◤ chapter sixteen ▸ wavering
doubts ◢

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         MICHELLE WAS KICKING HIS ass with Decathlon practice, leaving him constantly mentally defeated as he went home every day. He liked Decathlon, liked the mind puzzles and the math problems, but he just didn't like being the reserve member. He didn't like being around all of these people and not being able to compare to them.

Around his friends it wasn't a problem. Sabrina never showed off her intelligence at the lunch table or around them, never placed herself on a pedestal because she was obviously going to be their valedictorian. She was just chill and kind, never holding her smarts over them. And Betty, who was also very smart even if she never acted like it, never smirked at him and taunted him with the fact that he was just a reserve member on their Decathlon team.

But when he was there, around him, and he saw Peter fucking Parker barely trying and always being the fastest – the smartest – and yet here he was spending minutes trying to figure out the same problem made his blood boil. So he made a couple jabs at the guy, whatever, it was nothing too bad but then Michelle was snap at him and made it clear to him that he was replaceable; he was the back up.

When Peter left the team, they were in shambles. He was the smartest one there and he quit, but when he wanted back on Flash instantly lost his newfound permanent spot on the team because precious Peter Parker was back and they were saved. The dude even missed their competition and he wasn't kicked off! But, no, if Flash did the same thing he would be gone so quickly. They were just waiting for the opportunity to force him off the team.

It was all because he wasn't as smart as them, he couldn't think as quickly. But he still knew things, he was still a valuable member, but no one saw it that way but Betty – not that she ever really said anything to Michelle about it because the captain might kick her off the team because of Michelle's new friendship with Parker.

Honestly, the current state of the Decathlon team made him miss when he played football. At least he was never constantly berated, at least he wasn't in a fragile position on the team and his teammates made sure to tell him that every chance they got. The only thing keeping him on the Decathlon team was the fact that his father used to hate that he quit football to be a 'fucking useless nerd' (in his own words), and the fact that everyone on the team – besides Betty – would be way too happy with his departure.

So he stayed even if made him feel like shit.

And he continued to practice for it, reading all that he could about obscure facts and doing all these math problems, during study hall so that he felt more useful and maybe one day someone else besides Betty would notice how much he worked and recognize it – praise him for it. But that was a pipe dream; it would probably never come true.

"Ew, math," a voice piped in, sitting down beside him in the library as he continued working. He looked up and saw Sabrina, who was smiling at him.

(He would never admit it if his heart skipped a beat at the sight of her, because she was so beautiful and so smart, but not arrogant.)

"Yeah, I'm just trying to get quicker at solving these problems," Flash explained.

"But why?" Sabrina asked him, leaning in to look at what type of problems he was solving, "There's nothing wrong with taking a long time on a math problem if it means you get it right. Rushing only creates more room for mistakes."

Flash shot her a grin, "Yeah, but it's for Decathlon. Gotta be fast with that."

Sabrina hummed and nodded, "Decathlon. Liz would be so mad if she knew I quit..."

She trailed off, looking sadly down at the problems as she thought of the old Decathlon captain. But Liz Allan was so much more than that; she was class president and the most popular and beautiful girl in the school. And to Sabrina, she was more. Flash, along with everyone else at the school, knew at the short relationship the two girls had together, ending things only because Liz' family was moving to Oregon after her father was arrested for theft and running an underground organization using alien technology.

At first when Flash heard about the business he thought it was pretty cool. They had to be really smart to know how to fuse alien technology with theirs and Flash wanted to just study those pieces and see how they worked together. But he quickly got over that because while the tech was cool, what her dad was doing in general wasn't and that outweighed everything else.

And he also felt bad for Liz. They weren't really friends, she was nice to everyone and made everyone feel like they were one big happy family and sometimes he drove her to school because he used to have a car before Spider-Man took it and destroyed it (which was as cool as it was damaging.) But Liz liked other people more than him – like Sabrina, Betty, and Cindy who were her three best friends before she started to date Sabrina and everything – and Flash had Betty as well, along with Rylie, and sometimes Sabrina.

But now Liz was gone and he had their friends and Sabrina was sad and he felt guilty for his heart skipping a beat (again, he would never admit that) when he saw her because he had already taken everything else Liz had and now it felt like he was winning Sabrina too. And he knew that wasn't the reality of the situation but it felt like it was and that outweighed logic.

