There were less opponents than last time which was odd since eliminations weren’t a thing in the competition. I guess people had given up after the first round after they did not place where they wanted to. Whatever, I wasn't complaining because that meant it was more likely for Javi and I to come out on top.
My fatigue from having to be up earlier than normal only made my nerves worse. Javier kept up the conversation between us just like he did last round. I didn't know if it was because he was nervous like I was and was trying to distract himself, or if it was just because he liked to talk. I was trying to focus on remembering everything we went over when we weren’t…distracted, but it was difficult to do that with the constant babbling.
Principal Montgomery was very enthusiastic today. After our second place 'victory,’ as she called it, she was optimistic. She seemed convinced that we would win this round and then next. If that happened, we would no doubt make it to the finals.
She was so hopeful that she had been bragging that wewouldwin. She said it as if it was a fact set in stone. In the morning announcements at school, she told all the students and faculty over the intercom that we were competing. She did that the day after we competed for the first time, and she was sure to announce that we placed second. It was fine since our participation wasn’t a secret that needed to be kept, but I wished she would’ve been more subtle about it.
Then a couple of days ago she brought it up again. She wanted our fellow classmates to know thatwhenJavi and I won the entire competition, our school would be the first to win in our district ever. Her optimism and faith in us were nice and it was great to know that she thought that highly of us. Though, inthe event that we did not win like she hoped, it would be terribly disappointing for everyone involved.
We were in the exact same room as last time and they had us seated in the same spots. We weren't almost late this time, thankfully. We were early instead. That gave us some time to internally panic while we waited.
Javier’s chattering had finally ceased once we reached where we needed to be. He was thinking about something while his finger tapped against the table incessantly.
"What I want to ask you has absolutely nothing to do with the competition," he said, his tone low because the room was quiet, "but I feel like a distraction might be good for the both of us, so I am going to ask you anyway."
My head tilted. “Ask me what?"
"Benji acts pretty odd, right? Or is it just me?"
I found his behavior slightly creepy, honestly. I was trying to get rid of those thoughts, but now my mind kept wandering back to every interaction we had ever had before, and they all made me shudder.
I shrugged. "A little, I guess. Why?"
It was his turn to shrug. "The few times I’ve been around him he’s acted strange. I’ve seen him do shit that makes me question what his intentions are. Mostly with you."
Others could see it too? Ever since he stopped treating me like his friend and girlfriend's little brother, things had felt uneasy. Life was much less complicated when he’d only speak a few sentences to me while I gave him longing stares because of the crush I had on him.
Javi continued. “I don’t know if you remember, but one of the parties you went to he was persistent on getting you to drink what he was giving you. That was alarming.”
Javier’s words brought back memories I didn’t know I had. “For real?”
“Yeah. I haven’t seen him do anything else, but I hate the vibes I get from him.”
We couldn't talk about it further because it was time for the competition to start. I did not have anything else to say, anyway. My siblings would probably get on Benji since I told them about our mall adventure together, so I doubted that I needed to worry about him anymore.
This round of Thinkfast wasn't like the last. We didn't have to shout our answers when it was our turn. Instead, we had to take a test and they would average you and your partner's score together. I learned that was how the round was structured weeks ago, but my hands still shook when the test paper was handed to us.
I had lately been doing more poorly than normal on tests. I was working on ways to fix it, but the anxiety I had from knowing I wasn’t doing well only added to the tension. Tests were becoming a nerve-wracking thing for me, so one being part of the competition wasn't fun.
They gave us forty-five minutes to answer forty questions. That was only enough time if you knew how to solve the problems without any hesitation or error. Some of the questions I knew off the top of my head, some I had to think about for a minute, and some that I had never seen a day in my life.
I looked over my shoulder to see how Javier was doing. I tried to do it discreetly to avoid being accused of cheating, even though we were all given separate tests to eliminate it.
If Javier was stressed, then he was certainly not showing it. His shoulders were relaxed as he wrote on the paper with ease. I focused my attention back to my own test so that I try to be as calm as him. It didn't help that the room was extremely cold. The hairs on my arms were sticking up and I was shivering, yet everyone else seemed fine. I was way too in my own head.
The forty minutes went by in what felt like two. I had managed to finish half of the questions confidently, a couple I guessed on, and the rest I had no clue what I was looking at.
We had an hour to kill while the judge scored all the tests. Principal Montgomery let us wander by ourselves while she chatted with some of the principals from our rival schools. We walked to the food court as there wasn't really anywhere else to go.
"You don't look happy," Javier pointed out as we sat down at a table.
I scratched the top of my head. "How do you think you did?”
"Not terrible, but I didn't understand all of what was on there," he admitted. He propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. "What about you?"
"Alright, I guess." Though, ‘alright’ may have been too optimistic.
Waiting for them to score the tests felt like torture. I would rather know how I did immediately so that I could get the emotions over with, whatever they may be. Instead, I had to sit with the possibility that I did great, as well as the possibility that it was an absolute train wreck. The negative feelings outweighed the positive ones.
