Chapter Two #2
I began to orchestrate my every action around besting him.
I didn’t even like volleyball when I tried out, but Liam joined the soccer team, and I needed to stay on his level.
I had no interest in popularity, but he was popular.
So I made friends. Plenty of them. Until everyone in the school knew my name.
There was never a verbal agreement. He and I never shook hands and decided to compete against one another in every aspect of our lives. It just happened. Like moths to a flame, he couldn’t resist competing with me just as much as I couldn’t resist competing with him.
A part of me was convinced that if I could beat him, or even stand on equal footing, that maybe that would be enough. That, maybe then, our families would praise me in the unconditional way they did for him.
Over the years, I had my fair share of wins, but even then, Liam was always right there.
When I had won first place in the science fair, he had won second place.
When I finally made captain of the volleyball team, he was settling into his role as captain of the soccer team.
When I was elected student council president, he was voted to be my vice president.
It wasn’t until senior year that we would finally address our rivalry.
I had just left my last class of the day when I heard his voice call out through the parking lot. “Jessie!”
I ignored him. There were plenty of times when I had no choice but to speak to Liam, but outside of those moments, I wanted nothing to do with him.
“Jessie,” he called once more. Liam’s tone was louder and laced with amusement. He loved to flaunt that childhood nickname like a weapon.
“What?” I snapped, not giving him the opportunity to embarrass me further. People around us were already staring. They always did when he and I got into it in the middle of school. “What do you want?”
My tone only seemed to brighten his mood. “No need to be so dramatic,” he teased. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not interested.”
“Come on. You can’t spare five minutes?”
I sighed, knowing that if I didn’t agree, he would continue to bother me. It was easier to get it over with.
Just a few minutes later, Liam and I were sitting in the front seats of my car.
It wasn’t uncommon for us to be seen together.
Our lives overlapped in nearly every regard.
Classes, student council, sporting events.
Still, there wasn’t a chance on earth I was going to risk others overhearing whatever it was he wanted to talk to me about.
I narrowed my eyes at him from the driver’s seat. “So, what did you want to tell me?”
“It’s more of a proposal rather than anything else.”
“Great. Something tells me I don’t want to hear it.”
Liam grinned, “I can promise you do, Jessie.”
I stared at him expectantly. A few seconds passed before I finally huffed out an impatient, “Well, I don’t have all day. Get on with it.”
“Straight to the point, as always,” Liam said with a chuckle.
“Fine. Well, I think you and I can both agree that it’s been fun.
Competing with each other and stuff.” He scratched the back of his neck, and his gaze shifted around the car, never quite meeting mine.
“I figured we may as well go out with a bang.”
“Don’t make me kick you out of my car, Ashford.”
He raised his hands defensively. “Not like that. I mean… sort of like a grand finale!”
“Okay,” I said slowly, my mind replaying his words.
Fun. Never once had I thought of our rivalry as fun.
A rush of anger jolted through me at the confirmation of what, deep down, I had always known.
Liam took joy in being better than me. My greatest efforts were little more than entertainment to him. “Go on,” I said through gritted teeth.
“I’ve been thinking about the class rankings. I say, whoever’s rank is higher, come graduation, should be declared the true champion once and for all.”
The idea was stupid. The whole conversation was. It was also incredibly tempting. If there was one irrefutable truth about me, it was that I could not ever turn down the opportunity to compete with Liam Ashford.
“You’re on, Ashford,” I said to him, sticking out my right hand.
Liam looked almost surprised, like he hadn’t expected me to agree so easily. He took my hand in his and shook it. “May the best student win,” he said with that smug grin I couldn’t stand, my hand still in his.
“I will,” I replied confidently.
In the end, Liam graduated as valedictorian of our graduating class. I graduated salutatorian, my grade point average falling behind his by one hundredth of a point.
I congratulated him. Of course I did. It was the mature thing to do, and I wouldn’t let losing rob me of my dignity or my composure.
I decided that those congratulatory words would be the last that I ever spoke to Liam Ashford.
I convinced myself that it wasn’t out of anger. In truth, I didn’t really feel angry. What I felt was a quiet resignation settling beneath my skin, burrowing into my bones.
There is no garden without weeds.
Even I would have to accept at some point that Mom was right.
That everyone was right. I could try and try, picking at the weeds until my fingers were raw, and I would never be able to pluck out every imperfection from myself.
I would never be perfect, and I finally learned that I would never measure up to Liam.
Liam, who had everything. Liam, who was so effortlessly perfect. Liam, whom I spent eighteen years of my life thinking about. Who had weaseled his way into my every thought so deeply that a part of me had no idea what it would do with itself if I wasn’t competing with him.
I searched for my parents following the graduation ceremony. I found them. Mom, with a beautiful bouquet of marigolds in hand, was deep in conversation with Carolyn Ashford, Liam’s mom. Dad was joking around with Nicholas Ashford, Liam’s father.
Liam’s mom was the first one to pull me into a tight hug, whispering into my ear how proud she was of us both.
I thanked her before turning to my own parents.
Mom pulled me into a hug first, then Dad.
Then, in the daze of flowers and praise, someone declared that we would all be going out to dinner. Together.
We went to Ziggy’s. The pizza buffet with an arcade that we used to visit all the time back when we were kids.
The pizza tasted significantly worse than it did when I was a child, and the whole place felt so much smaller.
Liam and I were forced to sit side by side in the same seats at the same table we always used to sit at.
“For nostalgia’s sake,” one of our moms had said.
I lasted approximately five minutes before I had to give up on my pipedream of never talking to Liam again.
“Will you move it? You’re breathing all over my pizza,” I snapped at him. He wasn’t. But something in me craved an argument with him.
He scoffed and scooted a little closer to the wall, but didn’t take the bait.
After a few moments, Liam finally said, “Congrats on making number two, by the way. We make a pretty good team, huh?”
We had finally graduated from high school. I was the second-best student in my entire school. I should have been over the moon, but all I felt was numb. So I relished the familiar feeling of my heart rate picking up and the familiar warmth of frustration building in my chest.
“We are not a team. And if you’re looking for another round of congratulations, don’t think you’re getting them from me.”
“Come on, Jessie. Do you really think either one of us would have done as well in school if not for each other?”
“What?” I seethed.
Liam rolled his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. “I’m just saying. I wouldn’t have even made the top ten if it weren’t for you. I actually studied so I could be better than you.” He bit into a slice of macaroni and cheese pizza. “Has it not been the same for you?”
His words sent two very different emotions coursing through me. On one hand, he had admitted that, to some degree, he viewed me as a worthy competitor. Someone he had to try to beat. That confession meant more to me than he would ever know.
On the other hand, he was also right that I never would have made it as far as I had if not for him.
A fact that I found infuriating. My accomplishments did not feel like my own.
I had always been a good student, always strived to be the very best version of myself, but my rivalry with Liam had launched me to a level I never would have reached on my own.
“Don’t make that face,” he said, flicking a piece of breadstick at me.
“You’re so annoying,” I replied, throwing it back at him. “And quit talking with your mouth full. It’s revolting.”
Liam swallowed the bite of pizza and took a sip of his off-brand soda before leaning in close. So close I could feel his warm breath on my neck. “You’ll beat me at the next one, Jessie.”
I had no idea what Liam meant. As far as I knew, he and I would likely never see one another again after that night. And yet, my heart fluttered with the idea that maybe one day I would get another chance to compete with him.