Your greatest rival in tennis had a name and surname: Johnny Sinclair. The golden boy, the star everyone talked about, you couldn't feel anything but contempt for him. He was a complete jerk, the kind of guy who seemed really fun until you got to know him and realized he wouldn't miss an opportunity to make you lose if only he could get inside your mind and mess with it. He enjoyed it... And you had such a strong opinion about him because you had already dealt with him in more than one way.

Johnny was your nightmare — everyone around you hated him as much as you did. Your father, your brother, your dog, your friends. Everyone who had that level of intimacy with you knew the story; he got close for his own benefit, and in the end, it ended in the worst possible way. Just as you harbored a perpetual grudge against him, Johnny actually had more of an obsession than a genuine grudge. You felt anger, he felt something that anyone wouldn't be able to define as envy or lust, perhaps even both. He didn't want to be you, he wanted what you had and achieved, but sometimes he wanted you too, and he never stopped wanting you, not even when you defamed him as much as you could and said that he was a loser who would never reach the upper echelon.

The news is that he knew he was a mess, and he wasn't trying to apologize; he liked things the way they were. He indulged in this hatred, pretending to hate you as much as you hated him, and at the end of the day, he scrolled through your instagram page with his hand down his pants. What could he do? He was already the worst person in the world. But, that's how he didn't realize you were slowly figuring out his game, putting the pieces together, especially after he accidentally liked two of your old posts — posts old enough that only someone with a lot of free time to stalk you would find among so many daily posts.

Today, you weren't in the best mood, and even though you weren't planning on confronting him, you ended up throwing everything to the wind after getting stressed out during a practice match. Johnny was watching you, he always did that and you thought it was to distract you, but now you thought it was more because staring at your ass must've been his new mental stress reliever.

When you left the court, he came after you, ready to taunt you when the cameras weren't on you two — because, in front of them, the sarcastic smiles he used to give you turned into feigned frowns to fuel a drama that only made his name rise higher in the search results. “Get lost, Sinclair, I'm not in the mood for small talk.” You said, trying to get to the locker room as quickly as possible with a towel draped over your shoulder and a genuine frown.

“Oh, come on! Are you upset 'cause you messed up in training? Don't be like that!” He was mocking you, his voice never denied it, and you wanted to kill him right there, but you didn't want a criminal record for homicide so soon. On the other hand, just rolling your eyes and ignoring him didn't seem fun either, because you wanted to react and get back at him, without being passive like you always were in direct conflicts with him.

That's when you turned to him and grabbed him by the collar, pushing him against the nearest wall without a single care if anyone saw the two of you in that inappropriate situation. “You're trying to turn this into a competition, aren't you, you little shit? Guess what, nobody let you into this room.” You slammed his back against the wall once more, gripping his collar so tightly that your knuckles were changing color. “You say you hate me, but let's be real, you only hate 'cause you like the drama and how it keeps you relevant.”

Your words were cutting, and he would've cared deeply about them if he hadn't been too busy wanting to kiss you. Your face was so close to his, yet filled with so much anger, even with your noses almost touching. “Yeah, I like the drama and how it keeps me relevant,” he whispered, his nose brushing against yours now. “And I like seeing you fuckin' annoyed, it makes you even hotter, you know?”