I had always wondered what life would be like if I didn't exist. If I was never born, everyone I know would have a different life. For some it would be bad, like for my close friends who truly cared about me. But for most I'm sure it would be a delight for me not to exist.

It had always been crazy to me how one little thing, one tiny action can change one's entire life. If one thing did not happen at that one moment, you could be an entirely different person.

If one particular person never came into your life, you wouldn't get to have all of those amazing memories with them. You would never get the chance for those relationships to blossom into something spectacular.

"Where's my paper?" Ricky asked as he frantically searched for the paper he lost.

Ricky was one of the few people that truly cared about me, and that feeling was mutual. He was my best friend. He was someone that I would do anything for just as he would do for me. 

I shrugged as Ricky rolled his eyes at my uselessness and continued to look for the paper.

"-and then Hitler and Stalin signed a Nazi-Soviet Non Aggression Pact." My U.S. History, Mrs. Corbett, lectured.

Mrs. Corbett had an incessantly annoying voice. It's was really scratchy, it sounded like she smoked fifty packs of cigarettes a day. She was only in her thirties, so I had hoped that that was not the reason and that she just had an annoying ass voice. Either way, it was awful.

In that moment I was struggling not to zone out and start daydreaming.

My teacher continued, "Hitler broke this pact days later. Can someone tell me what this led to?"

Silence filled the room. Mrs Corbett looked around hoping for anyone to answer, anyone. This was an honors class, but these were the least interactive honors kids I had ever been in a class with. It was like they were afraid to speak.

I kind of liked it though. It was annoying to always have someone else trying to answer questions faster than me. It was also nice not to have to deal with obnoxious personalities.

I raised my hand since clearly no one else was going to.

Mrs. Corbett pointed to me reluctantly. "I guess you can answer, Elias."

Despite the fact that I answered questions aloud often, I really hated it. Most of the time my answer was correct, but the few times it wasn't, it was extremely embarrassing. However, answering questions made me understand and remember material more, which was the only way I was going to become valedictorian by the end of the year.

I cleared my throat. "It led to the start of World War II."

"Correct, as always." She mumbled with a bored look on her face.

Mrs. Corbett had always hated me for some unknown reason. I had only ever been a good kid in her class, so I couldn't understand why she acted that way toward me. It never bothered me that much, though. Fuck Mrs. Corbett and her scratchy voice.

"Well aren't you just a know it all." My best friend, Ricky, teased.

I smiled, aware that he was joking. "It is not my fault that none of you guys want to answer questions."

He rolled his eyes. "Well if you'd give us a chance to answer..."

I rolled my eyes as I chuckled. Adjusting my foot in the process, I ended up kicking something. I looked down and saw a bag. A bag full of Oreos, which were obviously Ricky's because he loved Oreos.

I poked my best friend. "Ricky."

Ricky averted his eyes from Mrs. Corbett who was still yapping away. He furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"

I silently gestured to the Oreos, he knew I was asking for one. He replied with a groan. "You're always eating my shit, but fine."

I happily grabbed a few Oreos out of the bag. Ricky was always reluctant to share, but he would normally give in. At least to me.

Ricky and I had been best friends since elementary school, we met the year I skipped the second grade. I had no friends and felt a little intimidated because all of the kids were now a year older than me, but Ricky instantly befriended me.

Ricky had been with me through the good and the bad, and he knew more about me than pretty much anyone else. He knew more than my brother, my sister, my aunt. Hell, I would say that he even knew me better than I knew myself.

Being so close we shared lots of things with each other. Food, clothes, games, retainers. Okay, the retainer thing was one time and an accident, but we still shared it.

"Elias." Ricky grabbed my attention as I was stuffing an entire Oreo into my mouth. "Do not eat them all."

—

"Are you pissed at me?" I asked my best friend, my eyebrows furrowed.

"Am I?" My best friend, Ricky, stopped in his tracks, causing me to bump into him. He swiftly spun around and faced me. "Oh, I dunno. What the fuck do you think?"

I crossed my arms and sighed. Ricky turned back around and continued to the lunch table. I tried to keep up with him, but damn, he walked fast when he's upset. It was hard to keep up when weaving through 3000 other students.

Ricky plopped down on the bench next to our friends and glared at me. Our friends looked between the both of us with confusion on their faces. I sighed again and put an apologetic look on my face.

"I'm sorry I ate all of your Oreos." I apologized.

It truly was an accident, I couldn't help the fact that I loved Oreos. The only time I would get to have snacks like that is when Ricky brought them and I sometimes... got carried away.

The confusion on our friends' faces was quickly replaced with laughter.

"You're not sorry." Ricky looked down at the ground and pouted. "You greedy, curly haired asshole. You knew what you were doing."

"Is curly haired supposed to be an insult?"