"Well, she was right," Flash said, trying not to dwell too much on Liz and the lingering feelings, "You'd be really good at it."

The Montgomery girl blushed at this and looked down, her hair beginning to cover her face, "Oh, shut up. It takes me the whole class period to finish a quiz or a test – you know that – I'd be terrible at competition."

Flash shrugged, "You're smarter than half the people in there."

"No, I'm not," Sabrina scoffed, "I might have higher grades than them but that's because I'm a perfectionist and I work harder on assignments. But like, there's Peter and we all he's smarter than the rest of us. He'd so be valedictorian if he completed all his assignments, but he doesn't."

"Maybe, but I think you represent our school better than him," Flash said, probably the kindest thing he had ever said when mentioning Parker.

Sabrina smiled brightly at him. "Really?" she asked him, "How so?"

"Well, you're more social and you know everyone in our grade more. Parker holes himself away with his friend and doesn't talk to anyone. And everyone likes you more than him," Flash explained, adding in the last part a bit more cheekily.

"Not everyone. Michelle definitely doesn't like me. Like, I don't know why, I've never really said anything to her but she hates me," Sabrina said, "I think it has something to do with Toni because Toni hates Peter now and she's just backing up her friend and that means hating me too."

"Toni hates Peter?" Flash asked, taken aback. Toni Alderson wasn't the nicest person in the world, but she never really said that she hated anyone just outright.

Sabrina nodded, "Peter dated her cousin and then broke his heart so of course she hates him now."

"Wait, you're telling me that he's capable of breaking someone's heart?" Flash began to laugh at the thought of little Peter Parker breaking some guy's heart. It was hilarious.

"Yep," Sabrina said, though she began to laugh at the thought as well, "From what I heard, they weren't together long or anything, but it's still a relationship."

"And now Michelle hates you because she's sticking behind Peter," Flash concluded and Sabrina nodded, "Well, that's a really shitty reason to hate someone."

"Tell me about it."

"But if it makes you feel any better, she hates me more than she could ever hate you," Flash said.

Sabrina looked at him, "How in the world is that supposed to make me feel better?"

He shrugged, "I don't know. I mean, you aren't the worst thing to her. I don't think she's capable of hating anything more than me other than like sexism, racism, and all of that."

"Michelle does hates that," Sabrina nodded, "But she hates you cause of Peter, too?"

He nodded. "Yep. I mean, it's whatever. I don't really care whether or not she likes me, so it doesn't matter."

"I mean, I can see why," Sabrina said cautiously before taking in a breath and looking at him, "You arepretty rude to Peter."

It felt like a punch in the gut to hear that from her. He knew when he got angry he wasn't the best person, but Peter Parker was the symbol of everything his father wanted him to be but he couldn't. He always failed and he was always punished, always asked why aren't you smart like him? You're just so fucking stupid, you worthless piece of space!

So of course he didn't like Peter, didn't like how he was just so easily smart and Flash wanted. Didn't like how hard he had to work but everything just came up so easily for Peter. How everyone liked him more, how his teachers berated him for answering questions in class when he got them wrong, never praising him when he answered correctly, but always giving the spotlight to Peter and placing him on a pedestal for how smart he was.

So he make jokes, he called Peter out on his lies, he called him Penis and he was rude. He was mean. He was a bully to him but he couldn't help it. He just got so angry thinking about Peter and how perfect he was while everyone always just called out Flash's flaws.

Flash just swallowed. "Whatever. I have work to do," he said to her, looking down at his math problems again.

He didn't see how her face fell, how guilt starting worming through her because now he was shutting her out. She didn't think he'd respond like that, didn't understand why he did, and now all she was getting was cold from him when a second ago it had been warmth.

She didn't understand, but Tessa did. Tessa understood him better than anyone else and didn't question him. She didn't tell him when he was being rude because she understood the cycle, the anger, but Sabrina didn't and he was scared that she never would.

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Flash found himself at Tessa's apartment after school, knocking at the door and hoping that she was home because he hadn't called or texted before rushing over. Thankfully, the door opened and Tessa frowned at the sight of him, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" Tessa asked before correcting herself as she shook her head, "Sorry, that's rude. It's just, you didn't really text or anything and I wasn't expecting anyone."

"Sorry," Flash automatically said, "I can come back some other time if you're busy."

She smiled and shook her head, "Not at all. Come on in."

