#Vainglory

Honey had always been told she was special.

She starts her first year of high school believing she’s better than everyone else.

The beginning of spring. Cherry blossom petals fall around the hurried students as they rush to their morning classes. Honey brushes her lovely golden hair out of her face and tugs at her freshly ironed uniform.

Her high school, Vainglory Academy, housed only the loveliest of girls. Feminine, elegant, graceful, beautiful. The four pillars that held up Vainglory’s very foundation.

Honey already knows she has all these traits.

Doted on by her mother and father. Beloved by her elementary and middle school teachers and classmates. Adored by everyone who laid eyes on her pretty face.

They spoil her rotten.

She expects the same treatment from her peers, to decay her to the core from sweet compliments and petty words of praise. To love her unconditionally at first sight like everyone before them.

Vainglory was supposed to be hers and hers alone.

Honey was special.

“I’m Mara,” Says a girl with gleaming white teeth.

Honey’s smile shines brighter than any star.

“I’m Adelaide,” Says a girl with luscious auburn hair.

Honey’s gorgeous locks rival silk, satin, and cashmere.

“I’m Selene,” says a girl with glittering eyes like the moon.

Honey’s deep brown eyes were lovelier than the night sky itself.

Honey was special.

She was unique.

She was different.

But everyone at Vainglory Academy was told the same things. They were all special and unique and different. They clambered over each other for a hierarchy that’s as level as the horizon.

Their cherished uniqueness becomes nothing but normal. Boring.

Equal.

Until someone brings up Sinstagram.

Then the hierarchy changes.

Her follower count is the definition of her worth at Vainglory Academy. Special, Honey is special and she’ll prove it with how many likes she gets with this photo.

How many comments she gets on this post.

How many sponsors she gets to promote.

How many things she sees wrong with her face, with her curls, with her fashion, with herself.

She is special, she is special, she is special.

The words ring happily in her heart. People like her this way, the way they imagine, kind and sweet without any rough edges. She learns to bite her tongue and swallow her anger and her scowling face.

In turn, they reward her with compliments, follows, and likes. Smiling when they see her.

Honey convinces herself that these are friends.

She has lots of these friends. They come to sit with her at lunch and meet her after school for karaoke or for coffee and cling to her like parasites. Smiling, smiling, smiling.

So Honey smiles too. Just as wide and happy.

Then,

Pale blonde hair, green eyes, and rosy lips.

“I’m Charlotte, I hope we can be friends!”

Honey is special.

But Charlotte is too.

Charlotte smiles sweeter.

Charlotte laughs louder.

Charlotte looks prettier.

“Honey, dear,” Charlotte says through a pink-stained mouth, taking Honey into her arm and parading her around like her own personal accessory. Charlotte gives Honey more followers, more fans, and more attention.

Honey convinces herself Charlotte is her friend too.

“Take a photo with me!”

“Come to this party with me!”

“Go shopping with me!”

“Eat lunch with me!”

Always together. Taking over Vainglory Academy one Sinstagram post at a time with grins that make them look like fools.

Popular fools.

Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte.

Honey surpasses Charlotte’s popularity, she takes over the school like the queen she deserved to be, above everyone. The hierarchy turned into a pyramid and Honey stands at the pinnacle with Charlotte supporting her from the back.

Vainglory. Honey gets all its lovely attention.

.

.

.

But the higher you rise, the harder you fall.

Charlotte’s smile twists like a writhing snake.

It starts from her peach-colored lips.

It starts with rumors Honey never hears herself.

It starts with Mara who stops asking Honey to lunch and Adelaide who no longer talks to her after class, then with Selene who unfollows her on Sinstagram, and with every one of the Vainglory students that turn their backs on her like she never existed.

They forget that she is special.

And abandon old, irrelevant news until Honey’s worth equals nothing.

While Charlotte’s worth doubles.

Charlotte says nothing. She keeps smiling like nothing is wrong. Her empty excuses mean nothing. The look in her eyes is nothing.

Piercingly green. Soft. Sweet.

Looking down on all they come upon.

Especially Honey.

Because Honey is special.

And no one wants to talk to her. And no one wants to sit near her. And no one wants her in their lives anymore because they’ve replaced her with Charlotte.

Because Charlotte is a different type of special.

She can weave a ridiculous gossamer lie and with one tug of its webbing, trap the entire student population at Vainglory Academy in her net of deceit.

Charlotte can conjure tears from anywhere and hold hearts in the palm of her hand like the spoils of war.

Charlotte can point her finger at Honey, like the taunt of a blade, and get away without penalty.

Charlotte can make Honey realize she never had any friends, to begin with, and she won't have any however hard she tries.

