Rats, Roses And Paper Bones

chapter 19: A trip down memory lane.

Baptist model college was a prestigious school, one well known for its various academic and athletic achievements.

The schools' facilities were the best in that area. And as exepected, the fees were unnecessarily high. But just like students of other schools, the students of Baptist model college categorised them selves into different ranks.

There were the rich, smart, popular students, The ones who had it all, including looks.

Then there were the rich popular ones with looks but no brains but it didn't matter because they were rich and popular.

And then there were the rich and popular students with brains but no looks. Their looks didn't even matter because their wealth and popularity made up for it. Oh, sorry, I mean their 'parent's wealth', they were ready at any time to laud it over the less privileged ones.

And of course, there was me. The less privileged one. The one with average looks. The one who was neither rich nor popular.
The smart nerd with no friends.

The only friend I had just walked out on me because of a boy. And who was the boy? One of the rich and popular kids with looks but no brains.

I wasn't surprised though. I knew she always wanted to leave me. I could already feel her drifting away from the moment she started telling me how she had so much fallen head over heels for a guy named "Bayo".

Not long after, I started to notice her desire to join the clique of rich and popular braniacs with no manners whatsoever. I suspected it was a stunt she thought would grant her the attention of her newly found love that she so much craved.

She was still new to the school when I became her friend. I helped her to settle down and gave her a lot of advice. We had connected a lot since then. We read together, prayed together, left for the classroom together and ate together everyday.

She became my best friend and only friend in the school. But she had turned our friendship down the drain because of her interest in one of the 'popular' guys (who already had a girlfriend BTW) and an invitation to one of the popular kids 'hangout' or whatever they called it.

She had always been dreaming of this moment so she didn't think twice before leaving me behind.

She pretended like she didn't know what they normally did to get to the hangout and what they did at the hangout.

"I can't believe you haven't noticed that you are slowly becoming like them,Gloria, this isn't who you are". I said to her one fateful day, the day things fell apart for me.

It was the day of the hangout. They held this so called hangout once every two weeks and  as usual, they would sneak out at night to the back of the school and climb over the school fence to get to the other side of the school.

Then they would probably visit a night club or go for an evening snack or most likely go to meet with their little boyfriends and girlfriends from neighbouring schools. All these while disguising and making sure no one spots them.

"And who are you to know who I am? You know nothing about me". She replied coldly and turned to leave.

I held her hand.
"Please, even if you think I don't know a lot about you, you need to listen to me, don't go for that hangout, please.". I pleaded.

She pushed my hand away.
"So you are telling me that just going for one hangout will turn me into a horrible person?"

"No, that's not what I meant, I have a bad feeling about the hangout, please just try and listen to me."I tried to plead with her.
I hadn't told her the reason why I was being paranoid.