Reply #9: No, there was always one there who was smarter

[PurityOfEssence]

but she made sure she got better grades and did all the extra credit work and played the piano really well and was just sweeter and perfecter and they'd all really love her and everyone would be in awe of her and she would succeed, because she had to be the smartest and she wasn't.

and she's alone.

and she's embarrassed.

and she's humiliated.

Sure, fools still think well of her, but any intellect she respects knows she's mediocre, adolescent and weak, and she KNOWS that.

and she's alone.

and this will all destroy her reputation in a slow, agonizing series of admissions and rearguard actions until the time she's finally jettisoned.

all alone.

lost, and thwarted.

she knows they'll burn her, hang her out to dry, hide behind her and not return her calls someday.

It's over, she knows it and it shows, but the little girl holding back the tears at not being invited to the tea party will hold them back again as she severely does her perfect hair and prepares for her recital.

and yet, unlike the rest of them, she's not filled with hate...she's just sad, oh so very, very sad...

and alone, all alone.

(somehow the ungrammatical and e.e. cummings style just seemed right...)