Charlotte can break Honey with one condescending look, with one measly glance of her eyes, with one shift of her gaze, 

And she does.

Vainglory was never Honey's to begin with. 

Charlotte gets all its lovely attention. 

Honey and Charlotte. 

Then it’s just Honey.

Special little Honey.

“Oh Honey, dear,” Charlotte’s voice.

Dripping and sweet.

And disgusting.

Honey gives up her pride so that she never has to hear it again. 

Charlotte’s cigarette burns.

It too smells sweet. 

“You don’t deserve that pretty face of yours.”

---

“Honey. Hello, Honey love?”

Honey blinks.

Her dad waves a hand in front of her face and she bats it away. The disco music of the skate rink slowly melts back into her awareness, it’s the same five songs they play every disco night, but there’s some comfort in the redundancy.

“There you are, I was starting to worry if you’d left us,” He laughs joyfully. His thick mustache bristling with every breath.

Honey, out of retorts this afternoon, huffs brushing her fingertips across her forehead and the burn starts to itch again, but she tugs at her bangs to keep it covered.

Pretending like it doesn’t exist.

She shakes out her curls and ties the laces of her other roller skate hastily before standing. The fresh scabs on her knees stretch with the movement, the ones on her knuckles chafe against their bandages.

Dammit.

Honey doesn’t hide her wince well enough.

At least not enough for her attentive parent to catch.

“Must have been a pretty bad fall yesterday,”

“Pothole.” She lies and glides to the hardwood floors of the rink. The sensation of wheels against the smooth flooring immediately eases any aches currently plaguing her body.

Everything drowns out to the noise of the rink.

This is home.

Old music played on loop, a tacky disco ball spinning lazily in the center of the room, the sound of wheels against wood.

Not a glamorous ballroom with marble decor and satin curtains adorning the walls, but a large room with plastic stars hanging from the ceiling and old posters up in frames around the oval rink. And thousands of little glitter pieces jammed in every corner and crevice of the establishment, too stubborn to be swept into the dustpan.

Despite it all, Honey considers it home.

“Honey, wait- AAH.”

She sighs.

“Dad,” Honey breaks from the flow of skaters, who peacefully circle around the track. “Keep your body always in front of you.”

“Right, love, right. I guess even after all this time I still forget,” He chuckles as she helps him back onto his feet.

He brushes off his old jogging pants and skates alongside Honey in a temporary silence.

She knows what this means.

The silence usually means he’s thinking of how to bring up something she doesn’t want to talk about and she knows what it is this time.

“You used to get scrapes and bruises like those when you were in roller derby,”

She snorts, “I was banned from roller derby,”

Excessive violence.

“Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to go back to the dojo and-”

“Also banned,” Honey’s nose begins to scrunch.

Also excessive violence.

“Right,” He sighs and runs a hand over his face, nearly knocking off his glasses. He doesn’t need them but he claims his martial arts students listen better when he wears them. He prides himself in how wise they make him look.

“Honey,” He starts tentatively again, “This all started happening after you left Vainglory Academy, your whole school break you were either here or the dojo, training.”

He trails off.

Honey’s teeth grind at Vainglory. The bitter resemblance to the pits of inferno, that accursed place that’s like a stain in her memory and a knife in her stomach. Every time someone mentions Vainglory the blade twists.

She hates it.

As much as she tries she can’t forget it.

“I just wanted to let you know you can always talk to your mother and me, that’s what we’re here for anyways.”

Honey never told them anything. The weight of that decision sits like a stone in her throat and she can’t seem to swallow around it. It grows whenever they say this, which they say a lot. Lean on them. Depend on them.

This is something she doesn’t want them to know.

She’ll asphyxiate on that guilt if she has to.

“Yeah,” She watches the wooden floor rush past her skates, “I know.”

“You guys didn’t wait for me?” Honey’s mother comes barreling towards them like a mountain on wheels. A glittering mountain on wheels. She’s wearing the most ridiculous jumpsuit with flared pant legs in lieu of disco night.

Honey makes a face at just how much the fabric shimmers in the oscillating lights.

Every time…

Her mom may own the place, but she doesn’t have to dress like it.

Honey’s mother gracefully comes to a stop and wraps her arms around both of their shoulders.

She’s huge. Both Honey and her dad have no trouble fitting in the crook of her elbow as the muscles in her arms squeeze them both so tightly, it could’ve been classified as a strangle.

Women’s weight lifting, a regional champion for five years.

Also an enthusiastic endorser of all protein diets. 

Honey scrambles to get out of her mother's iron grip and not consequently fall on her ass. 

“We’re just getting warmed up, aren’t we Honey?” Her dad gives her mom a sweet kiss on the cheek.

And she had to get stuck with these two idiots for her parents.

But she loves them anyway.