Life is kind of unfair.
Some people get a ton of good stuff from life: good looks, smarts, charisma, money, friends, athleticism, and the charm to make anyone fall at their feet.
And then there's me.
I don't know what it is about me. I'm not a mean person. I'm not even incredibly antisocial or geeky or whatever. I'm just... boring, I guess? Boring enough that I end up grossly overshadowed by the people who are just so incredibly gifted by life that I look like a lame slob in comparison.
I mean, I don't want to complain too much. Life gave me a couple of things. I'm 'musically inclined'- I started playing instruments pretty early on in my life, and I can currently play piano, clarinet, guitar, drums, flute, trumpet, and oboe. And I'm told I have a beautiful singing voice, but I've never taken lessons or anything. So... yeah, I guess I'm a total band nerd, which might explain why I've never been popular. I mean, sure. I have friends (barely enough to be plural). But, you know. It's still kind of irritating to watch other guys have it all.
For example: Axel King. Academic excellence, our sports coaches begging him to join their teams, friends with pretty much everyone in the school, a beautiful sports car, rumours about the latest charity his rich parents donated money to, and any teenager with an attraction to guys would cut off their dominant hand to date him.
It's really, really hard not to resent him. He has everything, his life is practically perfect. It's not entirely fair to blame him for that, but also. I stopped bothering with being fair when it comes to Axel King, way back in grade nine. Like I said, his life is practically perfect; I'm sure he doesn't care if I silently resent everything he does.
Let's start just by looking at his name. Axel King. It's like his parents got married, decided neither of their surnames were majestic enough, and changed it to King just so they could make a bunch of royalty jokes when they got rich. And then they were choosing what to name their baby, and they just went with the one that was on every single list called "Coolest Baby Names for Boys". Like, really. Axel King. Are you kidding me?
It would've been fantastic if he'd been named Axel King and then turned out to be some total geek. Like, a scrawny little kid glued to a computer at every opportunity hacking into video games to win them, with no social life whatsoever. But no. Unfortunately, he lived up to his name.
His friends have made it common knowledge at our high school that he has his own private gym in his basement, not that anyone doubts it. The guy is ripped. He nails every sport unit we have in gym, to the surprise of absolutely no one. Football, basketball, hockey, volleyball, even table tennis. Can you see why I resent him yet?
And then, he couldn't even be satisfied with being a dumb jock. No, he has to go and have incredible grades, with not a single spare period in his entire schedule for the four years I've gone to school with him. Pretty much everyone assumes he'll be valedictorian, so he can add that to his extensive list of high school achievements.
You'd assume that he'd be too busy with all of those classes and the workload for each of them, but naturally he still has time to be friends with pretty much every single student (and some teachers). Even if you've never talked to him before, after one conversation you'll feel like you've known him forever. And he won't even disappear on you after that. No, he sticks around. Somehow he has time for about five hundred friendships in addition to school and the rich people events that his parents take him to. It's unbelievable. It's like everything he does is effortlessly perfect.
And as if all of that isn't enough, he's rakishly handsome to an outrageous extent, and he has this way with girls that seems more like magic than anything else. He can have them fawning over him in like, a sentence. It's ridiculous and totally unfair. He doesn't even need to be good at flirting, the rest of his life would be enough to draw girls to him like a magnet anyways. But noooooo. Axel King must have everything going for him.
So yeah. It sucks to exist in the same city as him. He's a guy, I'm a guy, I automatically have to compete with him for pretty much everything, and I don't stand a chance.
And here's the part that really gets me.
He's in band.
Yeah, he couldn't even let me have that to myself. He's not effortlessly perfect at it, at least from what I've seen, but he's still in my territory, the one thing I'm good at and the one place I might be able to have a life, and everything I do is overshadowed by him. Because at this point, he's so perfect that he doesn't even have to do things to prove that he's perfect at them. It's just assumed.
So yeah. I resent him. And maybe that's unfair, but hey. Life is unfair.
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Band has regular morning practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which means getting up really early and going to school to be yelled at by our unforgiving and grumpy pre-caffeine conductor and band teacher. Some kids complain about it, but if you ask me they have nothing to complain about. They chose this for themselves. It's their own fault.
Unfortunately, Axel is one of those people who doesn't complain. He always seems to be wearing a friendly smile, even at ungodly hours of the morning when everyone wants either coffee or sleep. I kind of wish he complained- it would give me a valid reason to dislike him. Right now I just dislike him because he's perfect, and my almost-only friend Keira thinks I'm unreasonable. She says I'm just jealous. Well- obviously.
