Summer of '07

The Rivalry

I had told Daniel to bring Heather over as soon as Elijah started to act like an asshole but so far he hadn't been so bad so I of course had to keep talking to him until he was annoyed.

"Boy, that's a relief because Heather just told me today that she's thinking about taking our friendship to the next step... if you know what I mean."

Elijah instantly turned back around to face me as his cheeks grew red in a veiled fury. "You're lying," he said. "Heather would never go with a loser like you. You're not her type."

"And what makes you think that you are, bro?" I said, almost mockingly.

Elijah aggressively shoved me back. He wasn't that much bigger than I was but the way he shoved me almost had me falling over. "Heather doesn't go for faggots, that's why," he replied and at the time it made no real sense to me why he was always pulling the gay card with every one of his insults. Looking back on this moment suddenly makes so much more sense now.

"I'm sure she doesn't... and that's exactly why she's not into you." And that comment right there just earned me a punch to the face that ruptured my lip within the instant. Yet I didn't fall back and continued to stand my ground. "Ya know, it's kinda telling that the only insults you can come up with are the gay ones... got something to tell us?" I said with my newly busted lip, just before Elijah took a second strike at me. By that point we were both on the ground and in the corner of my eye I could see Daniel running off to bring Heather over. I fought back for a little while, but as soon as Heather arrived I had given up so that Elijah looked like the bad guy while I was the victim.

"Guys, stop!" Heather cried, though she didn't really bother to do much of anything other than spectate.

It wasn't until one of the camp counselors had heard about the fight, that it finally concluded. Two of the guy counselors immediately headed over to the site of the fight and one of them pulled Elijah off of me as the other helped me up from the ground. With barely any time for me to recover, they promptly escorted the both of us to the camp discipline office.

We waited outside the camp director's office for quite some time in a tight waiting room area. It was utterly quiet as the two of us just waited and refused to speak to each other. I wanted to say something but what was there for me to say to him? He was a jerk and there was nothing I could say that would change that. Instead I decided to just keep the silence as I dealt with my bleeding lip and throbbing eyelid.

Eventually the camp director had finally decided to take some time out of his busy schedule to have a chat with us about fighting on camp grounds and how that was strictly prohibited and so on. Since it was our first offense, the director decided to let us both off "lightly" by simply banning us from attending some evening activity to instead spend our night helping out in the kitchen. Which I was fine with and Elijah didn't really seem to give a fuck.

After we were dismissed from the director's office, we both ran into Heather who had been waiting to confront the both of us.

"Heather..." I said as I was pretty happy to see her, hoping that she had finally come to her senses about picking me instead of the douchebag beside me.

Her facial expressions however did not replicate mine and I could tell that she was not happy about what had just gone down. She scowled at us both and had begun shaking her head in disappointment. "You guys are so immature... I honestly don't know what to say to either one of you guys..."

"He started it," Elijah said, quick to point the finger at me when in reality he was the one who threw the first punch. "I was just minding my own business when this clown comes up to me and starts telling me how you two are suddenly a thing now and then he starts insulting me and—"

"I don't care who started it!" Heather briskly cut him off as I assume she was uninterested in hearing the rest of his BS. Bless her. "The fact that you guys got into a fight over me is just... wow... it's just pathetic. I thought both of you were better than that." Did she really? I mean, we were like 14 at the time. This is something that 14-year-old boys do. You can't expect us to be mature already when we're still essentially children.

"Okay, first of all, he's a liar! He's the one who insulted and attacked me. I was just trying to make peace with him and he still has the audacity to tell me that I'm not good enough to be with you because I'm a 'faggot'... and then he punches me in the face and starts beating the shit outta me." Not entirely how it went down but of course I'm gonna omit the parts that make me look like I instigated the fight. "I mean, didn't you see me getting beat up by this psycho?"

"Yes... I saw you on the ground like a wimp taking a beating and not even bothering to fight back. Real nice, Trav. That definitely makes me wanna date you now." She just rolled her eyes and proceeded to face Elijah. "Look, I don't know who's telling the truth here but the fact that you guys can't handle this situation like adults and instead decide to fight it out like a couple of eight-year-olds makes me completely uninterested in either of you guys..." Oh, we'll see about that in three years. "... so yeah, I'm done." She walked off after that and completely left the two of us feeling as though we had just fought over nothing. At the time, it might've seemed like we had seen the last of her but this was just the beginning.

I took a glance at Elijah and I could see in his face that he felt bad about the whole thing now, knowing that in the end it was all for nothing. He however didn't say anything to me as if his pride prevented it and instead he proceeded to walk off. Okay, fuck you too then.