If I am going to explain the hatred I feel towards Sadie and make you understand why I am going to such great lengths to torment her as I am, I must first take you back to all the times she wronged me….starting with…
**Origin Timeline: Junior Year September 2008**
Homecoming was around the corner, and with everyone, I knew pairing up and going as couples, I was left alone, sitting in the back of the class with the girl I didn’t think I’d come to hate. Sadie may not be popular, and in comparison to me, who had barely breached the 5-foot threshold, she was tall, like five foot eight, but unlike most of the girls in my classes, she didn’t seem to be bothered by me being around her.
We had similar interests and were on friendly terms to the point that she was on my radar as a potential date for homecoming.
Normally, it wasn’t even something that would be on my mind, considering I didn’t really have any friends, and it was…a bit much to handle.
As I had never been officially diagnosed or medicated in terms of my autism or ADHD, things like social interaction eluded me, and frequently, I would be in people’s faces or extremely hyper active.
Yet, Sadie was never bothered by it. Things like sharing books or working on projects together came naturally to her, and we had been deskmates for most of high school.
And well, with me having been a late bloomer and hitting puberty in the summer leading into Junior year, along with losing a bunch of weight, although I still looked like a kid, I was in relatively good shape.
Working up the courage to ask her to the dance, I walked over to her desk and stood there for a moment until she looked up from her phone and smiled at me.
"What’s up, Tay?" She said with her bright green eyes and highlighted blond hair.
"Uh, hey Sadie, so, I was wondering, you know, don’t feel pressured or anything, but if you don’t have a date to Homecoming, I was hoping you could, maybe, I don’t know, go with me?" Unable to stop myself, I rocked side to side in nervousness and unconsciously fidgeted while fumbling through the question.
The moment the question finally left my mouth, I knew it was a mistake because, for the first time since I met her, Sadie’s body language told me she was both uncomfortable and disgusted by the proposal.
"Homecoming? I mean, I wasn’t planning on going…" Placing her phone down on the desk, I noticed Sadie leaning back a bit from me, and that was when I heard Snickers coming from the other side of the classroom.
"Oh…alright, that’s fine then, never mind." Feeling embarrassed, I quickly went back to my desk, grabbed my backpack, and bolted out of the room, unwanting to draw any more attention to myself.
But right before I exited the room, I heard a boisterous laugh coming from one of the popular boys, Paul Henderson.
"HAH, look at Little TayTay, he actually asked Sadie to Homecoming, what a joke!"
His taunt was accompanied by multiple people laughing, and as I fled to the safety of one of the empty stairwells I normally ended up at, I couldn’t help but beat myself up for even trying to ask someone to go to the dance with me.
’Stupid, fucking stupid, you should have asked her when the class was empty, but nooo, you just had to jump the gun.’ Punching my leg over and over in frustration, I prepared myself for the inevitable bullying I would need to deal with over the next week.
That’s just how the assholes in my classes were; they would eventually move on as something new would catch their attention, but for a few days, I would be the prime target.
Unfortunately, that was exactly how things went; the never-ending torment and gazes I faced for the next several days were unbearable to the point that I would end up cutting that class or leaving early.
To make matters worse, Sadie ended up going to the dance, contrary to what she had claimed, and with Paul, too.
For the most part, that was the end of that…I wish I could say that things got better, but instead, it kind of stayed the same; as expected, Sadie and Paul ended up dating, and from time to time, the topic of me asking her to homecoming would come up and a new wave of mockery would continue.
At some point, Sadie herself even joined in, looking down on me, but I wrote it off as Paul forcing her to. I was naive and had a habit of overthinking everything, so of course, that’s how I handled the situation…that is until prom came around at the end of the school year.
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It was a typical day; I had long since moved my seat to the back corner of the room, where I could avoid people to the best of my ability, and when, at the end of the period, I noticed a shadow looming over me, I flinched and immediately looked for a way out…especially when I realized it was Sadie casting that shadow.
She had changed a lot during the school year, cutting her hair short, wearing more revealing clothing, and fully embracing her position as the popular guy’s girlfriend.
Upon noticing her, my first thought was, ’What did I do this time,’ but my head was soon sent spinning.
"Hey, Tay…it’s been a while." She said with a downcast expression, causing me to second-guess her intentions for coming to me.
"Yeah…it’s been a while," unsure of what to say or even where to look since she had begun provocatively leaning over my desk to expose her cleavage, I responded to the best of my ability.
"Look, I want to say sorry for what happened at the beginning of the school year. Paul and I had just started going out, and you caught me off guard because I only thought we were friends…"
"But since Paul and I broke up recently, and I am all alone since my friends were all his friends, I was hoping you would go to prom with me…"
"Prom…with you…" the words hung in the air, and I felt my heart rate speed up due to excitement.
"Yeah…if you don’t wanna go, that’s fine, I will just not go…"
"No, no, I can totally go!" I answered a little too excited, unaware that it would end up being one of the biggest mistakes I could have ever made.