We'll dance again

I have mixed emotions over the next few days. The class president campaign goes wild with Carl dropping out of the running the day he was nominated and Madison getting voted in. By Thursday it seems that Madison could win with her anti-Alison campaign, Alison could win with her anti-Carl campaign and Brendon could win because no one wants to vote for the other two.
I swear to Brendon he has my vote and that makes him extremely happy for some reason.
Everything seems okay but then again the year is tearing itself apart. Ellie and Madison are seemingly brought closer by the hair incident. Alison no longer has a closest friend but a group of people who hold higher school status than me and are probably afraid that she’ll destroy them. She also grows closer and closer with the seniors and starts going out with a baseball playing idiot from that year. She really has a distinctive type. Carl and Geoff shove me around more now but haven’t full on beat the shit of me because I’m never really alone. It’s all just a bad concoction of pissed off teenagers and tested loyalties.
Thursday seems okay though so far. I got a B in my triangle pop quiz. I thought we may be finally moving on but I was gravely mistaken; there’s another two chapters of three sided fun.
It rains through lunch so everyone’s in the lunch hall. Geoff grabs my chocolate muffin off my tray and Bob flies to his feet making intimidatingly blank expressions until Geoff put it back saying, “Calm it Bryar.”
I play x’s and o’s on room 111’s white board then after eating because why not. “This is my physics room,” Bob muses as we walk in the normal door which is the only usable entry into the secret row of classrooms.
“You do advanced physics?” I ask beating him at the basic game again. He nods and grunts.
Back at the lockers I get shoved into mine and bang my head but am not folded in and locked away. It hurts but I may now make it to chemistry. I grab my books and a little pink note. I was really hoping my excellent work defiling Madison and Carl would like set me free but Alison is seemingly a fucking mad whore. She can’t actually get enough of other people’s pain.
I wait till I’m home to read the note because I’m not alone till then. I unfold the scrap and its now familiar scent. Monday Morning I am giving a speech and slide show about why I should win the campaign. So is Maddie and Brendon. Do something to theirs. Whether you will or not tell me by Friday 10pm so I can get the end of your social life set up ilysm
Well fuck.

Friday I feel so sick. My head is spinning and I feel like I’m going to be sick. I convince my mom that I’m a-okay and can go to school. A day off would have been great but not a hope was I not replying to Alison. I didn’t sleep last night at all, more blacked out for twenty minutes and waking up to a stomach ache like a tank trying to drive through my large intestine.
The worst thing is, is once my mom thinks I’m okay she starts screaming murder at me for the empty vodka bottle I’d put in the recycling hoping she wouldn’t spot it. Of course, she did, and with her anti-drinking life policy I’m screwed.
An angry Linda Iero is fucking terrified. She declares that I’m grounded for a month. That means I can go to school and ballet and that’s it until the end of November. Great. On top of that she’s taking my phone and laptop every day after six pm. Fuck.
I stagger into school like a drunkard dizzy and sick and feel my way to my locker. I take the first three classes and am then sent home for breaking out in a fever.
At home I start crying again and can’t stop because the tears are cooling my face. My mom comes home during her lunch break and takes care of me for twenty minutes before driving back to work.
I have to Facebook message Alison with my reply. Yes or No. Potentially ruin my only friendships or potentially ruin my only friendships. What a choice. I guess what I’m really trying to decide between is whether I want to be directly responsible for being hated or not.

