Survival Of The Fittest

((Billy Trevino continued from The Glorious Evolution))

He'd managed to pull it off. It was finally over.

It had taken Billy a bit too long to get his essay started. It was well past sundown by the time he'd been able to type a full sentence. But he did it. He finished the whole damn thing with time to spare. Well, it was 4 AM. Maybe not something worth bragging about, but it gave him some time to sleep. And despite the fact that he wanted to collapse onto his desk the whole time he was writing the last page, Billy thought the finished paper was impressively solid B- work. Sadly, the printer decided it would be the perfect time to be a giant fucking pest, and it wouldn't print any of it. Billy had no goddamn clue what its problem was, and he spent half an hour going between the computer in his bedroom and the printer downstairs trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He was trying to be thoughtful, he was being as quiet as he possibly could, even though all he wanted was to scream and hit the piece of shit with a bat. That, of course, didn't stop his dad from coming down to give him shit for walking around the house in the middle of the night. Billy's response was a bit irate. His tone was maybe a tad too harsh and disrespectful. But it was reasonable for him to be a little irritable, given the situation. Anyway, after that bit of nonsense, Billy just wanted to go to bed. He got a few blissful hours of sleep in, but then he had to get up early so he'd be able to get to school before class and print the essay in the computer labs. Then, Billy was put in the awkward position of having to ask his still-annoyed dad to drive him to school. He didn't have much of a choice. He didn't trust the bus to get him in early enough, and of course he still didn't have his own fucking car. So Billy silently endured an uncomfortable car ride with his father who spent the trip giving him a half-hearted lecture about managing his responsibilities. After getting to school and escaping that hell, Billy booked it to one of the computer rooms.

And now it was all behind him.

The essay was printed, stapled, and gently placed into his backpack, all ready for Billy to throw at McClellan's ugly face when he entered his first period history class. Before logging off, Billy checked the time and saw that he still had twenty minutes left before he had to go to class. Billy laid his head back. The desk chair was a lot more comfortable than usual. With all the stress gone, Billy just felt drained. He was in the computer lab all by himself. There was no harm in getting a few minutes of rest before class, right?

Billy closed his eyes.

((Millicent "Milly" Rosenberg Pregame: Start))

Milly did not have a good night. Why did History have to be sooooo boring? What started as an intense last-minute dash to finish her project became an intense anime youtube binge as she quickly lost interest in getting it completed. While she did manage to get it completed at some point in the evening, her sleep suffered for it. She did her best to obscure her bags with makeup, and she liked to have believed she did a decent job. It was mostly a rush job cause she woke up late, but she needed to be presentable or else Ivy would kick up a fuss. Like she always fucking did.

She really wasn't in the mood to deal with Ivy or any of her cronies this morning. Maybe later on in the day, she could put on a nice smile while she got shovelled a whole buncha bullshit drama from the clique, but right now she wanted peace. Slipping into the main building as fast as she could, she stayed far away from the English department, hoping that the other side would be destitute so that she didn't run into her "friends". Once she got to the computer labs, she threw herself into one of them and quietly closed the door behind her.

So far, success.

Pumping her hand, she leaned back against the door and let out a sigh of relief. Thank god she didn't have to come up with a bullshit excuse about why she had so much sloppy makeup on today. Lord, she was not ready to deal with that line of questioning just yet. Maybe she should look at herself in the mirror again before showing up at lunch. Zhush it up so that Ivy didn't blow her head off about why she looked like shit. It took her a second before she saw Billy just casually sleeping in one of the chairs.

Oh yeah, they totally did history together, right? She didn't really know him. The most notable thing about him was that he ragequitted baseball or some shit. She remembered that being interesting for like a week before life went back to usual. Still, she probably should wake him up. They did have class together, after all. Just waking him up was so boring though. Heck, she might as well find something good to start off the day. Taking her phone and headphones out of her pocket, she quickly opened youtube and started searching "Take me out to the ballgame".

Oh, Bill Murray singing it like Daffy Duck? That sounded cool. She listened to the video, found out where the song started and unplugged her headphones. Turning up the volume on her phone to the max, she moved behind Billy and placed her phone right next to his ear.

Then she clicked play

Billy wasn't trying to fall asleep. He just wanted to rest his eyes for a bit. After all, if he missed class there would be no point to anything he'd done. Still, as he laid back in the chair, he felt his body relax and his mind start to get fuzzy. There wouldn't be harm in just a little bit of rest, he thought. Just a few min-

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BAAAAALL GAME

At the sudden explosion of sound to his right, Billy's eyes shot open and he jerked his body to the left. The movement sent him and his chair tumbling to the floor.

It took a few moments for Billy to pull his senses back together. He was awake. Wide awake. He was on the floor. He had a mild pain in his left shoulder. His right ear was sore, too. That song was blaring at him. He craned his neck to find the culprit.

Milly. From his history class. He didn't know her. Didn't want to know her. She was one of Ivy's goons. She was holding her phone out, and the singing... yep, that was it.

Billy became painfully aware of how embarrassing his position was and scrambled to his feet. Did Ivy put her up to this? No, Ivy didn't go out of her way to harass him. Milly must've just come across him on her own while skulking around for targets to mess with. The baseball song was a nice, personal touch. It a great way to announce just how much of a bitch she was, as if startling him wasn't enough by itself.

Billy felt the heat rising in his face. He did not want to deal with this bullshit now. After all the garbage he'd dealt with, he couldn't just have one little rest, could he? Of course not.

"Real funny. Real fucking funny." he growled. "You proud of yourself?"

A ringing laughter escaped from Milly as she watched Billy tumble onto the floor. Man, it was so worth doing that. She would've gotten serious brownie points with the others if they saw that happen. Maybe enough for Ivy to lay off her for being less than 100% presentable. It definitely sounded like something that'd get a kick out a bitch like her.

