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Sam Watson should've expected the thousands of rubber bouncy balls thrumming out of his locker the moment he undid the lock. Hell, the moment he walked up and smelled the rubbery, synthetic stench should've tipped him off, but he was tired. He had slept poorly (if at all, he couldn't remember), and even then, he wasn't awake, yet. Now, as multicolored balls smaller than ping pong balls bounced across the hallway – students pausing to giggle, whisper, catch a few of them – all Sam could do was search for him.

“Morning,” Marissa announced, her eyes fixed to the floor as the drumming on the school's linoleum floors softened into a murmur. “This feels very unlike you, walking into this first thing in the morning.”

“I know,” Sam hissed through his teeth. He brushed aside some stray balls to grab his textbooks for his morning classes. “My lit notes were out of order, and I had to rewrite –” His shoulders slumped, weighed down by exhaustion and regret.

Inside his locker door, plastered over his erasable monthly calendar, was a Post-It note, scrawled with, “How was your sleep?” in black ink. A winky smile taunted him.

Sam snatched the paper and crumbled it in his fists. He wiped his mouth, the paper edges sharp against his skin, and gritted his teeth. “Lord, give me strength.”

“Again, feels very out of the ordinary,” Marissa reiterated, shuffling her bookbag onto her shoulder. She tucked her mess of curly hair behind her shoulder and her ear, but the unwieldy nature of her curls meant they had a mind of its own. “Are you sick?”

“No, worse. I'm exhausted.”

Nate’s plan started playing out retroactively in his head with such clarity it ignited a flame of self-agitation in his stomach: somehow, he messed with Sam’s lit notes, just enough to leave him anxious and frustrated that he’d have to rewrite them, and didn’t properly lock his locker when he left (that happened, sometimes, when he was anxious. Much to Sam’s chagrin). With the expectation of poor sleep, he must have known Sam would have been too distracted to notice the rubber bouncy balls piled high in his locker.

“Oh, my God,” he muttered. “I walked right into that. Jesus. I’m an idiot.”

“You have to admit,” Marissa said, leaning against a neighboring locker, “it is impressive.”

“The day I say anything he does is impressive is the day I have to kill myself.”

Marissa rolled his eyes. “And you said the theater department wasn’t for you.”

“What happened?” An algebra teacher arrives on the scene, shuffling through the field of rubber before reaching Sam and Marissa.

“Take a wild guess,” Sam shot back, internally chastising himself for such a childish display. “It's just – how did he know? I moved lockers last week.”

The algebra teacher sighed, her hands on her hips. “Mr. Watson, you cannot be too sure that Mr. Quinn did this.”

Sam considered the note but knew better. Nate must have learned to write with his right hand for it, producing a scrawl that wasn't smeared but barely legible. The first time Sam tried to convict him, Nate feigned indifference and insisted he couldn't write with his right hand (in fact, a trial of it had him struggling to hold the pen for three minutes before scratching something akin to stereotypical doctor notes). The second time Sam complained, Nate batted his eyelashes, and the administration smirked and said nothing more of it.

Sam knew better than to go up against Satan, himself.

“No, I can't, but I have good reason to think so.”

The algebra teacher pursed her lips. “Well, someone has to clean this up. We're not making more work for the janitorial staff, are we?”

“No,” Sam ground out, the hairs on his skin standing on end. He couldn't spend another useless afternoon cleaning up another one of Nate's messes, all because he didn't know when, or maybe how, to take a break. He had debate that afternoon, and he wholly intended on wiping the floor with Nate's rebuttal; the Winter Formal was meeting at lunch, and he didn't need to add, “CLEAN UP AFTER ASSHOLE” to it.

“Don't worry, Mrs. B,” came a honey-colored voice, and Sam's jaw set. “I can do it. It's only fair, right?”

Nathaniel “Nate” Quinn was the school's Golden Boy. When he walked, he floated. When he smiled, he sparkled. Everything seemed to come easily to him, much to Sam's annoyance: academically, he was tied with Sam; they fought for the same forward center position on the school's soccer team; and debates between them were heated and mesmerizing to all but them. His blonde hair was tousled by the autumn air that day, and his school-regulated tie was loosened slightly (not that he would get in trouble for it, anyway).

But the thing that Sam hated the most about Nate Quinn was his easy arrogance. The dismissive hand waves, the nonchalant shrugs, the sense of entitlement that oozed from every single pore on the teenager's body. Any poor scholarship student would've vied for even a sliver of Nate's prowess.

Sam did not vie for even a sliver of his prowess. He wanted Nate Quinn to transfer to another school.

And God, did he try. And failed.

Within about thirty seconds, the algebra teacher went off humming a jaunty tune, and Sam and Marissa stole themselves for a seemingly private moment with the school prince.

Nate smiled, as if pleased to see the other. His bright blue eyes were always striking, always expressive in a way Sam's weren't. His lips played at a slight smirk, and his sunkissed skin radiated softly.

Of course, he was the school's Golden Boy. He was practically gold, already.

Some of the girls around them looked away. They stole more glances.

That was something he could have avoided, too: the endless ogling. Nate, somehow, could suck air out of a room when he walked in. The fan club about him was obnoxious at all their games. Almost every girl in school wanted him, while almost every guy in school either wanted to be him or wanted to learn how to be him.

“Good morning, Watson,” he started easily. “How are we today?”

“Not great. Thanks for the balls,” Sam sighed, turning away. “Do you have any left?”

Nate's expression didn't move; his eyes sparkled with a mischievous glint.

Whatever sick thing Nate got out of talking to Sam, he hoped he had his fill for the day. Sooner rather than later. The days when Nate got what he wanted out of Sam earlier were peaceful and quiet, but there were times, when Nate seemed to avoid him, when Sam felt this awful pang of irritation, like he wasn't worth being spoken to.

