Background Characters || WLW

Chapter 1

Curled up in the passenger seat of her mum's car, with her earphones blasting music at full volume and rain hammering into the window, it was hard for Anna Thatcher not to imagine herself as the main character in an early 2000s movie. The story was too perfect - newly divorced parents force their only daughter to choose who she wants to live with, and then make her move to a new city that came along with a new school. It practically screamed ‘main character’.

But the reality was a lot harsher than the made-up worlds inside our heads, wasn't it?

The minute Anna walked through the entrance of the school, she knew she wasn't the main character - she wasn't even a side character. She was a full-blown background character

Again.

There was no staring, no whispers and definitely no one running up to introduce themselves. No one even bumped into her as she walked through the corridors - she wasn’t just invisible, it was as if she didn’t exist.

Once she had found the main office and introduced herself, she was greeted with a small smile and a large folder before being dismissed almost immediately after she had arrived. Holding back a deep sigh, she simply thanked the middle-aged lady and left.

The folder contained her new timetable, a map of the school and a copy of the student handbook. Flipping back and forth between the map and her timetable, she quickly found her first lesson - English

The teacher had introduced her to the class with a smile before returning to her laptop to pull up the PowerPoint for the lesson. Only a few people had looked up from their conversations with barely feigned interest before quickly returning to their conversations and, from then on, she was an outcast.

No one spoke to her, no one looked at her, and no one tried to become friends with her.

Her seat in most classes was on the back row, near the door, which gave her an excellent chance to observe people as they entered and exited the class. Years of being the forgotten classmate has allowed her to watch without being noticed and, as she had expected, there were the usual cliques that occurred in every school across the country.

There were the usual group of straight white boys who were mad about sport and too misogynistic to properly function in today's society. They always had an out of date opinion to give or a sick comment to shout out about a girl's legs or figure.

Nerds were usually just the kids who liked sci-fi and fantasy, but Anna had never seen a group so dedicated to a school as they were. She wasn't entirely sure if they even spoke to each other unless it was to confirm an answer while studying but they mostly kept to themselves, something that apparently gave the jocks a pass to bully them. 

The weirdos were also a classic in any school. The group genuinely didn't care what people thought about them. Anna would applaud them for their self-confidence if they didn't emit so much second-hand embarrassment. Still, she tried not to judge them. After all, it's not like she was any better than them

And then, last but not least, there were the popular girls.

Now, of course, in all of the schools Anna had attended, the popular girls weren't actually popular. Everyone secretly hated them behind their backs and, half the time, the girls didn't even like each other. It was a matter of status and money, always.

This school was different, though. Everyone seemed to genuinely love the popular girls. She wasn't sure if it only seemed like that because she was new, but no one seemed to hate them - not even a little bit. They were kind, full of smiles and seemed to be friendly with everyone.

After years of being the number 1 target of multiple 'popular girls', however, Anna was more than a little suspicious. 

No one in high school was adored as much as these girls were.