Laylah Gibson's Story

---

Although school had officially begun two days before, on Wednesday, September 7th, even today on Friday, the 9th, things still felt new. Students were only just beginning to pick up their new routines for the year, and adjust to having to wake up early every morning, rather than being permitted to sleep until noon like they could do on those summer days that they would reminisce about for the next eight or nine months. Although Elijah had been through this ritual for many years now, given that he had gone to Brentwood since kindergarten, and had started a new year on this specific Brentwood campus since sixth grade, he was no different from the majority students regarding that. It still felt wrong for him to be waking up at seven in the morning, rather than one in the afternoon, and to be pulling into the school's student parking lot, rather than the parking lot for the beach. For many obvious reasons, starting school again sucked, but it wasn't all bad in Eli's eyes. He had a lot of friends, and socializing was always an enjoyable thing for him. Plus, he was one of those students who never struggled in school, so he wasn't all that worried about the advanced courses he was taking this semester. He was only just beginning his third day of senior year, and he was already convinced that it was going to be a year that he could just cruise through, like he had done for the past three years of high school.

With Alessia in the passenger seat, Eli pulled into the student parking lot around 8:15 and hopped out of his BMW X5 M. "Listen, Ali. You heard Mom. Don't be getting your ass into any trouble today, all right? It's Friday and I know you and your little sophomore friends think you're gonna be able to party and shit this year, but that's not how it works. Only one of us can get away with that, and we both know that person is going to be me." He was half kidding, and purposely being obnoxious to get under her skin, really, though. Being obnoxious was one of Elijah's most well known talents, and if anyone had been subjected to it to know it proficiently, it was the girl who had lived in the same house as him for her entire life. As they approached the school's quad, that was already highly populated with students, Eli continued. "And you know what, if you keep yourself out of trouble, maybe, just maybe, I'll snag an invite for you and your weird little friends for Tim's party tomorrow," he offered, still purposely being annoying, as if he was doing her a huge favor. Though he knew that Alessia could just show up and get in, if she really wanted to, given that Timothy would never be an ass and reject her, he was sure that Ali was wanting, if not planning, on going. Timothy had a history of using his house as the unofficial "first party of the year" site, and this year, he was planning a "stoplight party". It was a party that was meant to physically demonstrate your relationship status, hence "breaking the ice" without actually having to do anything. If you wore green, it meant that you were available. Yellow symbolized something in between taken and available, as if it were a label for "it's complicated" (though Eli always took yellow as being equivalent to green), and red meant that you were unavailable. Although he knew that no matter what the theme was, things were always fun when Timothy was hosting, he was especially excited for this year's party, and as he and his sister entered the quad, he texted his fellow blonde friend saying, "On campus yet? Everything set for tm?"

To: Rhaps
You had me at food. I'll come to you, where you @?

To: Ripster
Come save me, I'm bored already and school hasn't even started :-(

---

Today's physical education class had taken place on the athletics field, rather than inside of the school's gymnasium, because this week's gym topic was kickball. Being pretty competitive meant that Elijah was really up for any sport that they played in class, but he did enjoy this one more than some of the others. The class was divided into two teams of thirteen each, with Team A including Eli, Ari, Rhapsody, Kya, Rhys, Samuel, Sebastian, Katherine, Laylah, two other sophomores, another junior, and another senior, and Team B including Timothy, Natalia, Tristan, Zara, Alessia, Gabrielle, Giovanni, Lennox, Kayleen, three other seniors, and a junior. Because it would take five minutes for the students to jog back to the main campus from the fields, and they needed time to change out of their gym clothes in the locker rooms, their gym teacher, Mr. Lessig, yelled out onto the field that the next student up would be the last kicker for the day. With a tied score, Elijah grew tense with that call, considering that his team was currently playing the field, and that meant that their fate was in the hands of either how poorly the kicker on the other team was, or how well they could play the field.

