After the whole auxiliary gym incident, I'm for once not entirely thrilled to be going to morning band practice. Because Axel will be there, and I'm sure he'll want to sue me for, I don't know, offending him or something. High and mighty rich people, and all.
Still. The band is my home. He's the intruder, not me. So I hold my head high and glare at everyone I pass as I march into school at a disgustingly early hour of the morning.
Of course, Keira glares right back at me. I texted her last night to tell her about the incident after school, because she's my closest friend, even if our relationship seems to be built on antagonism. She told me that I don't own the auxiliary gym, and just because I've been using it for longer doesn't mean I have more of a right to it. Which, I mean. She's right, technically. But I also feel like I do have more of a right to it, since Axel barely even cares about band anyways and he's also rich and privileged and he could easily find another place to practice, whereas I have pretty much no other options.
Anyways. I take my usual seat, set up my instrument and music, and then wait for Ms. Vaken to show up and yell at everyone.
Unfortunately, she doesn't show up fast enough.
Keira plays flute, so we're usually not beside each other unless Ms. Vaken gives me a different instrument for a song, but I do notice when she glances at me and her eyes go wide. I frown, until I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I know it's Axel King. I sigh deeply, then turn to look at him, my face already set in a glare. "What."
He blinks, like maybe he thought yesterdays bout of hostility was a one time thing, or he can't believe I'm actually still mad at him. "Um, could I talk to you for a second?"
I could be stubborn and say no, or just refuse to move from where I am. Thing is, I'm actually not entirely sure that I want anyone else to know about what happened yesterday, so I sigh again as though extremely inconvenienced, but do stand and follow him out of the room.
He stops right outside the door, not worried that we'll be heard over the noise inside. I cross my arms, still glaring at him.
"Look, I just wanted to apologize for taking the auxiliary gym yesterday. I had no idea that you usually practice in there, and it wasn't my intention to steal it from you at all. I'll find somewhere else to practice from now on."
I know he's trying to be nice, but it's really just making me feel guilty and in turn resent him even more. I huff a little. "Okay. Good." And then turn and go straight back into the band room.
I see Keira watching as I come back in, her eyes staying on the doorway for a few seconds after as I assume she waits for Axel to return. She frowns a little when (I assume- I'm very stubbornly not looking) he does come back in, then turns and gives me a look that says she knows I was a jerk to him. I kind of want to look at Axel, just to see what his expression looks like for her to know. Then again, his expression could probably look like anything and she'd know I wasn't nice to him. Keira knows better than anyone how extremely unlikely it is that I'd actually ever be nice to Axel King on purpose.
Fortunately, before she can whip out her phone and start berating me over text, Ms. Vaken comes in and starts vocally berating everyone for not having their band trip forms in.
Of course, this only saves me for so long. As soon as morning rehearsal ends, Keira finds me and immediately jumps into the conversation I wouldn't mind avoiding. "What did you say to him? He looked confused and a little sad when he came back into the room, so you couldn't have been nice. And I'll bet he was apologizing too, for taking the aux gym yesterday even though he has just as much right to be in there as you do."
I shrug. "Yeah. So?"
"The fact that he's better than you in literally every category doesn't mean you have to actively be worse."
"Hey. Almost every category," I snap. "I'm a better musician than anyone in our class and you know it."
"But he's still trying to be good, that's why he was practicing," she argues right back. "Instead of lowering himself and being as terrible musician as possible, just because he's jealous of you. Like you do with everything."
"So what if he's a better person than I am? I'm not trying to be a good person. I've never tried to be a good person."
"Then why are you so jealous of him?"
"I'm not jealous because he's a better person than me- well, maybe, but not much. I'm jealous because it's so effortless for him. He doesn't even have to try. He can have whatever he wants, whenever he wants. There's no reason for him to come and infringe on the one thing I actually care about."
"Just because you don't care about anything but band doesn't mean you have exclusive rights to it! Other people are allowed to care about band as well, even if they do happen to have a life outside of it. You're, like, obsessed, and possessive of it, and it's not healthy!"
"I don't care," I snap, and she sighs, clearly frustrated.
"Well, you should. You're hurting other people and it's pretty stupid."
I scowl at her, because she's making me feel guilty about it and that tends to just make me snap even more. "Too bad. I'm going to class before I'm late."
