Journey to Psitharis

Chapter 7

Seven

Right before Thanksgiving I found out one of my works of art had taken "Best in Show" at the regional art competition. It was pretty impressive, because we were competing against all the other high schools in the area, including a magnet school for the performing and visual arts. Not that it did anything for my reputation at Ross Alexander Memorial High. I was still known as the girl who could be a freak. Almost three months after school began the jury was still out on my social standing. At least screaming at one of the royal bitches of the school to go fornicate herself had gained me a few points with a lot of the kids I knew or who knew of me. Though a lot of people adored Sasha and Jennifer not a lot of people liked them, but they liked people who stood up to them. And since they hadn't sought their revenge against me after all this time everyone figured they must be afraid of me. And that fear in itself gave me a few cred points.

I honestly expected one of them to take razor blades to my winning artwork, especially since their entries didn't place. On the contrary, the girls actually went around the class taking pictures of all of the artwork submitted, mine included, and even took pictures of the artists themselves. They said they planned to submit the photographs to the editor of the yearbook for submission. Hope sprang eternal, like maybe they had matured and realized their actions were childish at best. Perhaps they had too many strikes on their record to attempt anything. But either way I felt like I could relax a little and enjoy my upcoming holiday.

The next day we had a party in practically every single room. My algebra class was goofing off, eating candy brought in by overachieving students and playing with computers and cellphones. I was busy sketching another idea for something to do over the long weekend, which was the hopeful completion of my headboard. Besides, it had been unseasonably warm that November so I would have warm skies above me to do my work. I was sketching out the front of the dragon, making sure to turn his head so he could look at the knight dead on. I wanted the two adversaries to be facing each other, ready to battle for as long as my headboard was standing, the ultimate victor possessing the heart of the princess forever. I was so deep in thought I hadn't noticed the other kids laughing and looking my way. It wasn't until Peyton approached my desk, a self-satisfied smile on her face, that I looked up to notice the inordinately large group surrounding one of the two class computers. "You're pathetic." She laughed, obviously enjoying whatever was causing the scene in the back.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I walked over to where the other students were. As if they sensed my presence, they all separated like the waters of the Red Sea, allowing me a straight line to the computer...and a full view of what was on the screen.

Peyton had pulled up Facebook. On the page she had pulled up was a profile with my name on it. Only that wasn't my profile. The name said "Medora the Fat Goth Girl Dyke" and in the news feed there was my work of art. Only the caption underneath said "Can't get a guy to look at a fat, ugly loser like myself so what else am I going to do?" And underneath that were a lot of videos pulled up of girls I supposedly "loved", girls I would date, girls I would...do other things with. And in the profile picture was a distorted picture of me looking up and smiling. It was the picture Jennifer had taken the day before, only it had been photoshopped to look as if I had weighed a hundred pounds more than I did. Several links led them to my "real" Twitter and Instagram accounts, all fake. My stomach did a sickening turn. I thought we were past all of this crap. But here it was, staring back at me in the most public of places, in the most public of forums. And I didn't know if the tears in my eyes were from anger or sadness. But I knew those tears had damned me as the girl who had let the Terrible Two destroy me. And deep down it felt like they did.