I can’t go to ballet Friday or Saturday because I’m still to fucking sick. Sunday I’m a little better but confined to my room because there’s nothing else I can do because of a bottle of vodka. I listen to a lot of misfits and play my guitar. I told the guys what happened and they’re all incredibly disheartened. Gerard had texted me all Saturday night saying he hopes I get better and he hopes my mom will give my phone back and he hopes I’ll be aloud out and he hopes we can make out on my couch. Of course all this lit up on my screen when my mom had my phone and I pray to any god that she doesn’t see some of them.
Monday, unfortunately I feel fully better. For once my immune system has failed to fail me.
I dress and beg my mom to let me stay home. She doesn’t listen. She seems really pissed off and I remember her big meeting thing today. My mom stresses about being late drives me to school with plenty of time.
I get to put a few things in my locker when the whole school is motioned towards the auditorium. It’s dark except for a spotlight on stage. There’s a podium, a projector and three seats. Ray motions me over to a spot in the back by the glowing green emergency exit. It’s elevated so I can actually see over people’s heads.
“Brendon has so much prepared,” Ray laughs. “Ryan’s gone up to the front to give him moral support.” Ryan! That must be nameless dude’s name.
“A whole fucking slide show dedicated to his campaign,” Bob smirks.
Once the hall is filled Madison leads the speeches with an inspirational one on how she’s going to get more salads into the cafeteria and make cheer leading more open to younger students. Apparently it already is open to them she just means she won’t glare at them when they try out. She takes her seat then to a round of applause and plays a short video of her touring the school giggling and stuff. One thing her campaign seems to have is low cut tops.
After Madison, Alison stands up. I can feel my heart beat faster and my breath catch. I can still hear her speech perfectly. She says she’ll work in the best interest if her fellow students and all that bullshit. No one believes it but it’s always said. Then she says she’ll bring in better hand driers into the bathroom and more paper towels into the labs. After a lame curtsey and applause from the school the projector starts lighting up. It flickers like an uncertain beginning to my very certain end.
Once it’s heated up it begins to play a slideshow of “things that need fixing” and “how Alison will fix them”. I can’t actually explain how relieved I am to see the shoddy hand driers up there instead of me. Another round of applause and Alison takes her seat making a smug expression in the direction of Madison. She scans the crowd as Brendon stands up and catches my eye. She sends another smug smile at me and winks.
Fuck.
I begin to panic again. Fuck this, fuck her, fuck ballet.
Brendon confidently begins his speech talking about equality and the library. He moves on to topics of social situations he wants to fix. He begins his slideshow. First is a picture of Carl in the LGBT rights top and he speaks about how average students can help fight homophobia in the school. There’s some nervous laughter. Next there’s a picture of a really beaten up kid and Brendon talks about reassessing the schools anti bullying policy and how he’ll help stop the bullies.
He clicks the button on the remote and the next slide pops up. A short gif of me, leaping and landing badly. I’m wearing my ballet clothes. Brendon freezes, stunned. The whole room roars with laughter as the words Anti Loser Policy flash over the image in pink word art. All the laughter goes in and out of focus in my mind and I slowly hear less and less. Ray and Bob are looking at me and saying something I can’t hear.
Brendon shakes himself and clicks the forward button. Every slide features a picture of me dancing or failing to dance. In the mix is a picture I’m sure I had deleted from Facebook of me making out with a guy. The halls cries of laughter increase and I see Brendon desperately trying to silence everyone and end the presentation.
He could have exited it, or turned it off but instead he tried to forward through them all to the end. My heart sinks with every picture. Some of them are fucking old. There’s one of me, age eleven standing proudly in a tutu. That was the last time I’d played a female part in a ballet show which had just ended in tears and humiliation.
The end finally arrives with the slogan in big pink word art Vote for Me If you want to end gay losers being faggoty.
Brendon looks so horrified that he forgets to turn the projector off. By now a teacher, my English teacher in fact, was on the stage turning off the projector and telling everyone to quiet down. She sends the students off stage and my principal walks on and begins giving out.
He’s barely audible over the laughter and the sound of everyone turning around in their seats to get a better look at me.
Some freshman catches sight of me and starts clapping and pointing. Soon most of the school has followed their example. I don’t think I’m crying but it’s really hard to tell. I stand up still in panic and run for the emergency exit. I run out into the rain and slam the door. Once in the rain I’m pretty sure I start crying. I get soaked through and just sit on the ground for a minute facing the baseball pitch. I can still hear the chants and laughter muffled inside. They die out and I can hear the muffled voice of the principle giving out to the students. I stand up shaking, still trying to control my breath. On unsteady little legs I start walking toward the school gate. The emergency exit door opens and I hear a female voice calling, “Frank? Frank will you come in out of the rain.”
Without turning around I shake my head and start jogging through the rain. I don’t stop jogging until I’m at the turnoff for my street. I walk, dripping wet, through the rain and past the houses. What’s the point in living in this town if I have to be like everyone else? What’s the point in living in this town at all? What is even the point of living?

When I get home I lie on the ground in my hall soaked through. My phone lights up with texts from Ray and Brendon. Dude it wasn’t me, I’m so sorry man I swear I didn’t know, oh god I’m so sorry from Brendon. Hey are you okay Frank? , we don’t care if you do ballet, Brendon is really sorry man from Ray.
I force myself after about half an hour to go upstairs and change out of my soaked clothes. I dry off and turn on my computer. It opens Facebook. I guess seeing the extent of the damage is nessescary now.
29 notifications, well fuck. Geoff Sanders and 12 other friends like a video you were tagged in. Alison Whyte added fourteen new photos with you. Alison invited you to like her page “Hardcore Ballet Fag”. They all were something along those lines. Every photo on that presentation was now all over Facebook. Loads of people liked them and that number is bound to grow as people log on tonight.
I go on to the Facebook page dedicated to me. Hardcore Ballet Fag was really an interesting title. An oxymoron in fact because how the fuck can ballet be hardcore? I scroll through the masses of pictures of me. It’s kind of fucked up how Alison could have possibly got her hands on some of those pictures. I sigh a shaky breath and turn off the computer. I don’t know how I’m ever going to recover from this.
My mom comes home and gushes to me how sorry she is and that the school called her and how she hopes I don’t feel too down. “No mom, I feel just fine now that my life here is ruined after two months. It is November tomorrow, let’s see if it can get much worse by Christmas,” it’s hard to be sarcastic when your voice shakes. Oh well.
“I guess we could see if you could move schools…” my mom says hugging me close, “but I don’t think anywhere excepts you in in the middle of term. Do you think you could survive till after Christmas?”
I nod. I don’t think I can but what else can I do.

Notes

I'm going to London tomorrow so I'll try update twice today and then tomorrow too. I'm all about suspense, it's great, but five days before I post the last chapter just feels wrong... I'm off now to write more :3 xxx