Effortless

One

Eli

I had always wondered what life would be like if I didn't exist—if I had never been born.

The people that interact with me would have changed lives, but whether it would be for the better or worse varied.

For my close friends who truly cared about me it would be for the worse, but for most I'm sure it would be a delight for me not to exist.

“Did your dog eat it again?” I asked as I struggled to suppress the cheeky smile creeping onto my face. That was what had actually happened to him last week, and I knew it would piss him off. He turned to me, rolled his eyes, and then went back to searching.

"—and then Hitler and Stalin signed a Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact," my history teacher lectured.

My teacher had an incessantly annoying voice.

It was scratchy and it sounded like she smoked fifty packs of cigarettes a day.

She was only in her thirties, so one would hope that was not the reason.

I tended to tune out her lecturing because of this, only checking back in every now and again to hear the important things.

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

Silence fell upon the room. My history teacher looked in hopes of anyone answering, anyone .

I was in 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. In all my other classes I had to fight for my turn to speak.

I kind of liked it though. It was annoying to constantly have others trying to answer questions faster than I could.

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

Her eyes glossed over my raised hand for a couple of moments before she reluctantly settled on me. I watched her suppress a sigh. "I guess you can answer, Elias."

Despite the fact that I answered questions aloud often, I did not like doing it.

Most of the time my answer was correct, but when it was not it was embarrassing.

However, answering questions helped me to understand and remember material better, as well as force me to keep somewhat focused during class.

These were the only ways I was going to be valedictorian at the end of the year.

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

"Correct again,” she mumbled dryly.

My teacher had never taken a liking to me for a reason unbeknownst to me.

Maybe it was because of my siblings, though they were never terrible students.

Or maybe she thought I was just another obnoxious know-it-all kid, and she didn’t like that.

Luckily, it never bothered me too much. Someone not liking me was not a new concept for me, so I was confidently able to say fuck my history teacher and her scratchy ass voice.

“You just know everything, don’t you?" my best friend, Ricky, teased as he held the paper that he was looking for before in his hand.

I shrugged. "It is not my fault that none of you guys want to answer questions."

He uncrumpled the paper and set it on the table. "Well, if you'd give us a chance to answer…"

I rolled my eyes as I chuckled, knowing that I did in fact give them a chance to answer.

Adjusting my foot as I laughed, I ended up kicking something.

I looked down to find a bag full of Oreos that had fallen out of Ricky’s backpack when he was searching for his history paper.

I assumed they were meant to be eaten during lunch, but lunch was not for another couple of hours, and I was practically starving.

I poked my best friend in the arm. "Ricky."

Ricky averted his eyes from our teacher who was still lecturing. He furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"

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

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

Ricky and I had been best friends since elementary school, we met the year I skipped the second grade.

I had no friends and was intimidated because I was now in a class with all new faces, but Ricky befriended me quickly.

He 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, and my aunt.

Hell, I could even say that he 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 caught my attention as I stuffed an entire Oreo into my mouth. "Do not eat them all."

***

"Are you pissed at me?" I asked hesitantly, my lip pouting slightly.

" Am I ?" My best friend stopped in his tracks, causing me to bump into him. He swiftly spun around and faced me. "You ate all of my cookies, what do you think?"

I crossed my arms and sighed. Ricky whirled around to the front and continued to the lunch table. I tried to keep up with him, but damn, he walked fast when he was upset. It was hard to keep up when weaving through two thousand other students.

Ricky plopped down on the bench next to our friends and glared at me, his eyes filled with more annoyance than actual anger. Our friends looked between both of us with confusion on their faces. I sighed again and put an apologetic smile on my face.

"I'm sorry I ate all of your cookies," I said as I suppressed a grin.

It truly was an accident; I was not paying attention to how many I was eating. It also helped me focus more, oddly enough, maybe because I could focus on chewing instead of the itchiness of my teacher's voice.

Once they heard my apology, the confusion on our friends' faces was quickly replaced with laughter.

"You're not sorry," Ricky’s eyes fell to the ground and he sighed. "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 an attempt to comfort him. "I told you to stop letting Eli around your snacks unattended. Sometimes he’s a thief, even if he doesn’t mean to be."

"I am not," I defended myself. "He literally gave me permission. Just because I ate a little more than he said I could does not mean I stole them."

"I agree with Bella," said Justin, another person part of our friend group.

Yeah, of course you agree with Bella.

Justin was part of 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 constantly making passive-aggressive comments toward me specifically.

He was the newest addition to the group, and I felt like he did not like me from the start.

He would make jokes, but they didn't seem like just innocent jokes.

Because of this, our relationship was seeing who could make the slyest comments toward the other and tolerating each other's presence.

"Do you want some chips?" Kailey asked Ricky.

Kailey and Ricky were dating, and they had been for a year.

They were the type of couple that made you want to puke.

They were overly affectionate, had obnoxious nicknames for each other, and were just all around annoying.

Don't get me wrong, they were both my closest friends, and I could never have thought badly about them.

I never showed my irritation at how overly affectionate they were in front of everyone, even though it was a bit much at times.

Maybe part of the reason for my feelings about their relationship was simply because I was a jealous hater.

Ricky shook his head. "No, what I want is my cookies."

I averted my eyes when Ricky shot another glare my way. I probably shouldn’t have eaten all his cookies.

"Anyway..." Bella drawled, attempting to discreetly change 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-ass shit."

Justin didn't start hanging out with us until the beginning of the school year, which was two weeks prior. 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.

I shrugged. "It's not our fault you’re too dense to be part of the student council."

“If being in it means being around more people like you then I’m glad to stay away.” Justin flipped me off with a condescending smile.

"Both of you calm down,” Kailey said with a sigh. “Let's focus on the fact that this year is the year Eli will finally be class president!"

The table erupted with praise and encouraging words for me, I assumed everyone besides Justin. I didn’t 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.

Javier Cortez was 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 the honors classes because we were both overachieving straight-A students.

He was the perfect golden boy. Very tall, extremely handsome, in line for valedictorian–right next to me, of course–great personality, girls all over him.

He did everything better than I, no matter how hard I tried.

It had been that way since middle school.

He always managed to come out just the slightest bit above me, sometimes so close that there was no way he wasn’t doing it on purpose.