POV: Rebel Reid

Something isn’t sitting right with me. It’s been keeping me up all night. It’s Dillion. When I told her off, she actually looked like she was going to cry. Her expression is burned into my brain. Not to mention when she saw my tattoo. I expected her to make a big deal out of it, but she didn’t. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think she really wanted to be my friend.

Weird.

Is Dillion Smiley lonely? Why do I even care? She’s a monster, she’s sick. Then again monsters don’t cry…

“Rebel, come on, you’re going to be late for school.” Mom shouts from the hall.

All the G. R. O. S. S. stuff makes me hate school. I can’t even focus on my grades. I have to keep watching my back, wondering who is watching me, what they know, what Dillion will do next. It’s exhausting and it is killer on my nerves. No wonder that girl had a nervous breakdown in the restroom.

I sigh and grab my backpack off the floor before walking out of my room.

“On your way home pick up some eggs. I want to make your mom’s favorite.” Mom says.

“Chocolate cake with strawberry filling?” I ask.

“You know it.” She smiles.

“Yum, save me some. Bye mom love you, tell mom I love her.” I quickly grab my car keys and walk outside.

Autumn leaves litter our yard and crunch under my feet as I walk to my car. I quickly get it and start her up. The old bug sputters to life and then with a loud screech I shut the door and buckle up. Then I press the break and the clutch and put her in reverse. Once I am on the road I pop her into 1st and make my way to school.

At school, I park in my usual spot and hop out of the car. Then I walk inside and head towards my usual table, I don’t get that far. I see Birdie and Scooter both teary-eyed at the center of a group of people. Oh no. I quickly push past everyone and run over to them.

“What happened are you guys okay?” I ask.

In the corner of my eye, I see Clover and Alaska low five each other. They had something to do with this.

“Fag Bag, Fag Bag, Fag Bag,” Everyone cheers.

“What happened?” I ask again.

“What does it look like happened!? We got taken down!” Birdie shouts at me through her tears.

“How?”

“Here, look for yourself.” Scooter shoves his phone at me.

I watch the video.

In the video Birdie and Scooter are walking from school and someone is following them. It skips forward to when they are at the park. Scooter is checking out the same jogger guy he’s been telling me and Birdie about for weeks. Birdie urges him to go and talk to him. So Scooter finally does. It’s all downhill from there. He walks up to the guy and chats with him, I watch as he shyly asks him out on a date. The guy flinches away in disgust and starts telling him off. Birdie runs in for the rescue, he proceeds to call them all sorts of gay slurs. Then he pushes Scooter into the park trashcan. Birdie tries to help him out but the whole trashcan comes falling over and on top of them. They get covered in trash. Birdie tries to rip the trash bag off of her that’s when that guy starts laughing and points to the camera.

I cringe away and hand Scooter back the phone.

“This is all your fault.” Birdie yells at me.

“My fault?” how is this my fault?

“How did they know where to find us? You are the only one who knew about jogger guy and the park. No one else could have told them that. If you hadn’t started this whole stupid trip about taking down the game none of this would have happened.” She shouts at me.

“She’s right. From now on leave us out of it okay.” Scooter crosses his arms.

“Guys come on, you don’t really think I had anything to do with this, do you?”

They avert their gaze.

You have got to be kidding me.

“Extra, extra, read all about it!” Dillion sings as she walks into the circle.

She scatters a bunch of school papers on the floor and everyone runs to grab one. Then she hands one to me with a cocky smirk on her lips.

The headline reads, how to spot a predator. My picture is underneath. What the hell? I quickly read the first paragraph which details me peeping in on girls in the locker room and rumors that I let the boys' gang bang me. Who the hell approved this paper? This is all lies. I am not some sexual predator.

Everyone goes quiet and looks at me.

“T-this isn’t true,” I say.

They all back away from me.

“That’s not what you were saying on Saturday, yes harder, oh.” Cricket thrust his hips in the air.

“We’ve never slept together!” I shout.

“Oh yeah, then how we know you have a tattoo on your back. A rainbow butterfly.”

“Yeah, we all got a good look as we took you from behind.” Ram pretends to smack the air as if he were doing it.

I can feel my face go bright red in anger.

“Look how red she is,” Flynn laughed.

“But, that never happened,” I say.

“So are you saying you don’t have a tattoo on your back?” Dillion raises an eyebrow.

That, she, she tricked me. Damn her. I thought if I showed it to her that she wouldn’t be able to use it against me, that it was just a tattoo.

“All you have to do to prove your innocence is to lift up your shirt and show everyone there is no tattoo there.” She goes on.

This, this can’t be happening.

“She’s a freak, predator, Ew, slut, whore,” People murmur around me.

“Just admit it Rebel this was all some ploy to get attention. You wanted to get laid, you wanted to seem relevant, but guess what. You fooled yourself. You’re sick, twisted. A monster. Who would ever want to be friends with someone like you?” She throws my own words back at my face.

“No, I…”

“If you really wanted to tell, you would have done it by now. But you didn’t, instead, you played the game, and you lost. You never had any intentions of telling anyone. You are no better than the rest of us. I just feel bad that you dragged your friends into it. Can’t even fight your own battles.”

“Shut up!” I shout.

“Go on, tell them. Tell them how you asked to be my friend yesterday in P.E. Tell them how you let the football team gang bang you. Tell them how you peep on girls in the locker rooms. Tell them Rebel, tell them about the monster you really are.”

I look to Birdie and Scooter. They look on at me in horror. No. It’s not true, none of it. It’s all lies.

“Mess with the best, end up like the rest,” Dillion whispers in my ear.

The bell rings and everyone walks off.

No way. That’s it? That’s all it took to take me down? A couple of lies and suddenly I am an attention seeking sexual predator?