Of course, once I'm in class the guilt Keira laid on me really starts to fester and pretty much consume me, so I sigh and pull out my phone to text her a quick sorry, I know you were right, I'm just a jerk. She replies pretty quickly, which is how I know she isn't actually mad at me. She agrees that I'm a jerk and says that she's always right so it's nothing new, and she knows that I'm too insecure and resentful of people who are better than me to actually be nice to them so she shouldn't have been surprised that I was cruel to Axel since he's lightyears better than me. Which. Yeah, obviously.
We meet in the hallway between classes and I let her lecture me about being a terrible person, but by lunch we're back to our usual bickering.
After school, I go to the auxiliary gym and find it empty, as promised. I feel a bit guilty about being so mean to him, but I refuse to let it stop me from practicing, so it ends up just nagging at me the entire time. Fortunately, that doesn't compromise my perfect performance. I go through all our new songs before calling it a day.
A few days pass this way, with Axel attempting to be nice to me in passing and me staunchly ignoring him, Keira informing me of my awfulness, and me feeling guilty about it but not guilty enough to apologize to Axel. I'm nowhere near comfortable enough with him to actually have a conversation where I'm even mildly vulnerable.
But then, it turns out that I don't entirely get a choice.
I show up to the auxiliary gym after school and discover Axel already there. He's not practicing, though, just sitting in a chair to the side and flicking through his phone. When I open the door, he looks up and immediately puts his phone away, giving me a slight smile. "Hi. Could I talk to you? Again?"
I sigh, glaring as I step inside and close the door behind me, pretty much ignoring him as I go to set up my music.
"I just wanted to check in with you. I get the feeling that you really don't like me, and I'm not sure if that's because I was practicing in here once or for some other reason, so I figured I'd ask you."
I scowl at my music as I position it on the stand. "Honestly, I don't really want to talk to you about that."
He pauses. "Alright. I guess I should have expected that. Then, I guess, is there anything I could do? I figured if it was about the practice thing, then apologizing and giving it back to you would probably have been enough to at least make you not completely despise me. So I'm thinking it's something else, but I don't really know what to do about that."
"That's unfortunate."
"Yeah, quite. So, is there anything I can do?"
"Uh, no. Not really." Mostly because it's entirely about me.
"Alright." He drags the word out. "So, I can't do anything to fix the thing you won't tell me I did to make you hate me."
Oh, good, so now we both know how completely unreasonable I'm being. "Sounds about right."
"Look, I'm really trying to be nice here, but I do have some self-respect, so I'm not just going to let you trample all over me for the rest of high school. If you won't tell me why you dislike me so much or how I can make it better, then could you at least stop glaring at me every time you see me?"
I sigh. Deeply. "Fine."
"Awesome. I really appreciate that. I'll leave you alone now." He grabs his stuff and goes to the door, and I watch him leave feeling even guiltier than before.
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Of course, when I tell Keira about my interaction with Axel after school, she immediately starts telling me how I should have told him he didn't do anything and I should have been the one apologizing for being so standoffish and angry. And of course, she's right that that's what a good human being would do, but let's be honest. I'm not a good human being, and I've never attempted to be a good human being, and therefore her good-human-being expectations of me are completely unreasonable.
But still, guilt ridden as I am, I stop glaring at Axel every time I see him and I stop badmouthing him to my friends. I also try to stop actively ignoring him since it seems kind of really hostile, but I don't really know how to do that without doing a complete 180 and smiling and waving at him. So I end up just being really awkward any time he's within eye or earshot of me, or even just in the same room, which, you know. Seems pretty on par for me.
Keira, of course, stays on my case about apologizing to him, even though that's never going to happen because I am way too insecure and he's pretty much perfect, but I do still feel guilty so I let her bulldoze me in most arguments instead. I know she knows what I'm doing, but that doesn't really stop her from bulldozing me in arguments. She enjoys it way too much (she's really going to be a lawyer, if not some kind of really mean psychologist) and also says I deserve it, which I do, so.
Anyways, life keeps moving along, and just when I start to figure out how to suppress all of the guilt I have over being a terrible person and go back to living my normal, cynical, insecure and incredibly resentful life, more things happen. Because guess what. Axel King apparently wasn't finished messing around in my life yet.
Thoughts on the chapter? What did you think of Axel apologizing to Nash? And then Nash's continued (guilty) resentment of him? Any predictions for how Axel King will continue to mess around in Nash's life?
If you enjoyed this chapter, please vote or comment to let me know! Thank you so much for reading!