She quickly closed YouTube and gave a sly grin to her classmate on the floor. She admittedly didn't expect him to fall onto the floor, but it was fucking hilarious. Hopefully, he wasn't too hurt, but the physical comedy was something Milly highly appreciated. The only way it would've been better if it was Wyatt or someone like that falling on his stupid face. Maybe this was a tactic she should use again in the future.

Oh, he looked pissed. Thinking bout it, his temper was probably what got him to be pissy about baseball. Milly responded with a sheepish shrug, a shit-eating grin plastered on her face.

"I'd like to think it was a pretty good prank." She admitted, tucking her phone back into her bag and playfully tilting her head. "I didn't think you'd have such an impressive reaction. Kudos for that."

Just in case, Milly manoeuvred herself behind the chair. This guy was stupid enough to lose his head about baseball. Better to be safe than end up on the wrong side of a fist. Admittedly, he did look half dead so maybe he was in the same pissy didn't-get-enough-sleep mood that she found herself in. It paid to be careful from hereon out.

"Also, I was doing you and the rest of the class a favor. Can't have you falling asleep and being late or missing or else he'd grumble to all of us and I'm not listening to another lecture about how lazy millennials are. His classes are boring enough as it is."

She crossed her arms and huffed. It was no secret that Milly was not the best historian. With how little shits he gave, it was a challenge to actually learn anything in his classes. Though she got her scholarship, she still needed to pass. History coincidentally was one of her worst classes. Passing was becoming more of a struggle that she really didn't want to deal with, especially if people like Billy were going to intentionally piss him off.

"You managed to get the essay done too? God that was so boring."

She really didn't feel sorry at all. He could have actually been hurt, but she just thought it was goddamn hilarious. Of course. Billy could tell, she was just a standard preppy bitch. The type of chick who wouldn't even consider you human unless your daddy was a country club member.

His hands balled into fists, clenched so tight that he could feel his fingernails dig into his palms. He tried to think of something he could say to knock her down a peg, but in his tired, enraged state all he could think of were mindless obscenities. He'd just look like an angry idiot if he said any of that shit, and she'd probably just find it funny. He knew how her type worked. So Billy held his tongue.

And people tried to say that he didn't have enough self-control. Well, fuck them.

"Yeah. I finished it." Billy said, his voice tense as he tried to calm himself. "And I wasn't going to be late. I wasn't asleep, I just had my eyes closed for a bit. McClellan's always in a shit mood, anyway, it doesn't matter what I do."

Billy bent down to pick up the chair and place it back into its rightful position.

"Why the hell are you even here, anyway? Just looking for people to annoy?"

Milly's eyes threatened to roll out of her skull as she listened to Billy's weak excuses. Oh, she was sorry, she didn't realise that being tired and closing his eyes meant that he was going to be able to stay awake. She was obviously sceptical about his ability to stay in the conscious world but held back her tongue. She really had no reason to aggravate the boy more than she already had done.

Billy did, begrudgingly, have a point about McClellan having a permanent stick up his ass. Maybe it was a mixture of wishful thinking and trying to come up with an excuse that didn't sound completely contrived that made her reach that conclusion. She didn't want to sound like a complete asshole about the whole situation, though that probably wouldn't matter to someone like Billy. It was enough to cause her to bite her tongue a little, though she did her best to hide this from the boy across from her.

His next question put her even further on her back foot. Milly's eyes flashed wide of a second as a shot of dread went through her body.

"I'm not that petty." Milly quickly spat out, biting her lip a little bit as she tried to fathom an excuse out of nowhere. If Billy found out she had even the slightest bit of ill will towards Ivy and her crew, he wouldn't hesitate to blab about it to the entire school. Honestly, she hated the grapevine of George Hunter. It was inescapable, everywhere and filled with the most annoying and toxic people that she had to be friendly with. Even when she was trying to avoid them like she was now, she ended up in situations where it always came back to them. They were omnipresent.

She took a second before she spoke again, fiddling with her hair as her voice came out shakier than before.

"I had an allnighter and didn't really want to deal with people this early in the morning. It was only a coincidence that I went into this room and found you and thought "might as well pass the time." You really aren't that special."

Better to be scathing so that he'd work himself into an anger than start probing. At least, she hoped it was enough to get him off her scent.

Something about the question knocked Milly off guard. The girl showed a brief hint of fear, before swiftly trying to cover it up. Too bad for her, she was a shit actress. Her true motives for being in the computer lab were apparently some kind of dire secret that she didn't want him to know about. Billy racked his brain to try and deduce what she could possibly be hiding from him, but he came up with nothing. He couldn't think a reason why Milly would be afraid to tell him why she was here; if he had to guess, whatever she was worried about was probably just some petty rich girl problem that would be beyond his understanding.

He would still keep pushing that button, of course. The tables were turning in his favor. Billy forced a laugh and took a few steps toward Milly. He was still pissed, but the anger now mixed with that sense of excitement he got when he knew he had the upper hand in an argument. He enjoyed that feeling a bit too much for his own good.

"Not that petty? We both know that's bullshit. I mean, you just got a fucking laugh over what happened with me and the baseball team... what, three fucking years ago now? Come on." Billy gave her his smuggest smile. "Now seriously, what are you doing snooping around here? I'm not an idiot, I can tell you're lying. Is a secret? Don't be scared to tell me. I'm great at keeping secrets."

Billy didn't care, really. He just wanted to make sure that when their little meeting was over, he'll have made her more miserable than she had made him.

((Billy Trevino continued elsewhere))

((Millicent "Milly" Rosenberg continued in I'M A SHARK, I'M A SHAAARK, SUCK MY DIIIIICK, I'M A SHAAARK))