplets, so they told everyone to call me that awful name. It worked at first, but only for the first few years. Eventually people stopped. Well, most people. There were still a few people that the name lingered with.
I sometimes would have random people talk to me because they wanted to get close with my siblings. I found it ironic because evenIwas not close with my siblings.
"I absolutely have to beat Javier this year. If I have to watch his stupidly pretty face smirk at me because he's beaten me again, I'll lose my mind," I said, seriousness evident in my tone.
Everyone at the table gave me a funny look.
"What?" I asked, confused.
Before anyone could speak up, Justin mumbled, "Speak of the devil."
Our eyes followed Justin's to find Javier walking past our table. Javier was about six feet tall. He had smooth, tan caramel skin and black fluffy hair. Each of his ears were pierced and that was something I always found hot on guys. I couldn't deny that Javier was hot as hell. Seriously, he wasfine.
But that did not change my hatred for him.
On his right arm walking beside him was his girlfriend, Diane. Diane had never done any harm to me in any way, so I had no strong dislike for her besides the fact that she was my rival's girlfriend. She seemed like a decent girl with her long brown hair and freckles.
An annoying girl that was in one of my classes–whom I also did not like–had said that Diane and I looked alike. That girl was clearly blind because we did not look alike at all. The only similarity was that we both had brown hair. Her hair was bone straight and long while mine was curly and much, much shorter. My dad was Asian, and my mom was Black, so my hair texture was most definitely a lot different than hers.
As Javier and his girlfriend moved past us, I glared at him. He instantly noticed and returned my glare with a wink. I rolled my eyes at him. It was our normal lunch routine. The sound of Ricky’s voice brought me out of my thoughts.
"Forget about Javier," Ricky told me. "You will win this year, and you'll get to rub it in his face."
I gave Ricky an appreciative smile. I really hoped he was right, because I was not sure that I could handle the loss for the fourth year in a row.
After lunch was anatomy class, so once it ended I headed straight there. It was a class that I shared with Javier. God, he wassoannoying. Answering the questions with his stupid, cheeky smile on his face that showed his perfectly straight, white teeth. His teeth were so white, they could have blinded a person. No wonder he was always showing them off.
His seat was close to mine, though not directly next to me. He sat two rows in front of me, which was not enough distance between us in my opinion. It was close enough to where we could hear each other's side comments, plus I felt that I was constantly staring at the back of his head.
"It's because right there is simple squamous tissue. It allows substances to pass through easily," Javier answered.
I was in anatomy class, a class that I shared with Javier. Our anatomy teacher responded with a grin. "Correct, you always answer correctly!"
“‘You always answer correctly,’" I mumbled in a mocking tone.
"Okay, and why does simple squamous allow substances to pass through?" she asked the class, awaiting an answer from one of her students.
"Because it's thin," I blurted out.
She looked at me and nodded once. "Correct."
My anatomy teacher did not dislike me like my history teacher did, she simply loved Javier more than anyone else in the class. That was not unusual. Javier, who was sitting in front of me, turned around for a brief moment to smirk at me. I resisted the urge to jump out of my chair and strangle him.
The rest of the class went by in a blur. I continued to try to answer more questions than the golden boy in front of me. It was a way of competing with him. A way of proving that I was capable of beating him at something. It was our thing.
Two
Eli
"Ihonestly have no idea what to do for my campaign this year," I complained through the phone. "I gave out candy sophomoreandjunior year, yet I lost both times."
