He Lied, She Believed

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve: May 22nd, 2011

The principal had just finished giving his speech and called for the student council to come to the stage to give their speech before bringing up the valedictorian and before letting us go up one by one to receive our diplomas.

I looked around the auditorium as the various student council members stood up from their seats to make their way on the stage.

“This is so boring.” Avarie muttered beside me.

“I wonder how much longer it’s going to be.” I whispered back.

“Don’t know. Shouldn’t be much longer since we only have ninety something students graduating, I just hope the student council doesn’t jabber on forever and a day.”

Nodding my head in agreement I looked up at the stage and my breath caught in my throat. My gaze darted back and forth between the six student council members in confusion before I finally rested my gaze on Ty. He was standing in the middle next to Rylan on stage and he was no longer wearing his glasses and he had taken off the wig.

“Look who finally decided to come back to school. On graduation day no less.” Avarie giggled. “God he’s so smexy.”

“I couldn’t utter a word. I was paralyzed with complete shock. Why was Ty up on stage with the rest of the student council when he had stopped being Ty and became Bryce, the new kid.

“Thank you Principal Thomas. All of you know who I am of course so I won’t bother with introductions.” He chuckled, his deep voice filling the auditorium.

Laila Johnson stepped up to the mic. “And I’m sure you know the rest of us too.” She let out a giggle and stepped back letting Ty take over the mic once again.

“This year we decided to do a project. And after much planning with Principal Thomas and the faculty we were able to do it. So here is our student council senior project.” He nodded to Rylan who walked over to the laptop hooked up to the big projection screen that was currently showing pictures that students had turned in showing students through their four years of high school.

The screen changed and Rylan’s melodic voice came through the mic he was holding. “The student council wanted to do a presentation at graduation to talk about a certain subject that you see day to day in all high schools. Social status and how it affects your school life. We sent in our best man to do the undercover work.”

The big screen flashed with multiple pictures showing Ty changing into Bryce. Most of the student’s let out surprised gasps as they figured out the connection.

Ty spoke up again. “High schools have cliques and that’s what everyone judges someone on, what your social status is in school is what matters to most of you guys now a days. No one takes the time to actually get to know someone before they judge them. All that matters to you guys is who’s popular and who’s not. The kids that are popular, most of you assume they are all jerks and sluts. The kids that are considered nerds, most of you think they have no social life and they spend all their time in the library studying or reading. The list goes on. Years ago it wasn’t like that. Sure there were different cliques, the preps, the jocks, the skaters, nerds, band geeks. But everyone associated with everyone and was at least friendly towards others who weren’t in their groups. There wasn’t constant bullying, teasing or cruelty. But our generation has drastically changed. For the worst.”

The screen changed and began playing a video. The video zoomed in on Jayce and his friends.

“So Bryce, what did you do for fun back where you are from?” Jayce looked directly at the camera which he most likely didn’t even know about.