I first felt pure hatred in kindergarten, when I met a boy named Travis. He was humanlike in appearance, jelly-stained and sticky like the rest of us, but in reality he was a putrid beast, crafted out of pure malevolence and hellfire. He probably hated me for the same reasons most people did—because I was the annoying little chunker with big glasses and blunt-cut bangs—but I’d like to think that he was just intimidated, acting out of fear. That, perhaps, behind my huge glasses were eyes so full of wisdom and truth that it pained him to be in the same room as me. Maybe he knew that I was destined for greatness, and despised me for it. Maybe he had never encountered such an electric energy before. Either that or my stupid haircut.