Ricky did not give me a response, he merely shook his head.

I watched as one of our friends, Bella, rolled her eyes. She then patted Ricky's shoulder a few times in comfort. "I told you to stop letting Elias near your snacks. He's a thief."

"Am not!" I defended myself. "He literally gave me permission."

"I agree with Bella." Another person in our friend group, Justin, said.

Yeah, of course you agree with Bella.

Justin was in our friend group, but to be honest, I didn't like him. Everyone said that I was reading too much into it, but I felt like he was always making passive aggressive comments toward me specifically. He would make jokes, but they didn't seem too much like jokes. However, everyone else in the group liked him.

So I had to suck it up.

"Do you want one of my Pringles, Ricky?" Kailey asked Ricky.

Kailey and Ricky were dating, they had been for a year. They were the type of couple that made you want to puke. They're overly affectionate, have obnoxious nicknames for each other, and are just all around repulsing.

But maybe I was just a hater.

Don't get me wrong, they were both great friends to me. They were funny, kind, and were always there when I needed them. But when they were together, it was traumatizing.

Ricky shook his head. "No thanks, Kails. What I want is my Oreos."

I averted my eyes when Ricky shot another glare my way.

I guess I shouldn't have eaten his Oreos.

"Anyway..." Bella changed the subject. "Who's ready for student council elections?"

"Student council?" Justin asked, a smug look on his face. "Wow, you guys would be the ones to get excited for that nerdy shit."

Justin didn't start hanging out with us until the beginning of the school year, which had been two weeks ago. He didn't have any other friends and Bella felt bad for him so she invited him to be with us. In my opinion, he didn't fit into our friend group. But if I were to say that I would be the bad guy.

I shrugged. "It's not our fault you have half a brain cell and can't relate."

Justin flipped me off.

"I thought student council elections already happened. Aren't they supposed to pick the year before?" Ricky asked as he bit into a Pringle. I guess he did take Kailey up on her offer.

"Yeah, usually." Bella told him. "But we didn't get to because of the flood, remember?"

Ah, yes. The flood that ruined our school completely. Elections were supposed to be during the last two weeks of school the year prior, but that's when the flood happened. We ended up not going to school during those two weeks so we got an early summer, but no elections. So, we get to choose now instead.

Everyone nodded, remembering the flood. Kailey smiled at me. "And this year is finally the year Eli will be president!"

The table erupted with praise and encouraging words for me, I assumed everyone besides Justin. I did not even bother to look at Justin because why harm my eyes?

My friends' encouragement gave me a feeling of warmth. "Thanks guys. This year is my year for sure."

It was our senior year so it was my last chance to become class president. I was tired of giving Javier Cortez's stupidly perfect face the satisfaction of beating me every year.

Who was Javier Cortez? No, he wasn't a spy kid...unfortunately. He was just another person who irked me to my core. I also happened to share a few classes with him, but I did every year. We were both in all of the honors classes.

He was the perfect golden boy. Hella tall, extremely handsome, in line for valedictorian - right next to me, of course - , great personality, girls all over him. He did everything better than me no matter how hard I tried.

It had been like that since middle school. He always managed to come out just the slightest bit above me, he had to have been doing it on purpose. I hated him. If he wasn't at this school, I wouldn't have to compete for valedictorian. I would automatically get the spot because most of the kids in this ridiculous school didn't take academics seriously and weren't really the brightest.

Yes, that entire paragraph sounded douchey. That was the type of asshole behavior Javier Cortez brought out of me.

Javier Cortez was really popular, literally everyone knew him. Everyone liked him, I swear I had never heard one person - besides myself - say that they did not like him. He had girls constantly chasing him, even though he had a girlfriend. His girlfriend was uncoincidentally one of the popular girls in the school.

I was somewhat popular, 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 while 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 to be mistaken as triplets, even though I did not mind it much.

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 god awful name. It worked at first, but only for the first few years. Eventually people stopped, well, most people. I still had a few that would call me that, though.

I sometimes would have random people talk to me because they wanted to get close with my siblings. I found it ironic because even I was not close with my siblings.

"I absolutely have to beat Javier this year. If I have to watch his stupidly beautiful face smirk at me because he's beaten me again, I'll lose my mind." I said, seriousness in my voice.

Everyone at the table gave me a funny look.

"What?" I asked, confused.

Before anyone could speak up, Justin said, "Speak of the devil."

Our eyes followed Justin's to see Javier walking past our table. Javier was about six foot. He had tan caramel skin that looked super soft, and black fluffy hair. He also had pierced ears, which I had always found hot on guys.

Okay, I couldn't deny that Javier was hot as hell. Seriously, he was fine. However, 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 dislike for her. She seemed like a very sweet 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. This would happen every single day during lunch.

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 sure hope he's right.