It wasn't like I had anything better to do.
It was Friday night and unlike most, normal teenage inhabitants of the small town I called home, I was leaving the football field. Before the game even started.
What was the point in staying? We were going to lose like many times before.
Why was I even there to begin with? I had just finished having a conversation with a certain Mason James, football player/idiot about Sarah Jenner, cheerleader/bible hugger. For no other reason than Mason and Sarah were, in fact breaking up.
Mason wanted to be with Cristina Owens (which was quite stupid because Cristina was a bit of a...b****) regardless I assisted him in his endeavor.
Did I feel guilty? Yeah, sorta. But that was the business I was in, I was paid to break people's hearts because I was good at it.
Not to say that, I, Avril Annalise Campbell had been in plenty relationships because I hadn't been in a single one.
I didn't have many friends.
Not in school anyway.
I had Lordess and my friend Mini, who both went to private school but lived in the same neighborhood as me.
All the others were associates.
I liked to consider myself, a social leper, or a social outcast—a loner, even. Not necessarily for the reasons you may think. No. I wasn't the type —teenage rebel—who exiled herself from the world for some odd or cool reason.
And as intentional or unintentional as it was, my social exile was completely and utterly my own doing.
I was an instigator. Which earned me quite a few displeased peers and birthday parties alone.
I was an outspoken, ruthless...scratch that sensitive—a much better word, instigator. I couldn't help it, I liked to talk and when I did the wrong words always seemed to come out. No matter how much I tried, it was inevitable that I would open my big mouth and blabber about something that didn't really concern me.
I had a problem.
I realized that.
Anyway, Sarah was a sweet girl; she was even smart. I've cheated off of her enough in Chem class to know that, she was too good for Mason (and his C average).
I was doing her a favor.
A big one.
The familiar instrumentals of Bittersweet Symphony played in my pocket.
"Hey, Ma." I answered as I strolled over to my beautiful bright yellow fiat and unlocked it. I started the engine and buckled in.
"Hey," my mother giggled as I adjusted the Stitch bobblehead on my dashboard before rolling down the window as she went on, "can you babysit tonight?"
"Sure, mom because everyone wants to babysit on a Friday night."
"Oh honey, you don't have any plans do you?"
No. But she knew that.
"I'll be home in ten minutes." I said.
We exchanged goodbyes and hung up.
I turned on the radio and pulled out of my parking spot. No one was there yet, besides the coaches and the football bus; so no, I did not go around the parking spaces like any other, sane human being would, instead I just drove straight through them.
The great thing about attending an underfunded school was that we didn't have the fancy things other; more blessed schools had. We didn't have decent parking lots with pavements. We didn't have those cool little bump things that prevented you from running into someone's else's rear, and we most certainly didn't have signs to warn pedestrians that they will be run over if they didn't remain on the make shift side walk along the driveways.
I guess that's why Nicolas Carter ran in front of my car.
I had just about made it on to the main road when he jumped right in front of my beautiful baby, Rebecca.
Yes, Rebecca.
I had many thoughts as I pressed the brakes and waited for the big idiot to move out of my way. Thoughts such as:What. The. Fuck. I hope he didn't get any blood on my car because I just had it washed the other day and would die if his blood stained it.
Normal, reasonable, concerns.
All of such thoughts dismissed as he turned facing my car with the type of facial expression I imagined a mad man would have had I ever seen one. Realization dawned on me.
He did it on purpose!
Let up the window! Let up the window! Let up the window!
My hand quickly reached to follow the warning, but he had already reached inside, "you b****!"
Oh. God...
Okay, funny story—Not actually funny, however a story nonetheless. On Fridays, Alana, my mother and I go to Collier Park Recreational Center for yoga. Don't get me confused, I hate yoga but my mother is obsessed with the whole—Stay intact with your spiritual side—type of thing and has been dragging me there since ninth grade.
Coincidentally, Miss Popular herself, Eris Anderson, the girlfriend of Baseball Team Captain, Nicolas Fucking Carter went there too.
It was sad, I never noticed her there, really—let's be real I was far too busy attempting to do this weird handstand thing to even think about anything else. I guess you could say I liked it.
It was one of the few places, I literally couldn't bring my phone, which meant absolutely no unwanted calls or anyone interrupting my tranquility. It was cool, a relief. That didn't stop her from approaching me just as I was about to go out on to the floor asking to speak with me.
I just really had no idea what someone like her wanted with me.
Like, was she lost?
Being the spoiled princess she was, Eris didn't take no for an answer and returned all but five minutes after I told her off.
Thirty minutes of her waving and smiling and a failed attempt at a flamingo pose later, I finally excused myself into the changing room with an eager looking Eris at my heels. The changing room was basically a big yellow room with white wood benches, it really wasn't anything special.
"Alright, what's going on?" I questioned as I took a seat on one of the benches and began massaging my feet.
"I need to break up with Nick."
"Nick?"
"Yeah...Nick, my boyfriend of like three years."
"Nick..." my eyes widened as it all dawned on me, "Nick...Nicolas...Oh my gosh—not Nicolas Carter?!" I practically yelled. Eris nodded her head, chocolate colored locks bouncing as she did so.
Was she seriously? I mean like drop dead serious? She couldn't be...
Could she?
To understand my momentary freak out, you'd have to know that at Westshare High School, stuff like this didn't happen. Our cliques—as cliche as it may seem—were very much defined, no one dared question the system. Going outside of one's clique was a deadly game.
Social Suicide.
The strictest of them all? The popular kids, the jocks and cheerleaders, the models and beauty queens, the richest of the rich and the finest of the fine. It was exclusive, not even all the jocks got in. There were only twelve members of this particular party. Candice Johnson, dated Roman Celtic, Logan Arnold, who was in love with Fay Clark, Landon James, who went out with Kadence, Claire who dated Ryan, Nicolas who should be dating Eris; and Mona who flirts with Nicolas' best friend Josh.
You see what I mean? These people keep it in the family!
"Why?" I finally asked watching her pace back and forward in front of me, nervously.
"I don't want it anymore—being popular, I mean" she blurted out hastily, what? "I love Nicolas, but like a brother or close cousin. I don't think I've ever loved him..." Okay, ouch. "I care about him but it just seems like I always have to pretend with him, I don't want to be popular or anything."
I nodded pretending to understand while pondering on it all for a second, it never occurred to me that popular people could want to be popular. What happened when they don't want that life anymore? Was it like a gang?
Where you couldn't get out?
A. H.
