Words [Riley Matthews]

19 - flaws

"Graduation and awards night is coming up," Cory said to his class. "I am very proud of this class. Several of you will be recognized for your achievements throughout the year."

Maya stood up. "Awards are a scam!" she said. "A girl like me never had a chance, Matthews. Never had a chance." Maya then stares at Riley.

"Alright, I'll do it, but it's ridiculous," Riley said. She stood up. "It's a scam, Matthews! She never had a chance!"

"Maya will be receiving the Griff Hawkins Totally Cool Award," Cory announced.

Maya sat down as the class clapped for her.

"Maya, you just found out you won't the Totally Cool Award, yet you just sit there?" Riley asked. "Oh, you're being cool. Why won't you rub off on me?"

Cory walked over to Lucas. "And our two finalists for the Scholar Athlete Aware are... Lucas Friar...." the class clapped, "and Billy Ross."

Everyone clapped again.

"I hope you're ready for some competition, dude," Billy Ross said to Lucas. 

"Oh, well, you know how I hate competition," Lucas said.

Billy and Lucas both laugh then lean in closer. They both backed up and repeated that one more time. Gabriel rolled his eyes at what they did.

"Hey, Golden Boys, you wanna hop down from your cloud of awesomeness?" Maya asked. "You're making us normals feel bad."

"Yeah. Right after our handshake of awesomeness," Billy said.

Billy and Lucas stood up and did their handshake. 

For some reason, Gabriel felted rather annoyed at Billy's presence. There's something about Billy that made Gabriel not like him. It's not because he felt like he was taking Lucas away.

"Everyday," Maya said.

"Girls should have their own handshake of awesomeness," Riley said.

"What would it be?" Maya asked.

 Maya and Riley both flipped their hair. 

"Stop it," they said in unison.

"Farkle, you are being awarded the Joseph T.R. Epstein Confidence Award," Cory announced. "Congratulations. Farkle?" 

Farkle wasn't even in his desk. 

Recording of Farkle's voice:

"Farkle can't come to his desk right now," a recording of Farkle's voice said. "If you have a question for Farkle, say, 'One;' a comment, say, 'Two;' billing questions, 'Three.'"

"One. Where are you?" Farkle asked.

"You have selected 'Three,'" the recording of Farkle's voice said.

"No, I said, 'One,'" Cory corrected.

"Sorry, we are experiencing unusually high call volume. Your call will be answered in approximately..." a man's voice said," 35..." then Farkle's voice continued, "Minutes."

A guitar started playing.

"Representative! What is this? Farkle's never missed a class in his life." Cory said.

The bell rang and everyone stood up and began to leave except for Riley and Maya. Gabriel left the classroom and went to his locker. He angrily opened it and started to shove some of his notebooks into it.

"Gabe?" he heard a familiar voice asked.

"What?" he said in annoyance as he turned around to face Lucas.