I look back at Armin as if he’s going to stop me, and he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even so much as blink. I stomp over to the table with him on my tail. He’s greeting younger students along the way and putting on that sweet student council representative act that makes his insides screech. It only fans my frustration more. 

All of the girls aside from the one Giovanni is showering in his attention go silent and stare up at me. 

They’re like goldfish, eyes wide and lids blue with glitter eyeshadow, glossy pink mouths hanging open. The last one looks away from Giovanni by what seems like chance, her long black ponytail swaying with the turn of her head, and before she can say anything I do a slicing gesture across my neck with my whole hand and shake my head. 

“Don’t,” I say and direct my attention back to Giovanni where it belongs. “Are you really this shitty, Gio?” I ask. “They’re obviously new around here. Just tell them you’re gay in the beginning so they don’t embarrass themselves trying to flirt.” 

“You’re gay?” Ponytail asks, and her face falls. 

“Yeah,” Giovanni answers and stands up straight. He smiles at me then back at her as she shrinks in her chair. “But I’m still your vice president. Any more concerns, I’m here to help.” 

He says goodbye as poisonous and sweet as one would expect from a snake like Giovanni Romero and bumps my shoulder as he tries to walk around me. I grab him and turn him around by force, and he’s still sporting that shit-eating grin when he stops with a little bounce letting his head loosely drop to its side on his shoulder. 

God, I hate him. I hate his stupid face all angled with his strong jawline and sharp eyes. And I hate the way his contact lenses hide away the evil in those dark, cobra eyes, all mean and beady and piercing only to be cut off by that flimsy piece of silicone and make you think he’s not boring into your soul with the attempt to steal it when he looks at you a little too long. And I hate his stupid Romero Blond hair that all of those Romero kids have, a little too complimenting on their tan skin, and even their friends try to have it because if there was nothing else a Linor kid wanted, it was to be a damn Romero. And I hate his stupid red student council pin on his tie like some kind of gross status symbol. No, it’s definitely a status symbol. 

And I know it’s mutual. I know Giovanni hates me too. I’ve known since the very beginning. Since my freshman year, the second term. Armin is always a bit ahead of me when it comes to our studies, so he was up in sophomore geometry with him while I was in algebra. 

It was easy for Giovanni not to notice me. Not to notice Armin hanging off of my arm or giggling in my ear when we met between classes and after school. The thing about not noticing things, though, is that when you finally do notice them, there’s bound to be some kind of shock. Your eyes get a little bigger, you start to see more of the things you didn’t notice before, you start to imagine things. Giovanni’s imagination went kind of crazy. 

I get it. I got it back then too. 

Sure, if I was anyone else, anyone with two seeing eyes and a basic understanding of human socialization, I would assume Armin and me were a thing. The kind of thing that boys like Giovanni, boys who had painful, fruitless crushes on horribly oblivious boys like Armin hated. The kind of thing that made him writhe and burn in his own acid bath filled with jealousy and bitterness and some other weird emotions I never had to deal with. 

Maybe if I told him Armin and I were never and would never be a thing, this could have all been cleared up and it would have never been this way. There never would have been the tit for tat bullshit, the slanderous rumors, the bitching and arguing. Giovanni has a bad habit of trying to use me as a stepping stone to make himself appear better, as if he gets off to feeling like he’s above me in any way he can. I always have to teach him he’s not better than anything but the dirt under my shoe and sometimes not even that. 

The torture didn’t even stop when I started going out with Mariah from geometry last year. If anything it was worse. So, when he went out with Alex from the chess club, I tormented him just the same. 

It’s part of who we are now, the foundation of our, well, relationship for lack of a better term. 

Yes, it’s immature. No, we don’t have to be this way. But it’s too late. The last thing I did to him was leave my milkshake on top of his car. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal had he noticed it before he tried to pull off like a NASCAR driver. Would have saved him a sticky windshield too. 

“Did you put your complaint in the suggestion box?” Giovanni has the nerve to ask through his smile, and I consider knocking his teeth out right here. 

“Giovanni, stop it,” Armin says from behind me. He wedges himself between us to create some space. People are starting to stare. “Let’s take a walk. All of us.” 

Armin grabs my arm with one hand and the sleeve of Giovanni’s blazer with the other, drags us through the cafeteria and out to the courtyard