Revenge of the Teenage Geek

Prologue

Alyssa looked in the mirror in her locker one last time. She gave herself a reassuring smile, before taking a deep breath. She was ready.

As she walked a few steps through the hallway towards Johnathan's locker she began to see the faces of her fellow classmates staring at her. What was she doing? Is she really walking towards Johnathan? Does she not know her place in the social structure of high school?

But Alyssa didn't care. Or at least, she tried not to. I'll show them, she thought to herself. I'll prove them all wrong.

Once she'd reached Johnathan's locker she took another breath and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around, and Alyssa was face to face with the herculean enigma. She froze for a brief second before opening her mouth. 'Hi Johnathan,' she said, wanting to sound confident despite the fact that she was staring into the eyes of a God. 'I was just wondering, if maybe – ' she stopped. She could see a smile dance across Johnathan's face, his eyebrows perked up.

'If maybe what?' He chuckled slightly, almost as if he knew what was coming. Although Alyssa didn't twig onto this at the time.

'If maybe you would like to go to the Prom with me? It's Sadie Hawkins themed, you see. So the girl asks the boy? Not that there's anything wrong with the girl asking a boy at a normal prom I mean. It's just, I don't know, it's just some sort of tradition I guess. But I guess all gender roles are tradition and look where that got us.' Alyssa rambled, realising as soon as she asked the all-important question that she should never have opened her mouth at all. What was she thinking?

'You're asking me to prom?' Johnathan stared at Alyssa, as he took one step away from her. He turned to tap his friend next to him on the shoulder. 'Dude, did you hear this?' Johnathan's fellow football player turned to see Alyssa looking at Johnathan. 'Did you hear what she just said?'

'No, what did she say?'

'She just asked me to prom.' Johnathan revealed his great punchline to the joke that would go down the generations at their high school. Alyssa Roberts asking the most desirable boy at school to the prom? Now that was plucky. You had to admire her courage, people would say. I mean it's totally barbaric, but it's kind of nice that she doesn't realise quite how completely undesirable she is, they would laugh. Johnathan and his sidekick began to giggle at the complete cry-for-help standing before them. He addressed Alyssa again, 'have you seen my girlfriend?'

Alyssa looked blankly at him. She didn't know what to say.

'Have you ever seen her? Have you ever even seen Madison?'

'I thought you broke up.' Alyssa found her words and delivered them, meekly. 'She told me that the two of you broke up. But that she wishes me well. She told me. She – '

'Even if we had broken up,' Johnathan began to laugh, 'why in hell do you think that I would go from dating the hottest piece of ass in the entire school, to dating you?' The laughter built, around Alyssa all she could hear was the laughter and taunts of those around her. 'Are you deluded? Look, Alyssa, I'm sure there's someone out there who thinks you're great. Some old, blind dude who wants to hook up with one more chick before he hits the can. But if you seriously ever thought that I would go to prom with you?' He didn't finish sentence. He just laughed. The boys laughed and laughed and laughed as Alyssa turned and faced away from them.

She didn't want them to see her cry. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

As she walked further and further away from Johnathan, her eyes filled with more and more salty liquid. Her head was foggy. His words bounced around her. Was she really that ugly? Was she really that unlovable?

Her speed quickened. She wasn't walking now, this was more like a jog. She didn't know where to go, she had no-one to turn to. In a moment of incomprehensible panic she saw the sign to the girls' bathroom in her periphery. She swung the door open and ran into the farthest cubicle. Once there she just sobbed. She had never felt worse than she did right now.

Whilst crying, she heard the door to the bathroom swing open once more. She heard the voice of Madison Brown, the queen bee of high school, and her official worst enemy. 'So, as a joke,' Madison laughed, 'I told her that she had my blessing to ask him to prom. And that I thought he liked her or something. And she actually believed me. I mean, isn't that the most tragic thing you've ever heard? Alyssa Roberts, you guys. I swear, it's hysterical.'

Alyssa wanted to say something but couldn't. She just sat on the seat of the toilet, quietly sobbing to herself as she heard the most popular girls in school laugh about how positively deluded she must have been.

And it was then. It was in that exact moment that Alyssa decided. She would show them, she would show everyone. She wouldn't be the social outcast forever. She would get her revenge on the popular kids that had taunted her for her entire life. Those fucking bastards would get what was coming to them. And Alyssa was going to be the one to deliver the punishment.