I'm not a supervillain.  I chanted it to myself so many times each night before I fell asleep.

Don't get me wrong—I think comic-book-type characters are kick-ass.  If you could really just pop off the page and be one in real life—superpowers and all—that would be awesome.  But I didn't want to be evil.  You know, the "villain" bit.

I was determined not to let the new, unbelievably cool secret at my disposal go to my head.  After all, all I really wanted was to just be normal, to fit in, to be seen as one of the rest of them, and to just be nicely ignored.  Forgotten.  Left alone.

But concocting a formula that could turn the school's supermodel-status-bound cheerleading captain into a groveling, noticeably hunchbacked, zit-faced nerd kind of made me not normal.  And there was no turning back.

Oh, I tried.  I tried to just go back to school the following Monday—the Monday after it happened in front of a huge audience of teachers and shocked students—and just pretend none of it ever happened.  But my classmates weren't going to let me.

The runners-up for school bully who should've been scared weren't.  They just continued to prove that they only saw what they wanted to see, and that, for the most part, if the cool kids don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist.  That was good for me and my desire to just be left alone finally.  But there was a small sect of the student body that just couldn't—absolutely wouldn't—forget.

My fellow misfits—the freaks, nerds, geeks, and all-around nobodies—just refused to leave me alone.  It was like what I did, what they witnessed, turned over some switch inside of them, something that made them suddenly talk excitedly and incessantly when their usual tactic was to just lay low and never say a word.  They all wanted to know how it happened and if I could do it all over again.

It was like I popped open all the possibilities they subconsciously wished for but never dared dream of.  I was suddenly the focus of all their misfit attention: the Queen of All Hope.

I didn't want to be.  I mean, who wants an actual entourage?  Can you imagine me traipsing through the halls of Lakewood High with Johnny Ginger-Head carrying my books for me, Susie Four-Eyes following me like a lost puppy, and the resident Chinese foreign exchange student, Fang Dingbang—that's his actual name—fighting for the opportunity to walk near me as if I was appointed his new guardian and protector against all bullying?  Please.

No, I had to keep them all at bay the best I could.  I mean, I didn't want to dash their hopes and all, but I couldn't be held responsible for solving all their problems either.  I had enough of my own.

In fact, the biggest one was brand new.  I created her.  Like Frankenstein's monster.

Becky Worthington, the former Hottest Girl in the School, was now one of those wonky-eyed misfits that clung to me like Velcro.  It was like she didn't know how to even breathe now that she wasn't the perfect specimen of female kind she enjoyed life as for as long as she could remember.

As if I cared.

"Patrice, Patrice!" she'd call out from whatever corner she crawled out of.  "My backpack won't stay on anymore now that I'm hunchbacked, and I can't get Johnny Ginger-Head to carry my books for me anymore, and I'm not strong enough to do it myself!"

Or "Patrice, Patrice!  What do I do?  My parents don't recognize me and won't even let me in the house!" 

I just couldn't get rid of her.  The comic book stories never mention how the supervillain—or even the superhero—has to deal with the aftermath of the lives they change, the obsessive fans they develop, or how to resist the temptation of overusing their superpowers.  And the comic book stories never reveal how the super-character has to deal day to day when still trapped in the hell of high school.

Sometimes, it felt like everything was just going to burst: the bubble that was life at Lakewood High, my life as I knew it, and who knows what else.

It was just another Tuesday morning when Becky Worthington—now known as Becky Brokeback among her former friends and fans—was the star of another public scene, as if she just couldn't get enough of her classmates' attention, even as their adoration turned to hate and mockery.  She just hadn't quite grown into her new body, couldn't quite accept that her life would never be the same again.  And I really just didn't give a crap.  In fact, I was positively beaming inside, and it was nearly impossible to hide it.  ....