CHAPTER 3
685 Words
Avery didn’t need to look at the board again. She already knew what it said.
Jaxon creed- 98.3%
Avery Roberts-98.1%
Two damn decimals. That thin, mocking space between their names had become a permanent fixture- like a scar she didn’t earn but carried anyways. Her name would come second, like an echo behind his voice. Like a leftover thought.
She didn’t need a reminder that she wasn’t enough. Life had been screaming that at her since the day her mother slammed the door, and her father picked up a bottle.
But this, this board, this stupid, smug leaderboard posted outside the school office every month- it was a different kind of cruelty. Al cleaner one. Polished, sanitized. Pretty, even. Like a perfect slap delivered with a smile.
She tore her gaze before her eyes could burn.
…..
Avery moved through the halls with her hoodie and her head low the noise of students felt distant, like a movie playing behind glass. Girls laughed too loud. Boys smacked each other on their backs and joked in voices built to be heard. Everything about them said we belong here.
She didn’t.
She belonged nowhere. To nothing.
Except her grades. The only thing anyone could attach to her name were her grades.
And even those couldn’t love her back.
….
The lucnchroom buzzed with life. The fluorescent light overhead buzzed like they wanted to humiliate her personally.
She slid into the corner booth where she always sat. Lola was already there-hair braided back, big hoop earrings and a bandana that tied her braids.
“You didn’t eat again,” Lola said, pointing to Avery’s untouched tray.
Avery pushed the food around with her plastic fork. “Not hungry.”
“You never are. It’s actually creepy.”
Avery didn’t reply. Just stabbed at a limp piece of lettuce until it tore.
Then:
“Jaxon beat me again.”
Lola snorted into her juice. “No s**t. You talk about him more than you talk about your grades now. It’s giving obsession.”
Avery's head whipped up. “I’m not obsessed.”
“You are.” Lola leaned back, balancing her chair on two legs like she didn’t care about gravity or consequences. “You’ve said his name, like, five times today. And it’s only lunchtime.”
“I hate him,” Avery muttered, voice tight.
“Exactly. Obsessed.”
Avery's fingers curled into fists beneath the table.
“Do you know how hard I study, Lola? I don’t sleep sometimes. I get home from the dinner at midnight, and I still study. I memorize notes while washing dishes. My wrists hurt from writing. And this guy…” she spat the word like venom, “he shows up in designer sneakers, half-awake, and still gets a higher score.”
Lola blinked. “Okay, but, like… why does he bother you so much?”
“He doesn’t Lola” Avery rolled her eyes.
Lola mimicked Avery in a high-pitched voice “he doesn’t Lola” Avery giggled and pushed her slightly.
Lola finally reached across the table and gently stole the fork from Avery’s hand.
“Eat,” she said. “You can’t rage on an empty stomach.”
Avery sighed and picked up the roll of bread instead. It was dry. Like chewing paper.
Her gaze drifted across the cafeteria. And there he was. Of course he was.
Jaxon Creed. Leaning against a table. Laughing with some guy on the football team. Wearing that stupid, lazy grin like it came with his distractingly handsome face.
His laugh reached her. That low, deep, careless kind of laugh.
God, she hated him.
She hated that she noticed the way he looked when he laughed.
She hated that he never once noticed her.
She hated that when she closed her eyes at night, his name echoed in her head like a curse she couldn’t undo.
And she really hated that maybe Lola was right.
Maybe it was obsession.
“But not the romantic kind” Avery thought to herself reinforcing this thought in her head like she was trying to convince herself.
- Writer
