Summer of '07

The Rivalry

Chapter 5

July 2004

~TRAVIS~

Not long after my date with Heather did I find myself being harassed by Elijah Radford, who of course must've found out that the two of us had hung out the night before. And apparently he also must've found out that Heather was just as into me as she was to him. And thus was the beginning of the infamous rivalry between Travis Tucker and Elijah Radford.

    It all started when I woke up one morning being splashed from a bucket of cold water by Elijah and his goons. "Stay away from Heather... she's way out of your league and deserves someone who isn't a loser... or a fag," he said, looking me up and down with such misplaced contempt. Before then, I had rarely ever even talked to him so he had no real reason to hate my guts the way he did. I didn't understand how he had gotten the impression that I was a loser or a fag considering the fact that he didn't know me at all at the time. It took me years to find out the whole truth behind that mystery and it certainly wasn't what I expected.

    "And you think she deserves someone like you?!" I retorted in an effort to spite him as he walked off, storming out of the cabin like an arrogant asshole. There was no way in hell I was gonna lose Heather to that psycho. As soon as she saw the mean and entitled side of Elijah Radford there was no way she would still be into him.

    So that afternoon at lunch when I saw Heather again the first thing I did was tell her what Elijah did to me in the morning and how he threatened me to stay away from her. And the reaction she gave me was nothing of what I had expected. She laughed and said, "Oh my god, Trav, is this your attempt to win me over by telling me that Elijah's a jerk and that you're the one I belong with?"

    "What? No, I'm just trying to warn you about what kinda guy he's like, that's all. I mean, he's conceited and he thinks he's entitled to you. If you ask me, I think that's a pretty big red flag."

    "Well, that's why I'm not asking you. If Elijah really is the jerk you say he is, let me find that out for myself," she said, still unconvinced and rather annoyed at my efforts to defame Elijah. I just hoped that that alone hadn't just tarnished my own chances with her.

    "I'm just tryna look out for you, that's all."

    "I'm sure you are... thanks but I can take it from here, I'm a big girl," she said as she rose from the lunch table that we had been dining at. "I'll see ya around, Trav."

    "Yeah, I'll... see ya around."

    Well, clearly that attempt had failed miserably, but I wasn't done yet. Heather would just have to see for herself how much of a jackass Elijah really was.

Later that evening, I got my bunk-mate, Daniel, to help me with my plan to expose Elijah as a bully in front of Heather so that she would see for herself that he was a bad guy and that she was much better suited with me. 

    On the way back to the cabins after dinner, I personally confronted Elijah and pretended to make amends with him by saying, "I see that we've started off on the wrong foot and I was just hoping that we could..."

    "Kiss?! Nice try, faggot, I don't swing that way!" he loudly interrupted me so that he could purposely embarrass me in front of his friends as they laughed at his pathetic attempt to insult me. Really? Kiss? Where the hell did that come from?

    "What I was trying to say is that I was hoping we could call it a truce and put this bullshit rivalry behind us," I said, holding my hand out for him to shake.

    His friends laughed at me as if I were some amusing circus clown before them. Elijah however didn't and just looked me up and down as he always did and just smacked the palm of my hand out of his way, mumbling, "Truce," with no sense of sincerity whatsoever.

    I had told Daniel to bring Heather over as soon as Elijah started to act like an asshole but so far he hadn't been so bad so I of course had to keep talking to him until he was annoyed.

    "Boy, that's a relief because Heather just told me today that she's thinking about taking our friendship to the next step... if you know what I mean." 

    Elijah instantly turned back around to face me as his cheeks grew red in a veiled fury. "You're lying," he said. "Heather would never go with a loser like you. You're not her type."

    "And what makes you think that you are, bro?" I said, almost mockingly.

    Elijah aggressively shoved me back. He wasn't that much bigger than I was but the way he shoved me almost had me falling over. "Heather doesn't go for faggots, that's why," he replied and at the time it made no real sense to me why he was always pulling the gay card with every one of his insults. Looking back on this moment suddenly makes so much more sense now.

