Me:Maybe I do
Me: What if I said I miss you?
The typing bubble appeared, then disappeared, and then reappeared again. My chest felt tight as I waited for his reply.
Javier:i would say you’re lucky because I miss you too
Javier:but don’t say it if you don’t mean it. no take-backs
Me:I miss you
Javier:so come over tomorrow and fix it
Me:But what if we can’t focus on studying…
Javier:oh yeah, I forgot how irresistibly distracting I am
The typing bubbles appeared, then disappeared, and then reappeared again before the message was sent.
Javier:then we don’t study
The cocky bastard had me smiling at my phone like a fool. I would no doubt be shy about our messages in the morning since Javier had a thing for making me timid around him. I was still trying to figure out why that happened. To figure out why when he said certain things I felt butterflies in my stomach and couldn’t stop smiling.
Me:Goodnight sir arrogant
Javier:see you tomorrow, Eli
Twenty-three
Eli
"So," I asked as I sat on Javier’s bed. "Did you fail like everyone else apparently did?"
I showed up at my rival's house just like I said I would. I remembered sending each individual text and was embarrassed by them like I knew I would be, but Javier wouldn’t let me back out. He insisted I stand firm on my word. He had no clue those texts were sent on drunk courage.
One of teacher’s had just updated the test grades on our school grading website from a test we had taken a couple of days ago. She sent it along with a message telling us how disappointed she was that our class average was so low.
Javier nodded once. "38%."
My brows raised. "Actually?"
"No," he chuckled at my gullibility as he showed the ‘75%’ on his phone screen.
I rolled my eyes, I should've known better than to believe that. The day he scored that low was the day I would look outside and see pigs soaring through the sky.
He sat beside me as he waited for me to pull up my score. I scrolled to the gradebook on my phone and braced myself for theresult. If the perfect Javier scored that low, then mine might be in the trenches.
I frowned at the 70% that was presented on the screen.
If the class average was as awful as our teacher had made it seem and even Javi didn’t score that well, then the fault was with the teacher and not the students. Even knowing this, I was still struggling to be unbothered by it. I bit on the inside of my cheek as I stared at the screen.
Javi was looking over my shoulder. "I bet that’s higher than the class average."
He had no way of knowing that. Even if it was, it wasn’t higher than his score.
“Maybe,” I said quietly.
"That means it’s better than the majority of classmates."
