The Vituperator (NaNoWriMo 2015)

the beginning

I AM FRIENDLESS. I moved to a new school in summer. I'm to spend my last year of high school around strangers.

When you grow up as a shy child around the same people your whole life, you feel that you can only ever be comfortable around that handful of people; everyone else is an alien, trying to push and probe you about things you feel you can't trust them with. Without the core people in your life, you're lost; you think of children left home alone, you think of some poor animal separated from its herd, you think of everything sad and pathetic and lonely in the world because you resonate with it. The sad animal that got left behind? That was me.

When I say I am friendless, I mean that I had to leave my friends behind. We keep in touch; a few words, a few snapchats exchanged each day, but the loneliness is can't be stopped. The problem is that I'd the same friends for as long as I could remember. I grew up with one side-by-side as neighbors, my best friend I met in the second grade, and the other I only became good friends with in the beginning of junior high. The four of us were the best of friends, of course they all had other friends they had made in other classes and other places, all except me. I was no good at talking to people, and I'm still horrendous at conversation today. Regular people scare me; how do they function in everyday conversation so flawlessly? Do they also feel like every move they make is wrong and will have dire social consequences? Needless to say, after moving to this place, my only friends became my online friends. Friends to see everyday, in person? I lost those the day my parents split up and moved me across the world.

The split didn't mess with me, my parents weren't on great terms, but I was good with the both of them. I live with my mom and her wife now, because we all agreed that if I stayed with my father I would end up spoiled and bratty. (I love my father, but both of us share the same kind of impulsiveness around money.)

My mother wanted out of the city. Reluctantly, I said my goodbyes and followed. We moved to the middle of asscrack nowhere, and the only school available for me was filled to the brim with big egos and even bigger wallets.

I met Bryson Goff at a party. I had spent a majority of my summer alone, school hadn't started yet and I hadn't met anyone. Then came one night I was invited to a student hosted Welcome Back party, meaning I was added on Facebook by the host and promptly confronted with an invitation to a stranger's house. I was never much of a fan of parties before the move, and I was learning to embrace being alone, but there was a nagging part of me telling me to go to the party of drunk strangers anyway. I was alone and anxious and annoyed and Bryson started talking to me. I remember I told him to go away, but the thing about Bryson is that he does whatever he wants. He came up to me, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, clad in hideously douchey khakis, with blonde hair all gelled up, and a glass of champagne in hand.

"Asshole," was my first thought upon first seeing everyone at this school, but with Bryson I was spot on. Rich parents, richer grandparents, and an ego twice the size of the eiffel tower. Later that night I would also learn that he was incredibly persistent as well.

Save for my friends, I have never enjoyed talking to people, even as a little girl I preferred not to talk. I would play with all the other girls and boys, but it was easy child's play, no words except delighted screams and cheers exchanged as we threw mud and collected stones. Of course, I stopped collecting stones and throwing mud at a reasonable age, but when Bryson was speaking to me at that moment, I really wished I could throw those at his permanent smirk.

I'm not going to say he grew on me, because he didn't. Though apparently, I grew on him. I was stuck with him as my only "friend" whether I liked it or not. When school began, I was suddenly welcomed into his circle of friends. They didn't welcome me with open arms per se, it was more like I was tolerated because of who I was friends with. I was still trying to find my way out of the gang, I didn't hate them nor did I love them - I just wanted no part of them. Friends like those are tangled in webs of drama, they won't even notice the spider's spun them up for dinner until the rest of the school's knee deep in their gossip. I for one enjoy drama, just not when it involves me. I see it more as that movie you didn't know you wanted to watch until you stumble upon it channel-surfing out of boredom.

I spent the whole time trying not to get tangled in when I never even noticed that I already was, and I've got no one else to blame for this but him.

-

Hope you enjoyed the prologue! The story won't be written this way, keep in mind, but also remember as you're reading that it will be kind of a slow burn. Things will be revealed slowly, but shit only starts to hit the fan in like chapter 9.

Hope you stick with me on this!