"It"
All of the credit went to Massie, but Massie was the very problem.
Alicia's life revolved around another being. She wasn't even the leading lady of her own life. Everything glamorous and elegant that Alicia had inherited from her mother and collected with wide, naive eyes in her many trips to Spain meant nothing compared to the clever and unbeatable cool of Massie Block. Every bit of gossip that Alicia could sink her teeth into, every second she spent perfecting her walk in high heels on the wooden kitchen floors, every piece of chocolate cake at which Alicia daintily turned up her nose was in vain. She would never be the girl, but the girl. The girl with girly looks and a girly sense of humour. She wasn't the girl with the wit and uncontested ability to have a comeback edging from her throat before a threat was even presented.
Alicia swallowed dryly and pushed aside the cinnamon-encrusted waffles her mother had made her for the first day of school. She slowly spooned lemon yogurt into her mouth instead, knowing it would be her only food until twelve, when she would half-heartedly down a full meal under Massie's all-knowing gaze. Massie knew, of course, every struggle that Alicia's life was entangled in, the never-ending contest she sweated for, vying for the spot of Massie's best friend. Alicia's beauty and cosmopolitan qualities were merely an insipid platitude that Massie would soon tire of, she was sure. Dylan's humour and connexions to fame, and Kristen's intelligence and top-notch athletic abilities were sure to overcome Alicia's blandness. Massie would see through her façade; it wasn't a promise, really, but an expected fate that was etched into her skin like an unseen glove. It was inevitable, an unshakable conviction of which Alicia was terrified. Dylan, Kristen, Massie – especially Massie – none of them had to work for their reserved spots. They didn't spend their Saturday nights retching at their smeared reflexions, applying countless oils and pastes from the kitchen in the glorified name of false beauty, sweating to unrealistically peppy music, pushing aside homework to labour beside the bathroom sink. None of them, she was sure, had to work to maintain the cool emanating from the very cores of their beings. They lived it, they breathed it, they were it. Every word to come out of Massie's mouth was it. Every laugh choked out by Dylan, every smile gracing Kristen's lips, every walk, every glance, every breath, every inch of skin. Effortless. Envied. Charismatic. It.