He hated himself for it, the confusion. Nate's ability to fire him up. “What, is this getting back at me for swapping your locker door?” Twenty dollars to the metal shop people, and in less than an hour, Nathaniel Quinn had a sticky locker door with a lock that refused to open.

Nate shrugged, and the motion irked him. “That was clever, I’ll give you that, but no.”

“Are you still in love with Bucky the Lion?”

He laughed, yet Sam could spy the embarrassed red flush on the tips of his ears. “Never properly thanked you for that one,” he said. There was an edge in his voice, obvious enough, though Sam’s plan had backfired in a way he should have seen coming. He should have known Nate would have taken the morning announcement of “Nate Quinn is in love with Bucky the Lion” in stride.

Sam frowned, humming. “Well, it’s so noble of you to say you'd clean this up,” he hissed through his teeth. He cocked his head to the side. “Though you do know that doesn't mean 'make the janitors do it for you'.”

He waved his hand.

Sam's stomach flared up.

“Doesn't matter how it happens, just that it does.” He stepped back, hand outstretched for a footballer, and his face changed, molded into an expression of desperation. “Hey, can you help me? The Winter Formal Board needs these balls, and –”

Soon everyone was helping, piling them into book bags to be placed in the school's auditorium storage.

The sight was noxious. Sam returned to his locker and ignored Nate, but could feel his presence waiting for him, like battle music in a video game ready to pound through the speakers.

“See?” Nate asked, glancing over every student stopping to collect the rubber balls. “It'll be done in no time.”

Sam's lips curled down, disgusted. The control, the effortless use of power. His fingers twitch to grab Nate's collar and shake the skill out of him. He wished he could float like him, but he had to work to keep himself in school. To prove himself.

He didn't know if he hated anyone more than Nathaniel Quinn.

“Did you do your debate notes?”

“I did them two days ago.”

“I did them last week,” Sam shot back. He held up his note cards, manicured and numbered. The way he liked them. “And I know you did them two days ago. Watching you do them made it easier for me to refine mine.”

Nate's face flushed warm, and the crackle of irritation flashed in his stare, but he seemed more amused than anything. “Then debate today should be interesting.”

“Not as interesting as wiping the smirk off your face when I win.”

Pressing his hands over his heart, Nate let out a gasp, hunching forward and feigning death that made Marissa crack a smirk.

“Traitor,” Sam hissed under his breath.

“Sorry,” Marissa sighed. “You have to admit, he is kind of funny.”

'Spoken like someone who is probably a little in love with him, already,' Sam thought.

“Is that all we are?” Nate asked between heartbroken-sounding breaths.

“I'd prefer less than we are now,” Sam clarified.

He straightened up, hands on his hips. “You know, you'd be pretty if you smiled,” Nate shot back. His face turned solemn – eyes narrowed, frown exaggerated, brows furrowed together into a comically sad expression – before bouncing back into place. “That's you. You look like you're at a funeral.”

“I'll smile at yours,” Sam promised, deadpan.

Nate cooed, head tilted at the thought. He pursed his lips together and pouted. “I see you're only a little fun, today.”

“That implies I'm ever fun here,” Sam pointed out. “Or with you.”

He hummed and turned on his heels. “You can be a lot of fun,” Nate said, enunciating his words through his teeth. “Some day, you're not. Today has potential.”

“If you have anything to do with it, I'd rather be miserable.”

Nate gasped. “You hurt me.”

“Well, thanks for getting me out of my 'Cleaning Up After Your Shit' duty, today.” Sam kicked his locker closed and shrugged his book bag onto his shoulder. The metal door wobbled, caught on a rubber ball wedged in an awkward space. Sam managed to close it properly and swing himself back to Nate. “I hope you're ready to be verbally scalped at debate.”

“Only if you're ready to find out that I'm forward center in our game against Mercer Prep.”

Sam couldn't help himself. His neck tensed in a painful, awful way that left him sore for hours afterwards, and his hands clenched his binders so tightly that the blood ran from his fingers. He knew he shouldn't. He knew he should be avoiding Nate Quinn, but Nate kept coming back, like a hungry animal searching for something more.

“And what would your older brother think of that?”

Nate's lips turned crooked, and Sam knew he'd pressed a button too hard for Nate's liking, though whatever adoration Nate had towards his older brother was almost entirely lost on Sam.

Regardless, Sam stepped forward. “You're lucky my sister wasn't here.”

Nate rolled his eyes, nonchalance seeping into his posture like the motion was meant to win Sam over. “It was your locker,” he pointed out, “and even if these balls got to her locker, which is, what, on the other side of school –”

His knuckles wrinkled Nate's collar. “You're damned lucky she wasn't here to get hurt.” His jaw set. He wanted to make sure Nate knew – if it was even possible – that Sam was always serious about that.

The thought terrified him. It terrified him the moment she started walking the hallowed halls of Brookfell Academy.

Yet Nate shrugged out from Sam's grasp, shrugged off his warning, and waved his hand as he turned away. He clicked his tongue. “Yeah, well. Glad you slept well, darling. See you in science.”

Across from him, a banner advertising Brookfell’s sports teams hung on the wall, with Nate and Sam locked in a frozen battle for the soccer ball during one of their games. The slogan urged students to join, to play with “the Best & Brightest”.

Though that was, probably, the worst that the school called them. “Brookfell’s Finest” was one that still haunted Sam in his sleep.

The first-period bell rang, and Sam, waving a silent goodbye to Marissa, started his precalculus exam with a vengeance. If he could not socially float, he would take Nate down academically.