I leaned my chair against the back wall of the room, the plaster cool against my bare shoulders, as I placed my feet up on the desk in front of me, my thick soles facing the glass-paned door through which my classmates were entering. The letters on the other side of the frosted glass informed me I was in room 13a, and the slanted, spidery writing on the board reminded me that I had yet another year of school to endure; yet another year of loneliness and quiet solitude. ‘Welcome back!’ It had been on the board all week, since the start of term, it was just that no one had bothered to wipe it off – instead it was gradually fading, much like my school spirit and attention in class.

I quietly scoffed and lowered my head, peeking out from under my hair at the familiar yet unfriendly faces of my peers. It was all so predictable… the brainless jocks perched on desks in the middle of the class, flexing their muscles under their too-small shirts as they laughed at their own lame jokes and caught the eyes of the dumb cheerleaders… who giggled pathetically with their ‘friends’, who were not real friends but actually two-faced competitors in a fickle game in which dreams of leaving the city rested entirely on the size of their boyfriend’s sports scholarship… of course, the only thing that those girls hated more than each other was the threat of being associated with anything ‘uncool’, therefore a massive divide was put in place where all of the ‘geeks’ (or rather those kids who were clever enough to get into college on their academic achievements instead of their ability to throw a football or sleep around) were grouped together and placed as far away as possible, in fear of contaminating the beautiful people… the geeks, in turn, were scared of the goths, punks, and all others who defined themselves by the music they listened to, and yet who also seemed to be bred to despise the shallow, insipid nature of the cheerleaders and jocks. And so the intricate web of hatred perpetuated itself through generations, inspired by mistrust and social norms, making every school across the country resemble a poor teen comedy with a shit ensemble cast. Nothing ever changed; I hated students – all of them… especially myself.