Microstory 868: Fall at the Final Hurdle

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I’m an extremely competitive person, and I quite frankly don’t understand people who aren’t. What’s the point of life if you’re not going to develop, progress, get better...be better, than everyone else? What are you doing with your time if you’re just sitting there, content with being mediocre. I’d sooner kill myself than waste away with no purpose. Obviously not everyone can be the best, but people who don’t try just don’t make sense, and I can’t stand them. Thing is, I can’t stand other competitive people either. We’re all alphas, so we easily get on each other’s nerves. I’ve never been in a fight in my whole life, but I can’t hold in my anger this time. There’s this one guy from Easton High who I have never been able to beat, in any track event. I’m always so incredibly close, but I just can’t make up that fraction of a second. But I’ve resolved to correct that in my last event before I graduate. If I don’t win this, I’ll forever be a loser, and that is not acceptable. I push myself harder than I ever have before, and almost feel like I’m gonna pass out. I’m about to do it when something hits me in the chest. Whatever it was, it was small, but even that is enough to make me fall face forward, right on the hurdle. Looking back, I guess I’m just lucky I’m alive, but I was not so clear-headed at the time. I know he threw a rock at me, or something like it. My lane was right by the the grass, I so I couldn’t find it to prove it; not that the police would have dusted it for prints, or anything. The first thing I see when I come to is my nemesis, jumping up and down at the finish line, rousing the crowd, and proverbially patting himself on the back. The rage boils up inside of me, then explodes. I hop right over the hurdle from a standing position, and bolt right for him. He’s so shocked at seeing me keep going even though the race was long over than he can’t move. I barrel right into him like a charging rhino. I want to punch him in the face, but I hold myself back. No matter what anyone tells you, I showed restraint; it wasn’t because the other racers kept me away from him. Needless to say, I regretted what I did, but the principal didn’t care. That bitch expelled me three days—three days!—before my last final exam. It’s so late in the year that I can’t even transfer to a new school. I’m going to have to go to summer school just to graduate. I still don’t know if college will let me defer a year so I can take care of this. Whatever happens, though, I know I’ll fix it, and probably still graduate early, because I’m a winner. And that’s something people like my bitch principal could never understand.