Chapter Six
674 Words
Chapter Six
Freddie was one of those people who were easily underestimated in their potential for evil. From the outside, he appeared to be a pretty normal boy; most of the other kids didn’t particularly like him or dislike him. Eliza and Freddie often sat together in classes, at first merely because they had nobody else to sit with.
When school began, Freddie had been a bit of a loner like Eliza, but unlike her, he was never content with being a fly on the wall. He was always trying to c***k jokes and entertain the masses, but he was consistently shut down, told to be quiet, urged to sit still. Eventually, Freddie had been put on ADD medication, and to this day, Eliza was unsure whether the medication actually made him crazy, or it had just awakened something inside him that was dormant. Perhaps the drugs eased his social anxiety, and his newfound ability to interact with his peers was what drove him to become a sociopathic megalomaniac.
Whatever the causes, in their junior year of high school, it had begun to seem as if Freddie was put on this earth to make Eliza’s life a living hell. But oddly enough, toward the end of the first year, they had actually begun to find more things in common than their mutual friendlessness.
Eliza hadn’t kept in contact with Freddie much during the summer but they’d exchanged the odd text, mostly just inside jokes, and when Eliza came back to school the next semester, she sat next to Freddie in math class as usual. They chatted and caught up a little and everything seemed pretty normal. During lunch, Eliza noticed Freddie going off with some of the other kids from her grade. She was surprised but realized he must’ve made some friends during the summer. Eliza couldn’t blame him, since she had essentially abandoned him in Birkbridge all season. After a while, Freddie grew more distant, but Eliza didn’t want to impose herself on him. She figured that she was just destined to be a loner and retreated back into her isolated existence.
She didn’t know exactly what happened, but every time she walked by him and his new group of friends and said hi to Freddie they would poke at him and he would turn red. She found out later through the grape vine that they accused Freddie of dating Eliza, and teased him endlessly about it.
After this incident, something snapped inside of Freddie. Eliza still wasn’t sure whether it was his medication or whether he just couldn’t handle the social pressure of being the object of ridicule amongst his new group of friends, but Freddie had suddenly made it his mission to prove that he had no feelings of affection toward Eliza and she made sure to stay out of his way. Nevertheless, it was impossible to avoid her classmate altogether. Freddie carried on bullying Eliza purely for entertainment. His daring comments and heartless jabs gained him a new level of respect from his friends, and he was beginning to feel truly accepted.
Thunderthighs was the name that Freddie had tossed at Eliza during junior year - nothing else had ended up sticking as prominently as this one. He’d come up with this particular gem during PE class, to which Eliza started wearing shorts. She usually wore regular sports pants, but they were having their spring classes outside and to her dismay, she noticed an entire group of her classmates, with Freddie at the front, staring at her from the other side of the football field. As always, Freddie operated covertly, cleverly avoiding the watchful gaze of the teachers.
Eliza didn’t want to know what they were saying, but her curiosity and embarrassment got the best of her. During the final lap of the one-mile run, Eliza made sure to run by Freddie’s friends. As she ran past them, she could faintly make out the awful words. “Look at Thunderthighs go! Take cover, there’s a storm coming!” Afterward, she wished with all her heart that she hadn’t been listening.
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