The Diary of a Queen Bee

Chapter 5: The Bee Stings

"What are you looking at?!" Tessa snapped at an unsuspecting sophomore, who backed up onto her locker with a gasp. It was no surprise Tess was the first one to lose it, she was the one with a temper. Her bitch fit, though, only drew more attention.

"What are you all looking at?! We didn't do anything to anyone!" she proclaimed with a fist resting on her right hip. The stunned students froze as their bulged eyes latched onto Tessa. The intensity in the room climbed from a 7 to a straight up 15.

"So why doesn't everyone mind their own fucking beeswax?" Tessa leaned forward and screamed, her veins sticking out from under her throat.

I shot Riley an agitated look, signalling her to do something before Tessa truly lost it on everyone who was unfortunate enough to be standing in that corridor.

"Come on, Tess. We are going to be late for class," Riley pulled on her arm, tight enough to let Tessa know that she should cut it out.

"Okay," Tessa shot the sophomore one last death stare, and then proceeded to her classroom.

Much to my dismay, my next class was Philosophy. Not that the study of our existence didn't interest me, I found it rather fascinating. I wasn't looking forward to it since a bunch of seniors took that class, two of those seniors being Penelope and Matt.

Under the circumstances, the class passed rather quickly. The teacher gave a boring lecture so at least I didn't have to hear Penelope's whiny voice for an hour. And even though I kept glancing over at Matt, who had the same cheerleader from that morning on top of him, every few seconds, I restrained from going over there, pushing the whore off his lap, and giving him a piece of my mind. Luckily, Sophie was also in that class, and she made the period tolerable.

Before I knew it, I was already at my usual seat at the cafeteria with an untouched Chinese chicken salad in front of me. I picked up my fork and looked around with a sigh, I was becoming immune to the stares. One person's, though, irritated me beyond belief, and that stare belonged to Penelope's campaign poster. That thing was haunting me. It didn't matter what angle I sat at, it always felt like her green eyes were focused on me.

With a grunt, I climbed out of my chair and ripped the poster from the wall. I crushed it into a paper ball and threw it at the ground before returning to my seat. My friends watched me in shock, silently inspecting me.

"Aspen, are you okay?" Sophie spoke up cautiously, with her lips pursed, legs crossed, and hesitancy in her brown eyes.

"No, I'm not okay! Those posters are on my last nerve. Every class I am in, every corridor I walk down, I have to see her wearing that stupid crown, foreshadowing her victory when it's not even a fair fight," I bit the sides of my jaw, making my already prominent cheekbones even more so, "It's like she is teasing me that she can campaign and I can't because I wasn't nominated."

"Just relax. Who cares if you don't win this year, anyway? You are a junior, you will still get one more shot next year," Riley lifted a shoulder as she chugged what was left of her red bull.

"I'll tell you who cares, my mother. This is like the Oscars to the Hendersons, and she doesn't want to be humiliated," I explained as they listened heedfully, "She is counting on me to win Prom Queen. I mean, she spent thousands of dollars on my dress. I have to win, I can't let her down."

"You should stop worrying about what your mom thinks so much," Tessa sniffed, tugging on a strand of shiny brown hair.

"Easy for you to say, you don't have a mom," I muttered under my breath as I stabbed lettuce with the plastic fork. With a mouthful of leaves, I looked up at my friends who had expressions of sheer disbelief on their faces. Realizing the impact of the words I'd just spoken, I put the fork down. "I'm sorry, Tess. I'm under so much stress that..."