No one even bothers to respect us anymore, for our baddie star attitude and our disrespect towards those incompetent teachers and principals.
And we blame Cassandra for encouraging everyone in the school to ignore our "privileges". Yes, her and her Acorn-Chips band, strengthening themselves like rocks, and taking advantage of my shame to catapult themselves into my place, thwarting every attempt to sabotage them.
In the area of boyfriend dramas, one of them was when I dated Carl, Cassie's ex-b-f, after she dated Herman. Never mind that he had many failed affairs with girlfriends before - wait - he set me up (when it's the other way round) so that I'll be here just for his pleasure, and although Roland is beating up Carl, he and Carl later scolded and slapped me for "using" and cheating them. As they walked away, I could briefly see Cassie smirking beside a wall ...
Taking another of my awful situations into her advantage, she then slandered more about me, happily basking in the warmth of a bigger cluster of supporters, while I only have a few stragglers beside me, with the addition of the considerate [sic] nerd, Lucas Gregorios. But all of this went upside-down when Carl found out the truth of the rumors surrounding Cassie's eloping with Herman, when he finally dumped her for good. It gets worse (or better) with Herman showing his true colors: a thief, a snitch, and a liar, tricking that dumb Cassie into leaving her diary in school, unleashing a wave of scandals, finally causing her to freak out. Ha!
Now Herman is with the amiable Roxanne, who has now landed herself into Cassie's "hate-list", as the latter already spiraled herself to insanity for Herman's sake, such as wasting time on anorexia just to look good for him. Will she ever learn, I told my classmates, as more of them now rally around me, to put up my rightful place as popular girl -- now I better stop this Roxanne from and chance of usurping my own place. Mine, mine, MINE! *Muahahahahaha!*
What?! I have to be expelled for my "excessive bad behaviour"?! But I have never done anything, like, so wrong!
Tracy, Tracy, Tracy. We are so fed up with spoiling you. You have encouraged Cassie to destroy herself -
Hmph. That blocky Cassie is none of my -
Don't interrupt me!
But it's my rights, Mom and Dad -
Cassie, we have to limit those rights. You have made us worry so much about you, and we have wasted much cash and time for too long, pampering you at others' expense, INCLUDING OURS!
My dad threw out my computer, banned me from watching TV and going out with my friends, and subjected me to as much homework as possible. But since these punishments were done, and I was expelled from school (so is Cassie - hooray!), I began to think of all those years that were wasted, trying to be popular in school, trying to be in style, sacrificing my work and my life for the sake of emulated TV stars, which I would never freely see again for the next few years. My studies, which I hated for their almost-inescapable "burden", wearied my rivalry with Cassie and Roxanne.
Back in my school, the teachers joyfully announced my and Cassie's expulsion, and all the students rejoiced. Even my best friends left me for Tim Taxman. But only one student mourns our departure: Lucas. He left one last morality-themed e-mail to both my and Cassie's accounts, stating that he has failed to improve and "save" them (which I deleted on mine).
Roland, for as far as I knew, also left behind a number of messages on my unused account, ranging from strong-sounding taunts to concern. On the last night of the year, his farewell note (also in the mailbox outside my house) consisted of a poem, from which a message like that of Lucas' had sprouted out. As shown in the letter, Roland was still a jock, but his studies drove him into a compulsive obsession with mathematics - in other words, he still has brawn, but now has brains. But this instead improved his social life; popularity only gained him fame, but as he matured through his studies, he learned to become a good friend.
My friends had left as they graduated from my high school. Doris is now a classical musician, but Dinah committed suicide over being bullied. (As for her bullies, the last I have heard of them was that they are now in jail)
Carl's now serving life imprisonment for forcefully "scoring" female colleagues, Herman's now a gangster, the Acorn-Chips are now a successful music band under CUL8r ("koo-LAY-ter") Studios. Now the last thing that I have needed is the whereabouts of Cassie.
---o---
Nonetheless, I have managed to end up in university, and become a successful businesswoman. But my past continues to haunt me, as my guilt grows and grows like a monstrous, parasitical tree in my heart and my mind.
Nowadays, I rely heavily on psychiatrists (especially that "Dr. Roland"; doesn't he and his bulk look familiar?), and I spend much time looking for Cassie, Roland, Carl, and all those that I have wronged in my teenage years. But most of those whom I have met had either forgotten me, or had denied forgiveness from me, rejecting my apologies. Even my old friends, all of them now divas and movie stars, have treated me as though I were "a timid, overgrown fangirl", shooing me off if they had any memory of me.
There are, of those who forgave me, whom I'm forever (*sob*) indebted to them: the Acorn-Chips, Lucas the Faithful (now a firefighter, deceased), Carl (still in jail), Roland, and lastly, Cassie. Acknowledging the error of her ways, she became into a caring schoolteacher, in hopes of preventing her classes from suffering the same way as she did.
But, not even her warm reconciliation mended me. Not even my happy wedding to Dr. Roland, our close love, our children, and his consoling could heal my pain. Not even the warmth of our shining family, and the beaming faces of my parents, passing peacefully away to Heaven, could fill my scarred and broken heart. In fact, many people still hate us, with many people mindlessly wasting their precious days, months, and years, giving us death threats in many forms.
Could there be anything that can actually be sure, beyond reconciliation? Can anything, but myself, free me from the curse of guilt and self-punishment? Can there be any motivation, so that I do not have to burden myself with the past, but to free it, and myself - even if we will all be shunned?
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