He sighed in relief and walked inside the apartment, going straight to the couch he had spent many nights on with Tessa when they weren't just fucking each other. He heard the close door before the blonde girl made her way to the couch as well, sitting down and studying his features before asking, "Okay, what happened?"

He looked up at her, surprised that she figured out he was upset before he had even said anything. It seemed that surprise and alarm set upon his features and she rolled her eyes. "I've spent a lot of time with you, Flash, and your face is very expressive. I know when you need to tell me something or you're upset."

"Right," he nodded, accepting that assessment, "It's just – something happened at school today and I can't stop thinking about it."

"Well?" Tessa asked, obviously waiting for more of the story.

Flash swallowed, "There's this girl, Sabrina, and-and I kinda like her."

He started it off slowly because he didn't want to hurt Tessa by saying that he was interested in someone else. He didn't think she liked him, they acted more like friends with each other than anything else and she hasn't made any subtle attempts of taking things further, but he was still tentative about the topic.

Surprisingly, she nodded, "I know. Rylie told me about her, wanted to know what I thought about everything. She still thinks that we need to have feelings for each other to fuck but it's not like that. I think it's good you like someone else."

"Cool," Flash said, processing that, "But so, I like her, and I was in the library and she sat with me. We were talking and this guy – Peter, Peter Parker – came up in our conversation."

"Wait – Peter Parker with light brown hair and really nerdy. Like, wears a lot of science pun t-shirts and everything," Tessa frowned as she asked.

"Um, yeah? How do you know him?" Flash asked her.

"He used to date Finn. You know, before he went to juvie and everything," Tessa said, "The bastard broke his heart twice in the span of, like, two weeks."

"So he's really capable of being a heartbreaker? I did not see that coming..." Flash muttered to himself.

"Oh, yeah. I never really, like, met Peter but Finn talked about him a lot and now I kinda want Peter dead for breaking his heart," Tessa said, a fury in her eyes.

"Alright," Flash nodded before moving on, "Anyway, he came up because his friend, Michelle, doesn't like Sabrina and Michelle doesn't like me because I kinda like...well, I bully Peter."

Sabrina paused for a second before raising an eyebrow, "Really? You do?"

He nodded, "I just – he's so fucking smart without even trying and I work so hard to be on his level but I never am and everyone reminds me of it. So now whenever he's around I, well, I call him Penis and I make fun of him because he's everything my father wanted me to be. My dad...he always got so mad when I had a B in a class and he would compare me to Peter. I just – I just wanted him to feel my pain, I don't know."

Tessa sighed before moving to be right next to him and wrapping her arms around him. "It's not right to hate on Peter. He hasn't done anything wrong to you, but I guess I understand. But by doing this, you're letting your dad get to you and control you. I mean, I get it, I do. I've still dyed my hair since I broke up with Caden because he used to tell me I looked ugly with my brunette hair and some parts of me still believes it."

"I think you'd look beautiful no matter what your hair color is," Flash told her sincerely.

She gave him a smile, "Thanks. And, you know, maybe I do, but he still holds that over me. Every time I see my roots growing out and I think like what if I didn't dye my hair blonde again and instead went back to brunette, I think of him. And when you think of Peter, you think of your dad and you get and lash out because you never could with your dad."

Flash nodded, "Yeah, you're right. But I just – when Sabrina said that she understood why Michelle didn't like me because I'm rude to Peter I just...I froze. I broke down."

"That's because she doesn't understand," Sabrina said gently, rubbing circles into his hand, "She doesn't know why you do this, of course she thinks it's bad. I mean, I think it's bad but I understand why. That's an important factor."

"But what if she doesn't understand?" Flash questioned, "You know, what if I get with her and I tell trust her enough to tell her all about my dad and everything but she still doesn't understand and accuses me of lying for sympathy?"

"Well, do you really think she'll do that? Like, is that what she's like?" Sabrina inquired.

His instant thought was no; that wasn't Sabrina. She was caring and sweet, smart but not arrogant about it, she was a blooming flower not a cruel strike of lightning.

"No," he admitted, "But I just can't help but doubt her."

"I get it. But you have to take risks, yeah? You gotta have faith that she's not like that and that she'll accept you. You can't live in fear forever."

He nodded. She was right; Tessa was right, but he still had doubt. He was still scared and that was almost enough to keep from taking that leap of faith. Almost.