Chapter Text
Trophy had always been the popular one in his grade. He was rude, snobby, and he knew he was attractive. Everyone loved him. He loved himself. Why wouldn’t he? He was the quarterback, he went to parties, he slept around, and everyone knew his name. He got in trouble a lot, so he spent most of his time in detention, suspensions, and if he wasn’t in trouble after school, he would be at his football practice.
He sat in detention, tapping his pen against the desk in boredom. He’d tried flirting with the girl next to him, but she wasn’t having it and no one was talking to him. He stared at the clock - he still had an hour to go. He huffed loudly and stretched back in his chair, brushing his blonde hair back with his fingers. He rocked softly on his chair. However, his attention got diverted when he saw the teacher leave. And a girl walked in - presumably to be on detention duty. Box was in his grade, but she was the complete opposite of him. She was top of all of her classes, quiet, head of student council, and she could be found in any school event. She sat at the front quietly, looking at the people in the detention before looking at her book.
In his thick-skulled head, he figured, maybe he could talk her into letting him out early. So, to grab her attention, he threw a paper ball at her. She looked up with a sigh, and walked over to him. “Shouldn’t you be doing your homework?” She asked quietly, as to not distract any other students.
“Pfft,” he grinned, resting his elbow on the table as he turned to his side to face her, “I don’t really want to.”
She sighed quietly. “You’ll have to do it anyway at home. Might as well do it here.”
“Do I have to be here though?” he tilted his head to the side.
“It’s detention.” she stated blankly. “You kind of have to be.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, yknow, if you let me out early, I’ll-”
“No,” she interrupted. She held back a smile as she watched his smirk fall from his face.
He stared at her blankly and a little offended, before saying, “No? Wh- Ohh, I get it,” he grinned, “you just wanna look at my face for longer.”
She rolled her eyes, ignoring his statement. “Do your work.”
“Oh, so you do?”
“No. If I can’t let anyone else here leave early, why should you?” She knew it wasn’t the best comeback, but she was tired. And it seemed to work.
He looked a little offended, but he stayed quiet. He watched her pass him a pen and dig some homework out of his bag. He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t find any words to say. He just glared at the sheet in front of him and then at her. She walked back to the front and got her own work out to do whilst on detention duty. However, he found he had to keep looking up from his maths work to glance at her. No one had ever said no to his face like that. No one had ever called him out like that. But, it made his stomach feel warm and his chest flutter, which he had never felt before. She tucked her shoulder-length, brown hair behind her ear as she did her work, and he saw the way her eyebrows furrowed as she concentrated. From the way she was scribbling, he thought she was writing an essay. He watched her eyelashes flutter every time she blinked. But when she looked up, his head snapped down to his worksheet and he bit his pen to look like he was focusing.
She saw his head glance up ever couple of seconds to check if she was still looking and she raised an eyebrow at him. She rolled her eyes to herself before going back to jotting down on her paper.
As his detention came to an end, he stuffed his things in his bag and caught up to her as she was walking out. He grinned and swung his bag over his shoulder, pushing his hair back and puffing his chest out a little. “Hey.”
She looked up at him hesitantly. “Uh, hey..?” He had never spoken to her before this, so she was a little confused.
“You, uh, walking home? It’s pretty dark.”
“I take the bus,” she sighed, uninterested. She looked forward to see where she was walking.
His eyes lit up, and he responded nervously, and a little too quickly, “Oh cool, same.”
She paused and glanced over at him as she walked. “I’ve never seen you though.”
“I’m normally late so I take a different bus. And uh, on the way home, I’m normally doing extracurriculars and stuff. I do a lot of those.”
She gave him a deadpan look. “I run most of those. I know you’re lying.”
“Am not!” he yelled with a sulky look. “I just- do the sports ones.”
“Of course you do. …Why are you even talking to me?”
He paused and furrowed his brows in thought. He didn’t actually know why he followed her, he just did what felt right. Not wanting to seem desperate, he replied, “Uh, just- um…” figuring he’d be able to come up with a response, but with her intense gaze, his brain blanked. He thought for a moment, before saying, “I didn’t want you walking alone cause it’s dark.”
“But I just told you I take the bus.” She stopped walking and stared up at him, crossing her arms as she waited for a response.
