You said Never?

"Who is this Austin now?"
"Travis's best friend, the top student in the class?"
"Wait, no, never!"
"Never?"

In my first year of high school, I had two main goals: to achieve excellent grades and to experience a sweet love story-or at least develop a crush. Yet, I was struggling to meet both expectations. I was barely scraping by in my classes, and romance seemed like a distant dream. If I wanted to fit in, I found that I couldn't dedicate enough time to my studies. Time was never on my side.

Then there was this guy. Not gonna lie, he was genuinely intresting. The best way to describe him would be as the top student in our class, slightly popular, and remarkably knowledgeable about everything from academics to... well, a lot of things.

What I wanted from him was his academic prowess, but my heart yearned for something more.