Heartbreaker [Ryden] [BOOK ONE]

- prologue -

School wasn't that bad, not until I reached middle school and discovered that the cliques run the school. Whether you want to or not, you're yanked around like a rag doll, from clique to clique, until you eventually click into the perfect one. There were the considerably good clique, such as being born with perfect skin and automatic talent, which would make you popular, then there were the "bad cliques", they were frowned upon by society for being different. Basically what I'm saying is that high school is shit, and I have little hope these four years of my life will get better.

I was easily shoved into the Outcasts clique. It's weird, actually, how everyone automatically knows your clique. Do they have papers for this? Can we sign up for a clique somewhere? Despite the stereotypes for the Outcasts, who were deemed total badasses, I actually made friends. Josh Dun often stuck by my side, not that he had any choice. If the cliques mixed up, it'd be a total mess, I'm quite sure every student would go crazy, running around like headless chickens. Not that I'm complaining, it'd be pretty funny.

There's limits on crushes as well, you can have them all you want, no body can control how you feel towards someone, but there's a catch; everyone's ranked on a scale from one through ten. After about a year of living with the cliques, you'll realize what your number is. You can only be active with someone if they're within your two number range, or it'll fuck up your cliques, reputation, and ranking. An example would be myself, I'm number three. I could only date someone who's a four, five, two, or one, without it fucking my reputation up. Not that I have one very well known. To be honest, only the higher ranked cliques care for the numbers. For example, I could care less.

Poor Josh, he's crushing on a nine, Tyler Joseph. Tyler Joseph's talented in anything you can think of- except art, but art's easily looked over in school. He's talented musically, for playing various instruments consisting of the piano, ukulele, and more. He can sing, like hella good, and he's able to play basketball. Wait, no, scratch that. He runs the basketball team, he's not simply a player. I could see why Josh liked Tyler, he was a smaller boy, with a squeaky voice and innocent personality. It was adorable, really. 

Then there was the school's power couple, Pete and Patrick. Patrick was in a different clique as me, classified in the same group as Tyler, the Twinks. Technically it was labeled some other fancy name, but that's not the point, the Twinks are the bottoms in a relationship, the ones everyone could glance at, have on conversation with, and automatic classify as a Twink. I like to think they have an aura, or perhaps it's their adorable personalities; and by adorable I mean literal angels. You don't have to be a bottoms in a relationship to fit into the Twinks, you just have to have an adorable personality. I, for example, would've been classified as a Twink if I didn't reply to everything with a sarcastic retort. Patrick, however, is ranked somewhere between five to seven, he's pretty well ranked.

Pete, however, was in the CC's, the Class Clowns. They were the ones the school depended on to interrupt the teacher, crack dirty jokes, and overall being little shitfaces, anything they can do to make someone laugh. Pete barely fit in, but he tried his best. He was ranked a three, same as me, therefor Patrick and Pete could fuck all they wanted and absolutely nobody would care. 

Then there was Dallon Weekes, the giraffe of the school. Not literally, but almost literally. My theory is that Dallon's actually an elf on kilts. Either that, or he really is at his height, and I'm simply incredibly short. Then again Tyler, Pete, and Patrick were shorter than I. Back to Dallon, he's a jock, able to play a variety of sports. At the moment he's chosen to sway the cheerleaders with soccer. The thing is, he isn't even remotely good at sports! I guess being attractive does get you somewhere, huh? Heck, Dallon would be in the Twinks if he didn't deny being one. Everyone knew he was, so why'd he always deny it? 

As for Spencer smith, there wasn't much to say about the baby faced, brown haired boy. He was an average kid, not too smart, not too dumb, but the cliques had to find a place for him somewhere, so they ranked him a 4, and stuck him in the nerd section. He was an okay student, usually kind and gentle, but he knew when to retort and when to keep his mouth shut. it'd be nice if I knew how to, but unfortunately, I don't. 

Then Jon, he was the kid everyone looked down on. He was popular, God, he was the most popular student in school. Was. Then he decided to go and fuck some lower ranked slut, Gerard to be exact, and his reputation was ruined. He began to get bullied, thrown against things, he was no longer feared. Now, he held the rank of the manwhore, the school's biggest slut. I wouldn't be surprised if he came back next year pregnant. Hint the sarcasm.

Lastly, but clearly not forgotten by anybody in school, was Brendon. Brendon Urie, he fought for his spot as king of the cliques, and he wasn't going to easily let it go. Attractive, talented in basically every way, annoying. God, I hated this kid. A complete asswhole. I remembered being friends with him back in middle school, back when he had respect for people. As soon as the school began worshipping Jon, he turned against him, getting all cocky and snappy. As soon as his popularity moved up, and mine moved down, he ditched me. 

I could remember his exact words, "Ryan, you're gonna have to stop clinging to me, I'm popular now, you'll only bring my reputation six foot under." I mean sure, we were all a bunch of stupid thirteen year olds, but we were sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, and he still held to the promise. Basically, he turned against me, so I ditched him for Patrick, Pete, and Josh. He had his group of friends, which consisted of Tyler, Dallon, and Kenny. Kenny was unimportant really, all I knew about him was that he payed more attention to Dallon than he did his own family. 

There were the females, of course, this wasn't an all boys school. There were Sarah, Breezy, Maddy, and more, but the majority of them left us guys alone, deciding they didn't have time for us. It was probably best that way, though gay wasn't exactly shamed upon here at Burlington High- take a look around and you'll find gay everywhere- but not everyone supported the lgbt+ community, so bullies did exist.

Brendon, surprisingly, did, but there were some like Ashley and Melaine, who were against it, and would persuade some of the higher ranks to pick on us. If caught in the halls bullying another student for their sexuality, Brendon would step in and defend the student under attack. I had a little dot of respect for Brendon for that reason only, otherwise, I could careless. The damn boy could go fuck himself for all I care.

;; oo i'm excited for this story to unfold