“Guys, come on,” I say to my friends.

They shake their heads at me and walk off.

“I would say good game, but let’s face it, you had no game.” Dillion laughs as her Clover and Alaska walk off. Their heels clicking on the tile floor.

What a horrible person. And I thought she actually wanted to be my friend. It was a trap, a ploy to get me to pity her. I fell for it. I landed right into her trap and just like that, I was taken down. I glance down at the paper in my hands.

It’s not true. Doesn’t anyone care about the truth? Doesn’t anyone want this madness to end? Are they all just okay with it? They like living in constant fear and anxiety? I was just trying to do the right thing, how did it end up like this?

The good guys are supposed to win.

Not people like Dillion Smiley.

I quickly wipe my tears and toss the paper in the trash before walking off towards my locker. It’s too late, they have already vandalized it. Stalker, predator, slut, whore, Etc. All written in permanent marker all over my locker.

Why don’t the teachers stop this? I know they see it. I know they know. Who approved that paper to be printed? How has it all gotten this far?

“I warned you.” Someone says behind me.

I turn and see Miranda Pickle.

“She’s perfect, she always wins. I warned you.” She says before walking off.

The final bell rings making me late to class. The halls are empty and I just stare at my locker. With a sigh, I open it up and out falls lots of papers. I bend down and pick one up. It's my face photoshopped onto the body of a porn star. A look-alike of my tattoo photoshopped on her back. In red is written, keep your mouth shut or these get posted online. A little smiley face next to it.

I quickly pick up the mess and toss it in the trash. Then I tie up the trash bag just so no one can pick one out. I then grab my books and close my locker. My phone dings at me. so I pull it out and open the app.

There is a little animation that plays with my profile pic being exploded then in big bright red letters flashes the words take down! Ouch! When it’s done, I see I am now in the negative score range. There is a yellow button that flashes with the words rematch on it. A tiny countdown clock counting down 48 hours until I can no longer claim rematch.

I know I shouldn’t. That I should just let this whole thing go. After all, I am just one person, what can I do? But she’s already made up crap about me, what else do I have left to lose? My friends are gone, my reputation shot, why not?

“I would think long and hard before pressing that,” Dillion says.

I turn to her. She has on a black skirt and a pink skin tight shirt. The tips of her hair is once again dyed pink. Her makeup is done up and she made sure to be extra glamorous today, after all, she knew what was going to happen. She probably stayed up all night planning what she was going to say.

“I don’t have anything left to lose, you on the other hand…”

“Really? Nothing? This, what just happened was nothing. You really want me to come at you again? Because next time I won’t go easy on you.”

She calls this easy?

“I’m not scared of you,” I say.

“You should be.” She spat.

I narrow my eyes then I hold up my phone to her face before pressing the rematch button. The phone gives a *ding, ding, ding* sound before flashing the words rematch.

“You just made the worse mistake in your entire life.” She hisses.

“What is it with you and this game? Why are you so attached? If you only knew what it feels like to be taken down, you would see how awful it really is.”

“I am an open book, that’s why no one can take me down. I am going to enjoy watching you try a second time,” she smirks.

“You may have everyone here fooled but I wonder what the people at your church would have to say about you.” I take a step closer to her.

Her whole demeanor changes. I can see the fear flash in her eyes. Her cocky smirk faltering. She seems to almost shrink in on herself. She is definitely hiding something, and I am going to find out what it is.

“Did I hit a nerve?” I smirk.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she says seriously, almost like she is confused.

“I already told you. This game is sick, you are sick, and I can’t let it go on.”

“But why!? Why do you even care? So what, why are you trying to take this from me?”

“I care because I am a decent human being, unlike you. The fact that the idea is so farfetched for you to grasp is actually really sad.”

To my surprise, she actually starts crying. She seems to surprise herself. Her eyes go wide and her hand slowly reaches up and touches the tears. She pulls it back to look at her now wet fingers in a sort of shock.

“I am a decent human being.” She says more like she is trying to convince herself than me.

I open my mouth to say something but no words come out.

She seems to snap out of it and quickly wipes her tears before backing away.

At that moment she looks so small and helpless. Like a lost child just in need of someone to hold her. She glances around the hall to make sure no one else saw then she looks back at me. For some reason I want to go to her, to hold her and tell her that everything is going to be okay. I didn’t realize it until now, but I think the game has messed up Dillion Smiley most of all. She is the real victim. She has fooled herself into thinking she is bulletproof, so much so that she didn’t even notice the bullet wounds bleeding out onto the floor.

Maybe she holds so tightly to this game because she has nothing else to hold on to. That, that thought alone, makes me want to hold her.

She clenches her eyes shut and under her breath whispers,

“Pull it together, smile Smiley.”

When she opens her eyes she is back to her usual awful self. She glares at me one last time before quickly sauntering off to class.

I just stand there in stunned silence.

What just happened?

Did she break?

Is she already broken?

What was that?

Is she okay? Why do I get the feeling she’s not okay, and maybe she’s never been okay? Who is Dillion Smiley really? Because I get the feeling not even she knows. What am I doing? I went at this all wrong. I should have stuck to the original plan, I should have never played this stupid game.

She doesn’t need to be taken down.

She just needs a friend, a real friend.

What am I doing? Why am I trying to destroy someone so fragile? Someone who has already been defeated in some way. I went at this all wrong. I let the game consume me. Even worse I pressed rematch.

It’s not like she doesn’t deserve it, because she does. It’s just who would that help in the end? Me? Her? No. No one benefits from this. It’s just an endless, mindless, pointless cycle of pain and misery.

I am Rebel Reid, I am not a monster or some predator. I am just a girl trying to do the right thing.

But what is the right thing?