Axel plays the trumpet, which I find to be hilarious. I elbow Keira as he takes his seat and starts putting together his instrument. "Hey. Keira."
She shoots me a glare out of the corner of her eye.
"It's perfect that he plays the trumpet, because he's such a blowhard. Get it?"
She sighs deeply. "You know he's not. He's more modest than you are."
This is true, but it's not something that I want to acknowledge as the truth. I scowl at her. "I'm funny."
"No, you're a jealous idiot."
"Everyone shut up!" Ms. Vaken slams the band door closed behind her as she enters the room, scaring everyone into silence as she brusquely walks through the room to her conducting pedestal. She glares at all of us over the rim of her glasses like it's our fault she's up this early. "We have a thing in a month or so, and I need all your payments and permission slips back by the end of next week. I have, like, five. If I don't have a signed permission slip and cheque, you're not going. And I don't care if you cry, so don't go banking on that as your plan to come along. Now, I'm going to see if I can find some half decent coffee in this miserable building and everyone had better be warmed up and ready to play that thing we did yesterday by the time I get back." She slams her binder of music down on her pedestal, then storms back out of the room like she's on the warpath.
Silence lingers for a few moments once she's gone, then everyone snaps out of it and finishes assembling their instruments to start warming up. The cacophony of noise used to make me cringe, back when I was still unused to playing with other people, but now I'm used to it. Keira still winces every so often, which I definitely make fun of her for, but it's not really that bad. If we sounded like this when we were playing actual music, that would be a problem. Fortunately, it's not.
Ms. Vaken returns with a steaming mug in hand, but I can tell by the wrath in her eyes that she doesn't have any caffeine in her system yet. So whatever's in her mug is either decaffeinated, or she hasn't drank from it yet. I shudder at the thought of having to deal with an un-caffeinated Ms. Vaken all day.
After we've finally stopped making lame mistakes because we're all sluggish and tired a few songs in, Ms. Vaken chugs half of the steaming liquid in her cup, much to the relief of everyone. It's almost a visible change once the caffeine hits her system- the pure fury at the entire human race fades from her eyes, and while she still looks like she's incapable of ever smiling, she looks less like she wants to kill someone.
After that, morning rehearsal goes pretty well. As soon as the bell goes to signal the beginning of the school day, Ms. Vaken yells at us again to get our permission slips in and then dismisses us.
The school day goes by pretty much as usual. Keira berating me every ten minutes for not focusing in class, or for saying something snarky about Axel. In the few moments when she leaves me alone, I'm kept company by my barely-friend Cody, and we stare at girls together. Not in like, a creepy cat-calling kind of way. More of a wistful, pathetic way. Like, wow, imagine if we could actually ask a girl for a date and have a chance of her not laughing in our faces.
Of course, then Keira comes back and tells us we're being both creepy and pathetic, so we stop and move along with our small, insignificant lives, and I continue to be intensely jealous and resentful of Axel King who can have whatever he wants whenever he wants and barely actually ends up taking advantage of that. Like, yes. He's usually surrounded by hot girls. But he's apparently a decent person because he doesn't even bother dating all of them simultaneously. They probably wouldn't even mind. He's Axel King. But no. He's too nice for that, apparently.
He used to be going out with this one girl, possibly the most attractive girl in our entire school. Scarlett Brooks (she's a redhead, and her parents named her Scarlett. I can't tell if it's brilliant or horrible). They were the ultimate power couple for like a year, and then they broke up for no real reason. They're still friends, and no one can decide if she still has feelings for him or if he still has feelings for her. It's hard to say, honestly, because if either of them still wanted the other, you'd think it wouldn't be too difficult to arrange. They can both have anyone they want (or maybe the fact that they both have that ability means it doesn't work on each other?). Anyways. If I was Axel King, I'd have gotten with the next hottest girl immediately after that, but he hasn't dated anyone since then.
Keira's always asking me why I'm so desperate. I usually smack her shoulder to shut her up instead of actually responding. Or I'll ask her if she really has nothing better to do than criticize my life, and that usually leads to a very predictable bout of bickering that makes her forget what she originally asked me. So that's how I get out of answering that one.
The real answer is probably some natural psychological need that's never been fulfilled for me, like being loved by my parents or something. Which, I mean. My parents aren't home an awful lot, and the time that they are, they're usually ignoring me. I think they were both hoping that I'd be an athlete or something, since they both were, but instead I ended up a band geek. So, to say they're disappointed in the way I turned out... understatement.
And then there's Axel King. And his life is perfect.
Life is really, really unfair.
Thoughts on the first chapter? Favourite character based on first impressions? What do you think of Nash? And Axel King? Let me know in the comments!
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