Prologue
They say high school’s basically a damn urban jungle, right? A place where every species bumps elbows, even if half of them pretend they’re nothing alike. It’s like we’re all stuck inside some busted funhouse mirror maze—warped reflections everywhere. You follow? Funny thing is, nobody wants to talk about it, like being different automatically puts a target on your back.
There’s this primal instinct—you know, that inner voice hissing, “Yo, don’t step outta line or you’re gonna get chewed up.”
Everyone wants the top spot, don’t they? Being the king, queen, whatever of the whole circus. They wanna be the next ’90s Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, walking around with a hype squad trailing behind them like groupies at a concert. They want the whole package—adoration, pampering, backup on command. And obviously, they want their little spotlight moment, their fifteen seconds on the metaphorical red carpet.
But you know how nature works: somebody’s always getting the short end of the stick. Too tall, too short, too skinny, too heavy, too geeky—bam, you’re the preferred snack of people who live off hunting other people’s insecurities.
The world isn’t some Wattpad teen-romance fever dream or whatever recycled drama people binge online. Sometimes fiction and reality just shake hands and make this chaotic adolescent cocktail. Feels like an off-brand episode of Glee—less singing, more existential dread. Who needs fiction when real life already serves enough drama for a whole season, right?
Ever heard of the “strongest species” roaming the halls? First up: the classic team captain. Could be hockey, basketball, football, baseball—pick one, he’s probably good at all of them. He’s got the looks, the flawless style, the golden-boy charisma… plus a family everyone low-key envies. And of course, his girlfriend’s gotta match his vibe but not overshadow him, because, obviously, he’s the alpha male in this little wildlife documentary.
And yeah, he’s straight. Feels like that’s part of the damn job description.
Then you’ve got the cheerleader—or the sporty girl equivalent. You know the type: thin but not too thin or people start whispering she’s got an eating disorder. She’s got that cool confidence wrapped in a flirty aura that somehow reads as “irresistible” without crossing into “desperate.” Her boyfriend? Usually another athlete riding high on the school’s social ladder.
And yes, she’s straight too. Because if she happened to be into girls, she’d instantly turn into the fantasy mascot of half the hormonally unstable dudes around.
Not sure I’d call that lucky, honestly.
Those two species—usually glued together to keep their throne warm—make up the infamous “popular crowd.” Not a genius? Who cares. If you can throw a ball or run fast enough, there’s always a college scholarship waiting with open arms. Got some “beauty flaw”? No sweat. Money wipes that right off the map.
If you’re a jock, life’s basically a smooth ride: sports, sports, and—surprise—more damn sports. Even if you’re not top-tier popular, the big-shot athletes treat you like family. You’re their bro, their chill sidekick, the dude they dap up in the hallway just because you exist in the same sweaty ecosystem.
Now, if you’re a band geek, things start rough, sure—but musicians eventually get their moment. You turn into that “exotic” guy girls secretly crush on… as long as you play something cool like guitar, piano, maybe sax. Don’t show up with a tuba, a triangle, or a flute unless you wanna tank your social stock in record time.
If you’re a weeaboo… oof. That’s trickier. Drop random Japanese words in sentences and people stare at you like you’re some glitchy NPC. But if you just vibe with Asian culture—Japan, Korea, China, whatever—you slide into the “kinda exotic but not quite musician-level” category. You might click with the travel-hungry kids, or the ones who binge anime, manga, manhwa, donghua, K-dramas… the whole alphabet soup.
And the thespians? If your voice is killer, you might leave a mark, but don’t get cocky. You’re not touching the throne the popular kids sit on. You’re basically a musician with extra steps—though they might drag you to parties as the “human jukebox” who can belt whatever’s trending on Spotify this week.
Then you’ve got the overachievers. Without a wealthy family or some magnetic personality, you end up as every teacher’s loyal bootlicker. And honestly? You don’t even mind. You get your perks, and the cool kids sure as hell love having someone who’ll forge a few “doctor’s notes” to cover their mysteriously frequent absences.