When he saw that Tristan Castiel-Castellan was the next kicker in line, Eli's fears seemed to disappear as his signature smirk appeared on his face. "Bring it in, boys!" he said, acting as the self-appointed team captain that no one else had really agreed on, as he looked back towards the two sophomore boys, and a junior boy, who were playing the outfield. He knew that it wasn't nice, but in his mind, all he could say was "come on, there's no way in hell that this kid can kick". If he could, it would be one of those underdog moments from out of a movie, but Eli wasn't even considering that that was a possibility. Tristan was a meek, harmless boy who seemed like he would be the type to run away from the ball, if anything, so Eli was already content with thinking up teasing remarks that he could send in Timothy and Knox's direction once they hit the locker rooms.

The bases weren't fully loaded, but the opposing team had runners on first base and second base, so Elijah knew that unless Tristan's kick was caught in the air, all he needed to do was to make a kick that gave the runner on second enough time to make it home. Again, Eli was certain that that wasn't a possibility and that his team had this win in the bag, but he was comforted, at least, knowing that while he pitched the ball out, he had some of his more trusted teammates manning the bases. Just in case, he thought, as he took a breath and then with great speed, rolled the ball in Tristan's direction.

| Fourth Period |

---

Eli hadn't expected Tristan to be able to kick the ball at all, nonetheless kick it into a perfect spot that gave him, and Gabrielle and Timothy enough time to start running. Eli had automatically spun around to watch the ball head towards Katherine, and had started stepping backwards while doing it, while yelling for her to throw it to home, where he was heading. She was oblivious, and though it took only a few seconds, the amount of time that it took for Bas to step in and grab the ball felt like eons to Elijah. Beads of sweat were running down his forehead, partly due to the heat, but mostly out of stress, as the kickball sailed through the air towards, him but not quick enough. A foot on home base, he caught it just after Timothy had reached him, and Mr. Lessig was quick to shout, "Safe!" to declare a win for the opposing team. "Safe? Are you kidding me? I had at least three solid seconds over him, and you're gonna say that he's safe?!" Elijah was lucky enough that even in the heat of the moment, he was wise enough to refrain from throwing some expletives into his objection, since they were definitely on the tip of his tongue. In reality, Mr. Lessig's call was probably accurate, even though it undeniably was a close call. Timothy's foot had hit home base just a second before Elijah had caught the ball that Sebastian had hurled his way, so at the very least, Eli's claim of him having caught the ball three full seconds before Timothy had even reached the base was dramatic, at best. "Sore loser" was probably the best way to describe Eli at times like this. Given his competitive nature, coupled with his upbringing where he always got his way, losing wasn't something that he knew how to work with, even at seventeen years old. He would never admit that he lost fairly, and somehow, it was always a bad call, or cheating, that had allowed the other team to win, if you asked him.

In this case, he had already proclaimed that Mr. Lessig's call was garbage, but as he turned back to examine his teammates, who were making their way in from the outfield now that the teacher had proclaimed that the game was over, and they could all head back to the locker rooms, Eli also decided that the teams had been separated unfairly. Suddenly, he decided that the other team had ten times as many athletic players as his team did, and he automatically wanted to dispel any talent that his teammates who actually were jocks, had. Even though Laylah had made countless good plays throughout the day, he wanted to blame her for every play that she had missed, even if she hadn't been positioned anywhere near the ball at that point. In his head, had Bas gotten to the ball sooner on this play, or thrown it a little faster, they would have won by a long shot. Lennox was being as useless as ever, and God forbid he even comment on the other players, like Katherine, who he could blame for costing them an entire's game worth of effort. It was amusing, really, how worked up he could get over losing a stupid little game, that literally counted for nothing, but it just went back to how badly he hated losing. Rather than being a good sport and congratulating Tim and that team on their win, or even just being a semi-normal person and actually annoyed, but not actually angry, it was very clear with Eli that he was pissed. He headed off of the field without even bothering to wait for any of his friends, but as he passed Tim and the home plate area, he said, "Save the comments for a day when you fairly beat me. If my team wasn't absolute shit, you wouldn't have even made it to first base to begin with. I'll sit out the next game and take an absence for the class before I get stuck on a team with your girlfriend again. I'd take the mute over her, and that's saying something," he said callously, as if thinking Tristan was superior to Kat was a real insult. He continued walking after he spoke, knowing that he was red in th face for more reasons than just being physically overheated.