Hello hello, the word of the week is lead, and I am taking it to mean that heavy toxic substance on the periodic table. Follow Kacey, as she makes a break from being one of the popular girls, and lives with the consequences.
The teacher stood at the front of the room holding up a pair of underwear at the end of a ruler like they were the most disgusting thing she had ever seen, demanding to know whose they were, and Kacey’s stomach felt like it was full of lead.
Those were her underwear, the ones that were missing from her gym locker after her shower, and from the smug smirks and giggles, she knew who the culprits were, not that there had ever been much doubt in the first place.
It had started last year when she was still one of those girls, but then life happened as it is wont to do, and she could no longer stand by and watch as they tormented classmates for things out of their control, so she broke free.
Being an it girl in high school bears more similarities to being in a gang* than one might expect, in so far as you didn’t get out, they kicked you out, and those who did leave typically suffered for it, though here the death was social in nature.
She didn’t regret it though, getting out, because her friends now, as few as they were, were actually her friends, and there was no pressure to perform to standard so that she could stand at the edge of a circle of girls that she knew spent their hours without her talking trash about her.
There were however, moments like these, where her underwear were being waved like a flag by an irate teacher that made her wish that high school would just end, and that she wouldn’t be known Panty-Girl, but alas there were three more months left of classes, so she raised her hand, accepting her new identity.
*Special add on here, I know that this is overly dramatic, and that being a girl in high school is very different from being a gang member. That said, if you have ever been a high school girl and gotten too close to one of these groups you know that they are brutal and relentless, and in the moment this is what it feels like. I will say the above is not my story, it is fiction, but what I went through makes me incredibly glad I was in University before social media came out.
Anne McSommers' Writing Nook 
Nice ending: “she raised her hand, accepting her new identity” She is better off where “there was no pressure to perform to standard”.
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I also think she made the right decision to get out. Great Six!
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Very relatable, and I think your mc was cut from finer cloth for having chosen to leave, rather than being booted out. Her reward? Having real friends, and bring prepared for what comes later…in the workplace!
I really, really like this Six!
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Funny* thing bit of synchronicity (both real and imagined), as in my TToT post today, I cited the incredible environment children can be consigned to in the name of education.
In my case, what was known then as junior high school, a precursor to middle school, the former, however, was grades 7 & 8 the latter 6, 7 & 8
(Hey, way delay the torment?)
not to get too serious (as we humans, when too young and powerless to object, encounter all sorts of social conditions), but the Teacher is as culpable as the students.
interesting Sixifying.
* as in ‘curious’ not ‘ha ha’
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