"Michaela told me she saw you with Ryan at the mall yesterday," Sammy said with an overly dramatic wink. "Are you finally opening up?"
It was early in the morning. Early enough that I was trying to remember what my Dad's security guard had said about killing a person in one move.
"Who's Ryan again?" Allison asked.
And it was too early for me to quickly inform them that my lack of interest in Ryan had not and, unless I got amnesia, would not change.
"Just another ugly white boy," Rita said with a sneer.
"Ugly?" Michaela exclaimed. "He is so--"
"Annoying. Unattractive. Full of himself," I finished. While it felt like I was removing my intestines with a meat grinder to do so, I agreed with Rita. But I'd never refer to anyone as a white boy--or at least not in Rita's way.
"He could be annoying," Sammy acquiesced. "But unattractive? No. Who would blame him for being full of himself?"
Yeah. There were always rich, gorgeous high school girls to inflate his ego like a birthday balloon for a five year old.
"I still don't know who we're talking about," Allison exclaimed, sounding like a child who didn't receive the right kind of Barbie doll.
Rita gave her the one day I'll just smother you look. Then, turning to me, she said, "Lauren thinks she's too good for everyone, and--"
"Not today, Rita," I cut her off. There wasn't any good day for her bull. My only wish was that someone else would be brave enough to put her in her place.
"Anyways," Sammy said. "I got Zach to reply to my text."
"What did he say?" Michaela wondered.
Sammy's face shrunk like a raisin. "He said, 'okay.'"
"Dump him," was my immediate suggestion.
And here came the Oscar-winning expression. The slightly watery eyes--with just enough tears that the sadness is there, but not enough to ruin their makeup. The tremulous lips that happened to be painted in a nude shade of pink. The eyebrows creased at an almost calculated angle. Paired with a slight stammer, Sammy said, "But he's the one."
I nearly slapped her for her own good, but I checked myself.
"Right, Lauren, she loves him," Michaela said, putting a protective arm around her.
Allison nodded in sympathetic agreement, the confusion flashing in her eyes. Rita gave me a pitying stare, not providing a sarcastic comment when it could've actually helped a friend who lowered her standards to the ground.
"I guess everyone had their dose of Nicholas Sparks last night," I said. Actually, not even. The men in Nicholas Sparks' novels probably sent paragraphs back to one-word texts.
"You don't need Nicholas Sparks to see true love," Rita said scathingly, and on that note I decided I needed to tune out the conversation or else I might get sick.
-----------------------------------------
No one liked us.
It was a fact that I came to terms with whenever I walked into a place with one of the rich girls. This was quite often, as I participated in a few clubs for no reason but to just see regular people.
Well, I'll amend my statement--no one, except for rich people (which doesn't really count because they are us) liked us.
We were popular, sure. Everyone knew we existed and also thought they knew everything about us. And through the "everything" they knew, they decided they hated us.
The cheerleaders hated us the most, simply because we stole their show. I mean, every good movie has the cheerleaders as the most popular girls in the school.
Maybe it had more to do with how our presence seemed to come with some type of "nose in the air" look. I couldn't remember the last time we actually took the time to sit down and have a full conversation with the average person, with the exception of teachers. I couldn't remember the last time we wore something other than non designer clothes. And having Rita around certainly didn't help either.
"Hey," Rita said to a freshman girl who was wearing a rather tragic outfit, but would otherwise be cute.
She smiled. Right, I forgot to mention--the freshmen kind of didn't hate us. They wanted to be us.
"Hey," she said, adjusting her blonde hair that was straightened in the type of way Rita called disgustingly fake.
"Come to our party this weekend," Rita said, the right side of her lip adjusting into her smile that ruined lives.
"Really? Where?" she said, her voice breathy from anticipation. Someone needed to treat her the art of at least acting like you didn't care. Because once people knew what you cared about, they practically owned you.
"At my house," Rita said. "I've got all the details on my facebook. I'll add you--what's your name again?" I knew that she knew her name. That this was all a game of chess that the freshman was already destined to lose.
"Destiny Winehouse," she said.
"Destiny Winehouse," Rita said, and I heard nothing but lost loves and wrongs avenged as she echoed her name. "Right. Well, thank you."
Destiny broke into a nervous smile. "Yeah. See ya."
As soon as Destiny was out of earshot, Rita let out a whooping laugh. "Look at her," she said. "We can see her roots. Her roots. God, they are so ugly." Rita referred to the not-rich students as they or them, almost as if they were an entirely separate entity. "I guess John likes bad roots."
John. He was the reason for Rita's sneaky smile and slithering laugh. "Leave her alone, Rita," I said weakly.
"This morning, you were more than happy to call Loomis unattractive--don't act like you're better than me, Lauren," she said.
I don't know, man. Maybe Ryan is a guy with a nude collection larger than the US Federal Bank records, and the girl with bad roots is...just a girl, hoping to fit in.
"It doesn't matter anyways," Rita said. "I'm going to ruin her life. You'll see." She adjusted herself in her seat as Michaela and Sammy laughed and Allison's eyes widened in confusion. Rita took a dramatic sip of her Cartesian water.
I let her win that round. But that was the issue.
I wasn't better than Rita because I always let her win, always in fear of what would happen if I opened my mouth too wide.
I could argue that Rita was the one that people actually didn't like, and we were just guilty by association. She had an aura of sophistication and an arrogance that was only acceptable to those who had the money to be even as or more arrogant than her.
"But God, those roots," Rita said as she shook her head at Destiny Winehouse. It was funny that it was the roots that she kept observing. She could've noted the clashing of a bright pink halter top with green jeans and red shoes, or the way her eyeliner was leaking onto the bottom of her eye. But it was the roots she cared about most.
I tried not to care or indwardly cringe at how Destiny looked, but I couldn't.
"Why do you guys always argue?" Michaela inquired, wiggling her finger with the fancy new ring with an ostentatious sparkling diamond. I estimated that it was around three thousand dollars.
"She's always tryna start stuff with me," Rita moaned, rolling her eyes.
"You're always insinuating drama with people who haven't done anything to you or anyone," I replied before I could hold myself back, and I knew I had won that round. After all, Rita couldn't admit that she initiated this game between a girl she knew would lose for John.
"You act like you're better than me, Lauren," Rita said. "But you're not."
She was right, but I still nearly removed my tastebuds trying to restrain from making a comment.
"I'm trying out this new diet," Sammy announced.
"Good for you," Rita droned. "You need it, anyways." Sammy flushed, but said nothing.
Sammy wasn't fat, but she wasn't approaching Rita's Taylor Swift-esque body that all the girls wanted and all the boys pretended to hate.
"Is it hard?" Michaela wondered.
Rita looked at Michaela distastefully. "I don't think you want to get any skinnier."
Rita couldn't really talk about anyone being skinny, with her size three and dropping jeans and XS shirts. And Michaela wasn't really skinny, she just didn't have curves. I would say her body fell more into the average.
Michaela looked like someone had spilled hot sauce in her eyes. Physically unable to let such Rita's second backhanded insult go undefended, I said, "It's not like you're not skinny too, Rita."
Rita just smiled at me, took a calculated look at her new French manicure, and continued eating. The others, probably recognizing this as a cessation of the fight, went back to eating.
I silently rebelled by putting away my lunch, leaving my sandwich untouched.
But the worst part was, Rita still continued to clench her throne, with me only being able to hope she would one day topple from her reign.
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