Fontaine Academy

Chapter 8

Patrick

“The food station is literally less than 10 steps away. Go get your own.” I say exasperated.

“That’s 10 steps too many. Also you know stolen food tastes the best and besides we both know you got them for me anyway.” Tiago says sneaking more fries off my plate.

“Why would I get them for you? You were right next to me in the food line.” I ask.

“Because you know I will steal some of your food at some point so…” he shrugs.

I sigh. “You know you could solve all of this if you just got enough food for yourself right?”

“But then we wouldn’t have these riveting conversations would we? And what would be the fun in that.” he says unapologetic.

Best friends are so overrated.

“Oh I almost forgot to ask. Jamie how are you doing without your biggest fan around?” Tiago asks.

“You mean stalker.” Charles says.

“What I want to know is how none of us notice her absence yesterday? She is usually attached to this one like a barnacle.” I say pointing at Jamie.

“Exactly. I am surprised he is not going through withdrawal right now. How are you holding up James?” Tiago asks reaching across the table to place a hand on Jamie’s arm.

“Get your greasy fingers off me.” Jamie chuckles moving out of his reach. “I am not in withdrawal, in fact I feel like I can finally breathe again. I don’t know if you noticed but she was a bit obsessed.”

“Stalker.” Charles coughs and laughter erupts at the table.

My mood darkens as soon as I enter Lit and see the new girl sat by the window. When I didn’t see her in any of my classes yesterday I thought I wouldn’t have to share any of my classes with her. Guess I was wrong. And of course it just had to be one of the classes that aren’t actually boring.

“What are you staring at so hard?” Tiago asks startling me out of my thoughts.

“Ah you were staring at new girl. That explains the death glare.” He says pulling me to our seats.

“Ugh, why is she here?” I ask.

“Does she bother you that much? Did you run into her again this morning or something?” Tiago asks then his eyes widen comically. “Wait don’t tell me she has inspired you to start your own harem? Is that why you asked if I wanted to add her to mine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I am not at all interested in her like that. All I am interested in is making her pay for her lack of respect.” I say.

“You have to let the pool thing go, Patty.” He says.

“If you don’t stop calling me that, I will start calling you Tia. And it’s not only about the pool, which she never apologized for by the way. Jamie teased her a bit during P.E and she threw a ball at his face.”

“First of all I will never stop calling you Patty. You can go ahead and carry out your threat but don’t be surprised when people give you weird looks for calling be ‘aunt’.” Tiago says with a shrug.

“Secondly since when do you care about Jamie’s hurt feelings or face? Besides from what I heard he is the one who started it all. You know he always goes overboard, you shouldn’t involve yourself in his foolishness.”

I roll my eyes. “He didn’t go overboard. It was just a joke.”

“He could have seriously hurt someone, Patrick. If you are not going to stop him when he gets like that, at least don’t join in okay?”

It is kind of weird seeing him so serious so I agree. “Okay.”

My mood does not improve after that. I have at least two teachers comment that I may finally have real competition with the new girl’s arrival. I finally learned that her name is Juliana Ortiz and apparently she is really academically gifted.

Whatever they have seen in her school records must be impressive because she has them near salivating at the prospect of her going up against me. I have always been top of the grade and besides what some losers might say, it has nothing to do with my last name.

My parents don’t pull rank to get me better grades. They have taught me from a young age that being a Fontaine means I need to be the best on my own without using my last name as a crutch. So have always worked really hard to be the best, at this point it’s almost like muscle memory.

I don’t know what makes them think someone like her could possibly be competition against me but I will just have to prove them wrong. But first I have to see her transcripts to see exactly what I am up against.

I use the backdoor I created into the school’s server to access her file. I learn a lot: Mom died when she was 3, dad is unknown. Was never adopted and moved around quite a bit. Has always been good at school. Nothing below an A- in the last 5 years.

I will admit she is good but not better than me. Besides that was public school. We will see how well she does at my school.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

A/N

Finally uploading on time, yay!
Let me now what you think about Patrick, Tiago and the chapter in general.

Thank you for reading. See you tomorrow!

- Oli <3