    "I'm sure she doesn't... and that's exactly why she's not into you." And that comment right there just earned me a punch to the face that ruptured my lip within the instant. Yet I didn't fall back and continued to stand my ground. "Ya know, it's kinda telling that the only insults you can come up with are the gay ones... got something to tell us?" I said with my newly busted lip, just before Elijah took a second strike at me. By that point we were both on the ground and in the corner of my eye I could see Daniel running off to bring Heather over. I fought back for a little while, but as soon as Heather arrived I had given up so that Elijah looked like the bad guy while I was the victim. 

    "Guys, stop!" Heather cried, though she didn't really bother to do much of anything other than spectate. 

    It wasn't until one of the camp counselors had heard about the fight, that it finally concluded. Two of the guy counselors immediately headed over to the site of the fight and one of them pulled Elijah off of me as the other helped me up from the ground. With barely any time for me to recover, they promptly escorted the both of us to the camp discipline office.

    We waited outside the camp director's office for quite some time in a tight waiting room area. It was utterly quiet as the two of us just waited and refused to speak to each other. I wanted to say something but what was there for me to say to him? He was a jerk and there was nothing I could say that would change that. Instead I decided to just keep the silence as I dealt with my bleeding lip and throbbing eyelid.

    Eventually the camp director had finally decided to take some time out of his busy schedule to have a chat with us about fighting on camp grounds and how that was strictly prohibited and so on. Since it was our first offense, the director decided to let us both off "lightly" by simply banning us from attending some evening activity to instead spend our night helping out in the kitchen. Which I was fine with and Elijah didn't really seem to give a s**t.

    After we were dismissed from the director's office, we both ran into Heather who had been waiting to confront the both of us.

    "Heather..." I said as I was pretty happy to see her, hoping that she had finally come to her senses about picking me instead of the douchebag beside me.

    Her facial expressions however did not replicate mine and I could tell that she was not happy about what had just gone down. She scowled at us both and had begun shaking her head in disappointment. "You guys are so immature... I honestly don't know what to say to either one of you guys..."

    "He started it," Elijah said, quick to point the finger at me when in reality he was the one who threw the first punch. "I was just minding my own business when this clown comes up to me and starts telling me how you two are suddenly a thing now and then he starts insulting me and—"

    "I don't care who started it!" Heather briskly cut him off as I assume she was uninterested in hearing the rest of his BS. Bless her. "The fact that you guys got into a fight over me is just... wow... it's just pathetic. I thought both of you were better than that." Did she really? I mean, we were like 15 at the time. This is something that 15-year-old boys do. You can't expect us to be mature already when we're still essentially children. 

    "Okay, first of all, he's a liar! He's the one who insulted and attacked me. I was just trying to make peace with him and he still has the audacity to tell me that I'm not good enough to be with you because I'm a 'faggot'... and then he punches me in the face and starts beating the s**t outta me." Not entirely how it went down but of course I'm gonna omit the parts that make me look like I instigated the fight. "I mean, didn't you see me getting beat up by this psycho?" 

    "Yes... I saw you on the ground like a wimp taking a beating and not even bothering to fight back. Real nice, Trav. That definitely makes me wanna date you now." She just rolled her eyes and proceeded to face Elijah. "Look, I don't know who's telling the truth here but the fact that you guys can't handle this situation like adults and instead decide to fight it out like a couple of eight-year-olds makes me completely uninterested in either of you guys..." Oh, we'll see about that in three years. "... so yeah, I'm done." She walked off after that and completely left the two of us feeling as though we had just fought over nothing. At the time, it might've seemed like we had seen the last of her but this was just the beginning.

    I took a glance at Elijah and I could see in his face that he felt bad about the whole thing now, knowing that in the end it was all for nothing. He however didn't say anything to me as if his pride prevented it and instead he proceeded to walk off. Okay, f**k you too, then!