Never Be the Same

I

                I jumped a puddle spanning the width of the sidewalk. The rain wasn’t letting up at all and the buses were doing everything in their power to keep as many people from getting on. Drivers swerved towards puddles in hopes of soaking a passer-by. I, unfortunately, wound up being one of those soaked passers-by.

                A car honked and I tried to rush along the sidewalk in order to avoid being drenched again. I narrowly missed the stream of dirty, muddy water and felt my chest swell with pride. Walking with my head high, however, prevented me from seeing the speeding sports car heading in my direction. Needless to say, I was soaked to the bone.

                Several hopped puddles and blocks later I stumbled on my dreary looking high school. All the populars lingered under the canopy at the front of the school, as dry as can be. They snickered and giggled at all the unfortunate slobs, like me, that wound up walking in this torrential down pour.

                Mustering up all the courage I could with my clothes clinging to me like a second skin, I marched towards the front of the school and the populars. The second my rain boots landed on the concrete walkway their eyes zoned in on me like a tracking device. Even with the distance between us I could still hear every single word they said. They brutally ripped me apart, pointing out everything that looked like it was wrong with me.

                All of the courage I had summoned went down the drain with my dignity. And just like that I found myself floundering about at the bottom of the social food chain like the dork I was. Their laughter followed me and haunted me as I stumbled down the hall to my locker.

                I could still hear their laughter as I spun my combination into my lock and felt curious stares penetrate my back. Slumping my shoulders forward I dug around in my gym bag for my sweats and an over-sized sweater. It wasn’t the most flattering outfit, but it was better than stumbling around in these sopping wet clothes.

                “What’d you do, fall in a pool on your way to school McDoom?” I wanted nothing more than to burry my head in the depths of my locker instead of facing him. “Or did you take a shower with your clothes on in order to get the stench of loser out of them?”

                I rolled my eyes before closing my locker door. “Give it a rest Beck, you’re not funny,” walking past him, I tried to ignore the fact that his friends from the football team had begun to swarm. When they started to block my way to the girls’ bathroom I sighed, aggravated. “Would you guys just quit it? All I want to do is change so if you all could just leave me alone then that would be great.”

                The boys parted to let me through but they didn’t stop following me. I could hear them continuing to rant about me but I managed to train my ears away from it all. When the girls’ bathroom came into my line of sight so did the head popular; Brittany. She sauntered past me, sneering as she did so, and right to Beck.

                “What’re you boys up to?” she drawled in the sickeningly sweet voice of hers that made me want to do nothing but gag. She pressed her obviously fake breasts against his chest and trailed her manicured fingertips down the length of his arm. Her eyes found mine and a wickedly sinful smirk pulled up her red stained lips. “Tantalizing the charity case again?”