Viral

1- Prologue

Someday, I'll be big enough so you can't hit me

And all you're ever gonna be is mean.

Mean- Taylor Swift

Freshman year

"Ninety-eight... ninety-nine... one hundred..."

I take a deep breath and open my eyes and then pick a bobby pin out of my hair before pulling my phone out of my pocket to use as a flashlight to find the door knob in the dark. I poke the bobby pin into the door knob and jiggle it around until the knob pops open and it twists free. I swing the door open and step out of the stuffy janitor's closet and remind myself how to breathe. I'm kind of claustrophobic and sitting in that locked janitor's closet while counting to one hundred is really suffocating for me.

Of course, I could just get out after a few seconds of being in there, but I learned early on that getting out too early would result in something worse. For example, being thrown into a mud puddle or thrown into the boys' locker room during their shower time.

Counting to one hundred gives them enough time to get bored and walk away so I'm free to go eat my lunch in the library in peace. I pack my lunch so I don't even have to go into the cafeteria at all, I just have to sneak down the hallway to the stairs and then to my locker where I keep my lunch that usually just consists of carrots and a muffin or something.

There are four of them that I really have to look out for. There's Kevin Farrell who is the captain of the varsity basketball team here at our high school. He's a junior and he's really strong so they usually rely on him as the muscle to actually carry me to wherever it is that they're going to administer my daily torture. He's also an asshole.

And then there's his girlfriend, Bethany Hodges. She isn't the captain of anything because she's only a sophomore but she's a cheerleader and she also plays on the tennis and softball teams. She isn't as strong as her boyfriend but she's more of the verbal abuse of the group and her cackling laugh feels like a hundred daggers to my ears. She's also violent because although her boyfriend will carry me to my doom, he won't actually hit me or anything. He likes to pretend like he has morals sometimes and he doesn't hit girls so his girlfriend does that dirty work.

Bethany's best friend is Kelly Blake- also a sophomore. She's nothing special really. She's more like Bethany's shadow more than anything but just as annoying and bothersome. The last person in their four person tag team is Beckett Spears. He's on the JV baseball team and he's just a freshman like myself but he's still incredibly popular since his sister was incredibly well known in our school and she graduated a few years back and so he can get his friends into the most prestigious of parties.

He's different though because his mom knows my mom and they're actually really close friends because we're also next door neighbors. So he's not as mean as the other three are because he's afraid that I'll tell my mom who will tell his mom who will then proceed to ground him or something. He hates me though, just as much as I hate him and the rest of them. He's quiet, though, but just because he isn't the muscle or the brain, he isn't innocent considering he sits there and watches them do it as if it's his afternoon's entertainment. Never speaks up or tries to stop them and sometimes, he does step in to assist so he's just as guilty as the other three.

It's not just those four that mess with me but it's mainly them and anything anybody else does is nothing that I can't handle.

I eat lunch in the library like I do every day and then when the bell rings, I throw my trash away and scurry off to my next class. I try to be quick about it so that I don't get caught by those four terrible people because whenever they see me, they like to throw my books around or slam me into the lockers or, if they're feeling specifically terrible that day, they'll lock me in some closet or empty classroom or a bathroom stall or something.