#Popularity

Honey still had until the end of the day, she thinks hopefully as the teacher erases her name off the chalkboard.

She still had until tomorrow, she thinks as she skates home and sees her follower count has actually gone down by one.

She still had until the next day.

And the day after that.

Then it’s Friday and it becomes abundantly clear Honey’s classmates aren’t the slightest bit interested in her or her Sinstagram.

She assumed they would approach her once they got more comfortable with her lovely looks.

But they didn’t.

All week Honey sat and waited patiently at her desk or near the shoe lockers, lingering around hallways and the cafeteria, expecting any Godforsaken student to see her potential as the school’s idol.

Obsessively checking her Sinstagram only to find stagnant numbers and a message from someone asking for feet pictures.

For someone who had been doted on (a bit too much) by her parents and showered with love throughout her elementary and middle school career, Honey has never needed to make friends.

People were just naturally attracted to her.

Like bees to a flower, Honey had always been the center of attention and ‘friends’ were just benefits that came with it.

After all, popularity meant nothing without devoted fans.

Honey stabs at her lunch, annoyed. This isn’t how the year is supposed to go. Sitting alone at her desk, mindlessly locking and unlocking her phone, a minor background character in a grand plot.

What did she do to deserve this treatment?

Even Misha left every day for lunch, his empty desk watching her tauntingly, reminding her she hadn’t spoken to anyone for the whole week.

He did once pass her a note and Honey, grasping at straws, thought that he might have gained a crush on her. Like everyone should have. However, the note was just an invitation to a tic-tac-toe game.

One she loses.

Honey grits her teeth, toying at her fringe again when her forehead begins to throb.

She feels the scar there, discolored and ugly and right smack dab in the middle of her face. Anger pools in the acid of her stomach, she’d do anything to be at least a little appreciated.

“Did you see the King’s new post today?”

Honey’s ears perk up. A student shows his phone to the group of girls and boys surrounding him.

It’s Sinstagram. So these idiots did know what social media was.

“God, he looks so cool,” The owner of the phone gushes, and Honey can’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy.

“He followed me back yesterday!” One boy brags.

“He likes my comments on every post!” A girl says back smugly.

“I saw his fight with Yuno last week!” Someone shouts and they all implore him for details like a hungry pack of dogs.

FIght? Is this king some sort of famous boxer?

Honey’s curiosity piques whenever it involves someone and their popularity. Apparently, the so-called ‘king’ was the only thing that got these students to use their social media or have any interest in Sinstagram.

Maybe she could learn something from this king.

“The King only threw a couple of punches before Yuno chickened out. Again.” The student throws a couple of fists to illustrate the fight.

“That guy keeps trying to challenge the King, but he won’t beat him, not in a million years. He can’t even beat that hood-wearing tryhard.”

Everyone agreed unanimously.

“I wish I could be his girlfriend, nobody would dare disrespect me.” The girl with the chipped tooth went on and Honey couldn’t help but scoff bitterly.

“Ha!” A boy jeers, “You don’t stand a chance, didn’t you see his girlfriend?”

Honey shovels the rest of her food into her mouth, losing interest.

“Oh yeah, the really hot one!”

“What was her name again?”

“She’s a Sinstagram star,”

The student displays his phone to the crowd again and Honey tries to sneak a peek at the girl who didn’t deserve all this attention when she didn’t even go to this school.

“It’s Charlotte Belle.”

Honey’s blood turns to ice.

Charlotte Belle.

Charlotte-freaking-Belle.

This witch has the audacity to smile sweetly through the phone screen, platinum blonde hair as straight as an iron rod, bright green eyes like jeweled beetles, the perfect little button nose, a smile toying at her peach-colored lips.

A flawless representation of the devil incarnate.

Honey’s scar burns like it’s fresh. The puckered skin of a cigarette burn, right where everyone could see, a permanent reminder, a brand of Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte-freaking-Belle.

Her hands are suddenly wet and there’s blood dripping from her palms where her nails have driven into them.

She feels nothing. Not a damn thing.

Her first year of high school, Charlotte’s belittling eyes, the whispered gossip behind her back, the fall of her reputation, the social isolation, all of it lets hatred grow in her chest and she breathes it in like a drug.

Honey’s up and out of her seat in an instant.

Bloodied hands gripping the shirt of the student brandishing his phone like a stupid PowerPoint presentation.

At first, everyone is frozen from shock because Sinstagram girl lost all her soft attractiveness, dropping whatever front she uselessly kept up for the whole week.

Her voice is void of all its sweetness.

“What’s this King nonsense?”

So Charlotte’s boyfriend was popular for fights here at Godforsaken High?

Honey spots a prime opportunity when she sees one.

Her classmates’ initial shock quickly fades.

“What the hell?” The boy in her hands tries to wrench his shirt out of her fingers.

“Find out for yourself, clout-chasing freak!” Chipped tooth and some other students try to pry Honey off this boy.

She’s leaving stains on his collar, but she doesn’t budge an inch.

“Get off him!”

“What’d he do to you?”

And if looks could kill, Honey’s out to massacre.

There are hands-on her, stretching out her cardigan and messing up her curls, being a nuisance she doesn’t need.

Honey hooks her foot on the leg of the closest desk and pulls hard enough to make it topple onto a couple of students like dominos.

She elbows chipped tooth in the face. She kicks a chair into another student’s stomach. All the while her hands never move and the look in her eyes never changes.

Phone boy looks a little less confident.

“Why’re you asking me?” He says with uncertain vitriol, “You should be asking your boyfriend over there, could’ve been the King of the Midnight Fights two years ago!”

He gestures to Misha’s empty desk and Honey’s glare eases only slightly.

“The Midnight Fights?” Honey questions.

A secret, underground fight club? So this was the key to gaining her popularity.

The hairclip-wearing weirdo might have been a great asset after all, it’s a good thing she hadn’t told him off yet.

Before she can get anything else out of him, the lunch hour ends and students are making their way back into the 2-B classroom. They barely bat an eye at the mess but do give Honey an inquisitive stare.

She drops the collar and returns to her desk. Hands no longer bleeding, but covered in red.

Her ‘victims’ drag themselves back into their own seats, overturning the desk she had tipped over and reforming the obvious empty barrier around her.

They don’t mention her transgression. It seems they’re too embarrassed.

Misha drops into his seat next to Honey, notices the blood on her hands, and wordlessly hands her a bandaid.

It’s pink and covered with flowers.

Still as strange as ever.

But this time Honey smiles at the gesture. He’d be the stepping stone she needed to take over Godforsaken High.

Charlotte better watch her back.