The Importance of Becoming a Narcissist

Chapter One

April Winning(POV)

Unless some magical wizard swooped down from space, kidnapped my teacher, flew her to Hogwarts and held her for ransom, the spring play was sure to be disaster. Miss A, the Dramatic Arts advisor, who was--like--my age, never seemed to know what the hell she was doing.

It was really, kinda annoying.

To be perfectly honest, theatre had never been my thing. This was partly due to utter disinterest, partly because of my near-crippling stage fright. But mostly because theatre students at school were generally the most unlikeable breed of humans on earth.

There were  really only two types. Type A: elitist snobs with perfect lives. Or, type B: way-over-the-top attention-seekers--like a vicious clan of Miley Cyruses. Quite naturally, I actively avoided them and have been successful at it for the better part of my high school career, if I do say so myself

Recently that had made impossible by my school counselor, who brilliantly thought to inform me that I needed to take a drama class to satisfy all of my enrichment credits in time for graduation. As I sat with the chin on my palm and wondered how I'd gotten trapped in such a useless, mindless class, I conjured up an image of his unsympathetic face. Then I mentally cursed whichever spiteful administration employee was responsible for our school's graduation requirements and pretty soon, the slow and painful decay of my sanity.

There was one thing about the class I was interested in.

My grade.

Getting A's was my thing. So whenever an assignment had been due, I'd complied to the best of my ability. This included the time she's asked each of us to draft a short play of our own. She was planning on using the best one in the next spring production. At the time I couldn't but feel motivated to win her little competition. What had I to lose anyway?

Today she'd given us her decision, and I surprised myself by being disappointed and furious--which had only been possible because I'd allowed myself to trust her. I'd trusted her to make an honest, conscientious decision that would reflect her otherwise imaginary professional expertise, but she totally and deliberately betrayed me.

When the word 'winner', followed by two other words that sounded like Leo Zachary escaped her lips, my jaw swung open and stayed there as I desperately tried to comprehend what had just happened. Even after I saw his gloating face stand up from his seat that afternoon to receive the applause...I still--couldn't---quite---send--the information to my brain, so I just continued to stare with my mouth open for a little while longer.

There was only one thing anyone ever needed to know about Leo Zachary. He who I had valiantly endured for the past three years, just so happened to be the most arrogant, malicious, metro-sexual waste of air that had ever walked the planet. He was famously talented in the art of being a total ego-maniac slash compulsive instigator--which was almost always directed at me. He couldn't go three seconds without seeking attention for himself if he tried. Frankly, there were just so many things wrong with the kid that it was hard to imagine him succeeding in anything because he was too busy being a jerk.

Too many times in the past had he bullied me, called me names with his equally despicable friends, and made me feel inferior in every sense of the word. Too many times has he deliberately and maliciously exposed every bit of insecurity I'd ever had and threw it up in my face just for a laugh. He used to target me so monstrously that there were times that I thought I really hated him.

Like, forreal.

Thankfully, I'd put those years behind me. In fact I'd grown and matured so much that it felt like forever ago--though it was unlikely that he had changed much at all. Despite all of this, my indignation at Miss A's decision wasn't rooted in prejudice, regardless. The real problem was that she literally leading the theatre department down a road to its own demise. The real problem was that his play was, to put it simply, crap. His plot was crap. His characters were crap. And his title was just plain stupid.