Sophia

17

The sun rose and everything fell. My life, my reputation, my health; I'M ONLY 14! And what IS this stuff burning my eyes: vinegar, tomato sauce, and a myriad of other culinary juices? It's WAY too early to be dealing with this mess that fell from some immature bloat's idea of a prank, but I know just who dun it; McGregor, bane of nearly every decently attractive male's existence in the city. He’s so wretched that no one—not even his own father, the principal—refers to him by his first name. One might as well say that he no longer has a name. He used to be an okay kind of guy though, until a chain of events led him to lose all sense of human decency and honor; McGregor is an animal, but I might have been the inciting incident to his tragedy. It all started six years ago, Miss Smith's class, third grade.

McGregor was the popular kid in class, perhaps even in the whole school—I’m not joking—he even had a girlfriend in the third grade; he WAS EIGHT! What kind of kid has a girlfriend in third grade? He was already messed up before I got there, but I digress. Back to the story, he had it good; top grades, a girl, pretty decent athletic ability—for a third grader—his future was as bright as the sun evaporating his mysterious concoction off my body. However, all good things must come to an end. I transferred into his class. No big deal, just another newbie from a different state who moved into town; an average occurrence. Not to McGregor. His looks are okay, but I am stunning; simply, too beautiful. Even as a third grader, girls flocked to me. Unfortunately, so did his girl, but that wasn’t the end. I beat him at every sport and in every grade, everything he had aside from his extraordinarily large amount of wealth—did I forget to mention that he was too rich for his own good—became mine. Surprisingly, McGregor used to have a best friend, Alex Springer; however, I won Alex over to me with my exceptional charm—we’re still super tight. That was the last straw.

For the next six years McGregor was fueled with jealousy, rage, and too many fancy pastries; his grades fell, his athletic ability became almost nothing, and he could not focus on anything aside from appearances. He pestered and pranked every good looking guy at school—in some infantile attempt to be the most physically attractive one enrolled—but he didn’t stop with childish pranks. He resorted to straight up vandalism and even blackmailing some guys who tried to stand against him. The only reason he hasn’t been sent to juvy is because he bribes the authorities—there’s something majorly wrong with our town. He widened his radius and didn’t stop with just our school, but every school in the whole city; every guy I’ve met here is living in anxiety. He especially focuses on both me and Alex though—some sort of grudge that he hasn’t let go off yet—but we both know he won’t do anything too “serious,” like murder, so we try our best to ignore him. However, he just has to ruin us. Fast forward to the first day of freshman year.

It was barely dawn, but the whole school was notified by the principal that buses were going to be arriving at 6am, so we all stood out there in the blue haze of day. When everyone had finally arrived at school, the principal wasn’t there; he was late—actually, we were all at least an hour early. It was eerily calm this morning; McGregor had finally begun to calm down this summer, so we didn’t expect much to happen this year. Alex and I were pushed to the front door when the principle arrived, and since he couldn’t get to the door because of the crowd of children, he tossed his keys to us. Without my senses about me, I grabbed the keys and quickly unlocked the door. I glanced at Alex, giving him the honor of letting everyone in—he really looked like he wanted to. Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.