Sweet Like Revenge

54 - Tasting a Bitter Draught

Revenge is sour.

It's watching the people you care about have everything ripped away from them.

It's watching them being pulled out of class by police for questioning, one in relation to an alleged affair with their teacher, another in connection to a suspected student drug ring.

It's having to hear through the rumor mill that the person you were falling for has skipped town with his dad, scared that sticking around might mean losing him for good.

It's getting everything you ever wanted, but losing everything that really mattered.

Revenge didn't right the wrongs inflicted on me. It didn't take away my trauma or my pain. All it did was turn me into the one thing that I hated the most.

Because revenge is a hunger that can never be satiated. That, even if achieved, leaves you feeling empty.

I only wished that I knew that from the start. 

My heels hit the school halls on Wednesday after two board-mandated pupil-free days. Even before they did, everything felt different. I wasn't protected by numbers, my face wasn't obscured under a mask. Everyone knew my name, and everyone knew what I had done.

But they didn't react as I thought they would. The ordinary person—the blurry faces who gawked at me on my first day, who feared me during my reign of terror—didn't mock me. They didn't greet me with cruel chants of 'Ana-Banana' or make a passing reference to the shy girl they once knew. The gala hack couldn't be linked back to anyone, but I knew that everyone suspected that I was involved. According to them, my motive was the strongest, and I was the only person with a motive who was actually seen at the event. 

But they didn't seem upset.

My own parents weren't even angry at me. Even after I explained everything to my mother and Richie—and I mean everything—they didn't so much as ground me. Instead, they blamed themselves.

The school board barely batted an eye. In the wake of everything else, they simply chalked what I did down to immaturity. They placed most of the blame on Principal Walsh. 

I hated that.

For some reason, I wanted to face anger. To face fury. Not just from my parents, but from my peers and teachers as well. The looks of respect, the ones of pity ... they only made me feel worse. I didn't want to be admired, and I didn't want mercy or understanding. I knew the gravity of what I'd done. I knew it all along, and I still went ahead with it anyway. At some point, I started to enjoy it.

Maybe I was just a sucker for punishment, but I truly felt that it was what I deserved. I felt like the only way to get rid of the guilt burrowing into my skin was to have others tear it out. I felt like the only way to rid myself of Elle was for others to beat her out of me.

I felt like I couldn't break free from her, from her manipulation and lies, if no one held me accountable. Respect, mercy, understanding—it all stroked her ego. It fed her and threatened to bring her back to life.

But, then again, she didn't have an ego to stroke. She didn't have a heart to revive.

Because the truth was that there was no Elle. There was only ever me. And that's what I feared the most.

I considered avoiding the cafeteria. I considered hiding in the gardens outside amongst the flowerboxes and pines. But wasn't fleeing and hiding what started all of this in the first place? Back in seventh grade?

Maybe what happened with Astor then was always bound to happen, regardless of whether or not I ran away in the first place. But I didn't want to run anymore. My legs were so tired.