Read Online Ripple Effect: A Novel by Adalynn Rafe - Free Book Online
Authors: Adalynn Rafe
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necklace, a lucky shoelace or unwashed sock, or simply their own distinct body odor.
Let’s face it. High school was like a mental institute; everyone was either crazy or heading there, and the faculty was the caretaker, just trying to keep the mentally insane in check. But to the teenager, that crazy either carried you to the top of the popularity food chain, or it sunk you into your grave before you even reached eighteen.
Let’s start with the hierarchy/high school food chain:
We had the royals (or the elitists), the middle class, and the bottom feeders.
The top of the food chain consisted of the teenagers who were rich, gorgeous, manipulative, snotty, self-centered, and who thought they knew everything. Like most cheerleaders and sports players, the dancers, choir brats, and the major cliques filled with self-entitled people. They claimed that their lives were just like the Real World and Jersey Shore and that Britney Spears and Beyoncé were, like, their BFF’s.
In their world, if you weren’t sleeping with someone or at least lying about sleeping with someone, you were no one. In their world, if you weren’t wearing Gucci or Bebe, you were a hobo who should be made fun of ruthlessly. Don’t even think about showing up to their parties and drinking their booze, because if you weren’t VIP, you were nothing––nothings don’t go to “awesome” high school parties.
In their world, we all knew that they secretly cried themselves to sleep at night because their lives really sucked. Their tears were just as numerous as the bottom feeders, whose tears only originated because of the top’s brutal hands.
Then there were the middlemen of the food chain, like Hazel and me. The teens that didn’t care about huge parties or drug abuse. Those teenagers would rather spend their weekends watching old black and white movies instead trying to live in a reality TV show. Those are the teens that giggled over boys and shared their fantasies with their besties, usually that forbidden first kiss, instead of seducing boys and having extreme feelings of regret the next morning . . . or nine months later.
Of course, there were the extreme middle class inhabitants. They were the ones who secretly hung out with the bottom feeders and enjoyed it, or the ones who acted like a royal and worshiped the ground that the royals walked on. Those people were called groupies, and they tended to boost the esteem of the royals.
The bottom of the food chain––well, they had been sucked soulless by the top dwellers and some rogue middle dwellers by their negative antics. Their names had been replaced with things like freak , whore , skank , gay , psycho , and of course, weirdo . And, well . . . they were a little weird, but I had always found it wrong to treat them so cruelly. Usually, that was where the emos, the homosexuals, the transgendered, the mentally disabled, and druggies (not royal associated) were categorized. They were the bottom of the high school food chain.
So, that’s when you felt sorry for the bottom feeders, right?
Not exactly. You see, the bottom feeders were picked on and kicked around, but the royals had to deal with the consequence of their actions. They had to pretend to be people they weren’t, just to be liked by one another. Most of the time they did mean things and their guilt was quickly disguised with anger and aggression, and that was when someone was killed. So, in reality, you feel very sad for both of them, or at least I always did.
Yes, the hierarchy had a lot of issues, but it was the way it was. Like Stalin and Communism in Russia, or so my tenth grade history teacher said, things like that don’t change. Things like that go down in history books.
* * *
There I was, standing in the middle of main hall. The school wasn’t exactly huge, but it was big enough to accommodate the couple hundred high school students that attended it.
Let’s face it. High school was like a mental institute; everyone was either crazy or heading there, and the faculty was the caretaker, just trying to keep the mentally insane in check. But to the teenager, that crazy either carried you to the top of the popularity food chain, or it sunk you into your grave before you even reached eighteen.
Let’s start with the hierarchy/high school food chain:
We had the royals (or the elitists), the middle class, and the bottom feeders.
The top of the food chain consisted of the teenagers who were rich, gorgeous, manipulative, snotty, self-centered, and who thought they knew everything. Like most cheerleaders and sports players, the dancers, choir brats, and the major cliques filled with self-entitled people. They claimed that their lives were just like the Real World and Jersey Shore and that Britney Spears and Beyoncé were, like, their BFF’s.
In their world, if you weren’t sleeping with someone or at least lying about sleeping with someone, you were no one. In their world, if you weren’t wearing Gucci or Bebe, you were a hobo who should be made fun of ruthlessly. Don’t even think about showing up to their parties and drinking their booze, because if you weren’t VIP, you were nothing––nothings don’t go to “awesome” high school parties.
In their world, we all knew that they secretly cried themselves to sleep at night because their lives really sucked. Their tears were just as numerous as the bottom feeders, whose tears only originated because of the top’s brutal hands.
Then there were the middlemen of the food chain, like Hazel and me. The teens that didn’t care about huge parties or drug abuse. Those teenagers would rather spend their weekends watching old black and white movies instead trying to live in a reality TV show. Those are the teens that giggled over boys and shared their fantasies with their besties, usually that forbidden first kiss, instead of seducing boys and having extreme feelings of regret the next morning . . . or nine months later.
Of course, there were the extreme middle class inhabitants. They were the ones who secretly hung out with the bottom feeders and enjoyed it, or the ones who acted like a royal and worshiped the ground that the royals walked on. Those people were called groupies, and they tended to boost the esteem of the royals.
The bottom of the food chain––well, they had been sucked soulless by the top dwellers and some rogue middle dwellers by their negative antics. Their names had been replaced with things like freak , whore , skank , gay , psycho , and of course, weirdo . And, well . . . they were a little weird, but I had always found it wrong to treat them so cruelly. Usually, that was where the emos, the homosexuals, the transgendered, the mentally disabled, and druggies (not royal associated) were categorized. They were the bottom of the high school food chain.
So, that’s when you felt sorry for the bottom feeders, right?
Not exactly. You see, the bottom feeders were picked on and kicked around, but the royals had to deal with the consequence of their actions. They had to pretend to be people they weren’t, just to be liked by one another. Most of the time they did mean things and their guilt was quickly disguised with anger and aggression, and that was when someone was killed. So, in reality, you feel very sad for both of them, or at least I always did.
Yes, the hierarchy had a lot of issues, but it was the way it was. Like Stalin and Communism in Russia, or so my tenth grade history teacher said, things like that don’t change. Things like that go down in history books.
* * *
There I was, standing in the middle of main hall. The school wasn’t exactly huge, but it was big enough to accommodate the couple hundred high school students that attended it.
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