But like any messy ecosystem—yes, even one filled with post-practice sweat, the sad sandwich your mom threw together because you still can’t fry an egg, and hormones breakdancing out of control—there are groups nobody wants to hype up no matter how hard they try.
Take the stoners. If you keep to yourself, you’re basically furniture. Nobody sees you… until a popular kid needs “supplies” for their house party. Then you magically materialize with your “cool” herbs like some kind of chilled-out forest spirit.
If you’re a skater, an emo, or a hipster, depending on your family and looks, you might blend into the background. But there’s always that whispering behind your back—people labeling you the “weird vibe” kid, the “trouble magnet,” the one who apparently summons chaos just by walking into a room.
And then there’s us. The bottom of the food chain: the nerds.
Yeah, I know, it sounds cliché—but nerds make perfect target practice, especially for those sitting higher on the social ladder. We’re prey; they’re predators. Bullies love us because we don’t fight, we don’t talk back, we don’t show off, we don’t have biceps that look like they’ve been sculpted by Greek gods… and most importantly, we never have anything interesting for them to latch onto.
You’re a loser.
You’re ugly.
You’re an ant in a world full of butterflies and wasps.
You’re a thistle growing in a garden of flawless flowers… some with thorns, some with creepy bugs hiding underneath.
I’m basically the walking cliché of a bargain-bin nerd: short, dressed like some confused grandpa who lost a fight with his own closet, thick glasses, braces shining like dental prison bars, skinnier than a damn spaghetti strand, rocking a bowl cut so tragic it should be illegal, and so introverted the walls look outgoing next to me.
But I’ve also got this one detail—this bright red bullseye—that makes teenagers way too excited to point and laugh.
Guess what? Yeah? No?
Alright, I’ll spill it:
I’m gay.
Not like I’m waving a rainbow flag down the hall or acting like every stereotype in a bad sitcom. Nah. Too easy. But as we all know, truth has this nasty habit of spilling out eventually, like somebody sprinkled gunpowder everywhere and decided to light a match just for fun.
And you know what happens to a gay nerd in high school?
Exactly—you become target number one. There’s always that one bully who treats chasing you like his personal side quest in some toxic online RPG.
My bully had a name, a face, and a whole damn résumé of clichés: Caleb Barmble. Vice-captain of the rugby team, handsome enough to have his own fangirl battalion screaming his name at every game, rich conservative parents who dressed like walking brand ads, and a girlfriend who was basically the shadow of the queen-bee cheerleader.
Stupidly good-looking—like, hurts-to-look-at-him good-looking—but with a face that constantly whispered, “I’m an absolute jerk.” He carried himself with so much confidence it stung more than his punches. Not that the punches ever stopped. And of course, he was always the loudest laugh in his little circle of bros, the sun they all orbited around for reasons beyond mortal understanding.
Decent grades, sure—nothing special. Not enough brain cells to impress, not few enough to flunk.
With deeply rooted beliefs and grand plans for his future, he treated minorities the way people treat spam emails: with zero patience and overflowing ignorance, fueled by fake news and stereotypes he swallowed daily.
So yeah, this story comes loaded with clichés… but it might not be as predictable as it looks.
Why, you ask?
Because I—the gay nerd who used to be Caleb’s favorite punching bag—changed so much that the same people who once mocked me or hated me for sport are now the ones getting doors shut in their faces or being completely ignored when they try saying hi years later.
And Caleb?
Well… you’re gonna have to stick around to find out, because trust me, even with all the clichés, this story ain’t some pastel-colored rom-com.
There’s pain. There’s trauma. There’s revenge.
There are ridiculous moments. Bad jokes. Disasters you’d want to scrub from your memory.
But above all, I’m gonna tell you how the pathetic nerd and the drop-dead-gorgeous bully ended up flipping roles and hating each other… or maybe liking each other… maybe both—during one single vacation trip that went horribly, catastrophically WRONG.
Or maybe not that wrong, depending on how you look at it.
