Behind the Poems

Faker • Part 3

The next few weeks passed with a slight blur. I've gotten closer and closer to Mackenzie and the royal members, until I was almost transformed into one of them.

That time, Maddie was a past. I'm not even kidding when I say that it's easy to forget that she existed at all.

Because Mackenzie was that kind of person. The kind that, when you're with them, you feel special, like you're the center of the world. The kind who says things that are so interesting that you have no attention for anything else.

We went to sleepovers together, we hung out together. I was loving this life. Now in the hallways, even without Mackenzie in sight, people actually made way for me to get through. Boys held doors for me on the way to classes.

I was becoming one of them.

My passion for poetry never did leave me, though. I made up my mind to enter the poetry competition which Mrs. Jones have suggested, and I worked very hard to come up with one which was good enough.

Mackenzie, surprisingly, cared about my poetry. "Have you gotten your poem ready yet, Tanya? The competition's next week!" she said when we were hanging out in my bedroom one afternoon.

"It's ready," I said with a grin. "Now I'll just decide how I should recite it."

"Oh," she said, "that's easy. I could show you everything, you know, the actions and all. I'm no good at poetry, but at least I can help you with those."

"You would?" I asked, touched.

"Of course I would! You're my best friend, Tanya," she said.

I put on a wide smile and took out my notebook, showing her my poem. She read through it and looking very impressed, she said, "Gosh, you're really good, aren't you?"

Then she taught me all the actions, the tones I should use to express the poem to its maximum. We even practiced together, side-by-side; and by the end of the day, I was confident that I was good to go.

But on the day of the competition; that's when all hell broke loose.

The contestants were reciting their poems alphabet-wise, so I was at the back of them all.

"I'm quite nervous," I told Mackenzie.

To my surprise, she shrugged and said, "Well, you should be."

Where did that come from?

A few contestants went off with their poems before Mackenzie's name was called onto stage.

"I didn't know that you were entering," I said.

"Yeah, bet you didn't," Mackenzie smirked at me. "Wish me luck though I won't need it, loser."

Then she walked right up and performed my poem with all her own actions which she'd taught me before. If she had grabbed my heart from my chest and slammed it onto concrete floor, it wouldn't hurt as much as the realization that I've been stupid. That I've been used by Mackenzie.

Mackenzie, faker, faker, faker. She's such a faker.

What am I supposed to do now? Walk onto stage and talk about how I was used, betrayed, hurt by Mackenzie?

Wait. Now that I think about it, it isn't such a bad idea after all.

I grabbed a pen and a notepad from my sling bag. Time to get some work done.