“I, uh,” he racked his head for anything, as he tried to keep appearing nonchalant. “I didn’t know at the time.”
“Fine.”
A silence fell over the two of them. She clearly wasn’t interested in talking to him, but he was desperate to keep the conversation going. He swallowed thickly, before speaking up. “So,” he began, “uh…” He trailed off, before coming up with something that might impress her. “I’m pretty good at football, you know. I always score the most touchdowns, I’m the quarterback, and star player, hah.” A proud smirk swept over his features.
“Uh huh,” she sighed.
“The other day, my teammate nearly lost the ball, so the other team got it, but I made this massive comeback and got it back. And then I scored.”
She stared blankly at the path ahead of them. “Okay.”
“Uh huh. And then, the stupid guy who I took the ball from, tackled me really aggressively. He got sent off, cause he was being unreasonable, and I was fine cause I’m pretty strong.”
“Trophy.”
“I’m telling you, some of the players have it out for me. Even some on my own team. I’m pretty sure they’re just-”
“Trophy.”
“-jealous, because I’m so good at-”
“Trophy!” she called out, stopping his boasting. “Respectfully, I don’t… I don’t really care.”
A blank stare came across his features, before he rolled his eyes. “Why not? It’s impressive, is it not?”
“Why are you trying to impress me?” They came up to the bus stop.
His face turned bright red and his voice got caught in his throat. “Mm- I- no! What? I’m not!” He scoffed with a hint of nervousness in his voice. He didn’t even know why he was trying to impress her. The thought of having her approval, though, it made his heart weirdly flutter a little.
She scoffed. “Go home. I’m not here to feed your ego.”
His eyes darted around, before he mumbled, “Fine.” He scuffed his feet against the floor, before turning back and walking off.
“I knew you didn’t take the bus,” she mumbled to herself before getting on her bus.
Trophy walked home slowly, feeling weirdly embarrassed and hurt at her lack of interest in him. Normally, girls had always enjoyed his self-centredness (or at least pretended to), and they fell at his feet. To have someone who actually had any self respect around him was new. And he wouldn’t have liked it, had he not noticed how that look in her eyes made him feel like a child. Unable to tell if he was angry or happy, he kicked the rocks beneath his feet with a small smile on his face. Just the thought of her was sending electricity down his spine. He had never felt this way before, let alone so quickly, so it frustrated him how he could turn so pathetic for a girl. But this meant it really hurt when she shut him down. It hurt him so much, it made him and his fragile masculinity want to cry. As he approached home, he unlocked the door and set his bag down by the stairs. He ran up to his room and buried his face in the pillow after kicking off his shoes, giggling a little. He couldn’t help but kick his feet a little, like a lovesick kid.
It was a new feeling, for someone who only saw women as things to sleep with, and it intimidated him a little. However, it wasn’t an unwelcome feeling, because it made him feel good. He felt happy. A true kind of happy, not the fake kind he had to act with his friends. He knew his friends didn’t like him, and he didn’t like his friends, so why did he still hang out with them? His kicking stopped and his smile deflated as his thoughts drifted. His friends were always douchebags, and took jokes too far. Trophy never wanted to hurt anyone (sometimes), his friends did. He could never trust them with secrets, or ask them for favours, and deep down, a part of him was insecure about how unlikeable he was. It wasn’t even him, it was just the act he had put on, so maybe, people would like him. And maybe, one day, he’d be able to like himself, too. He sat up and scrolled on his phone to distract from the tears stinging the back of his eyes. And he got distracted when he started searching for if Box had an Instagram, or a TikTok, but she didn’t. Not a public one, anyway. He huffed and put his phone away, grabbing the football by his bedside and throwing it into the air, until his mom walked in and he shoved it under his bed.
She had passed him a report card given to him by the school.
Given that Trophy is part of the school’s football team, if he cannot achieve a grade B in at least two of his subjects by next semester, he will have to be kicked off the school football team.
Trophy asked for a tutor. His mom shrugged. She didn’t seem to care too much.
…
She left the room.
A small sob involuntarily escaped his throat and a few tears spilled over his cheeks. He brushed them away with the back of his hand and cleared his throat. He picked up his phone and scrolled for a bit until he dozed off.