Heterodox (BOOK 2)

Chapter 24

~Vesper~

I try to wriggle free.

"Nu-uh-uh," Lance tuts, roughly pushing me back against the locker once more. "You aren't going anywhere today."

"You don't make that choice for me, Lance," I seeth.

"You don't make your own choices either, Vesper," snorts Lorraine chewing on bubble gum like a cow on its cud. "I thought you knew that by now."

I lunge at her, but Lance's grasp on me restricts me from committing murder. "Say it again, Lorraine. I. F*CKING. DARE. YOU."

"GLADLY," she hisses. "You don't make your own F*CKING CHOICES, VESPER. YOU NEVER DID AND YOU NEVER WILL."

Is killing her really a sin?

 "I honestly don't know where you got your courage to stride in here with that hairdo! You're supposed to show up looking like trash. Act your role! That means wearing those disgusting dreads with tacky beads in them!" She stomps her foot like the spoilt child she is and crosses her arms over her enviable chest. "You had one job, Vesper! One job!"

I squint at her incredulously. "Are you even hearing yourself right now?!"

She rolls her eyes. "We're doing you a favor, Vesper. But you're too dumb to realize it."

"And what favor exactly is that, Lorraine?"

"You need to realize that you're not worth it and you'll never be worth it. "

My heart cracks a little just as the bell rings. There's a shift in the audience; some start to head to class but quite a lot remain.

No respect for the bell.

"For all the years you've been at Newbourne,  you think you would at least pick up on the hint, huh? No matter what you wear, how you do your hair, nothing will change the way we see you; the way the world sees you!"

"That's not true," I mutter under my breath.

"Oh please." Lorraine pops her gum and looks to the crowd. "She's stubborn, isn't she? How about we tell her the tagline of her website ?"

My eyes widen. "Website? I thought that was taken down!"

The website was a bullying platform dedicated to my humiliation a few years back. On the site, anybody could upload photos, videos and memes to degrade me as a human being. Some were even graphic; some photoshopping my face unto 40-year old porn stars. Because of this, I sunk into a bit of depression; refusing to go to school because it was pure torture. Luckily, my parents took the issue to the principal and it was promised that the site would be taken down. As for the culprits they will be found and dealt with accordingly.

Or so I thought.

Lance smirks. "It was but a new site was remade a day afterward. You know nothing."

"Says the guy with an idiot's IQ." I shift my glare over to him. "Look at you; so happy that you can tell me something I don't know. That must be rare."

He grits his teeth. "Shut up!"

"For you? Never."

"Come on guys," Lorraine reminds them, stalking around in the semi-circle of students. "Tell her the tagline that makes her website go viral!"

The kids around me leap to chance as if it was a million dollars. Without remorse.

"HER EXISTENCE IS DREADED AS MUCH AS HER HEAD!"

"Don't you know how hard it was to find the name DreadHead for you? How hard it was to find a tag line for your website so that it could go viral?"

"Oh, I can imagine," I sigh sarcastically and look at the crowd of students. "It must have been very difficult to gather all your single brain cells together to at least sound like a half-wit!"