"She's a 'Kiss My Ass' Type of Girl"
By: Catnip
You know how they say every animal is born with at least some parental instinct? Except for maybe, like, sharks. Well, my parents are sharks… They have three kids and don't pay any mind to any of them. Not even my brother Turner.
Okay, this is how it works. My parents come from the elite of the elite. My mother's parents are dealers of rare art, and there isn't a collector in the world who doesn't know of them. My father's parents are both classy New York Lawyers. Those jobs go back for generations. How my parents ended up in Everwood, you ask? Five years ago they came across this 'cute' little town and thought 'hotel.' So my mom is the owner of the only luxury hotel with in 75 miles in any and all directions. My father, in his odd sense of rebellion, is the town dentist. The only dentist in a town of 9,000 people? He sees a lot of teeth…
My older brother Turner if mentally retarded. He's 20 but looks like he's my age and acts like he's six. With the exception of a few angered outbursts, he's a sweetie. He loves sunflowers, and balloons, and puppies that jump. You'll never meet a nicer, or more complex man in your life. And he loves me so much he makes me blush in public. He never went to normal school like I did, our family is loaded, he had all kinds of special tutors and people to help him. Several of them even came with us to Everwood. I'm actually kind of glad he doesn't go to High School, there are a lot of assholes that go there, who would make fun of him without knowing him. I should know, I'm friends with all of them.
My little brother is nine and in the 3rd grade. He's cool, in a geeky kind of way. He's a real math whiz. He does long division when he gets bored. Aaron. That's his name. He wants to be a doctor when he grows up, so he can help kids like Turner. Personally, I never thought Turner needed any help. He's happy. How many 'normal' people can say that?
Now for me, I bet you're wondering. My name is Paige. I'm a Sophomore in high school and an elitist. Well, kind of, but not really. I've been to so many different schools in my life it'd make you sick. In one year, I moved three times. That's why I was so glad my parents opened that hotel, they settled down. Anyway, through my experience with new schools I developed a kind of thing. On the first day, at the very first remark made to you, you snap back with something so quick and so clever and get so close to them, they don't know if you're fronting or have some secret kind of, ass kicking power they don't know about. Well in Everwood that one snap got me labeled a 'bitch' and it stuck. I kind of fell into the role without knowing it. I've barely said a nice word about anyone except my brothers since we got here.
You know I'm not really a bitch. Not really. It's just, in Everwood there's something I had never seen at any other school. There were the elite, and the nerds. City schools don't have that. In city schools there's always this equality with everyone. Sure people stick with their own little groups, but no one group is better than the others, and they all seem to mix a little anyway. Everwood isn't like that. You have the cool, and the not cool. Before I knew it, I was cool. I was suddenly hated by everyone who wasn't 'elite,' and in some twisted sense of a hurt ego, an anger sprung up at those who hated me. They hated me without knowing me, so I found myself doing the same.
I didn't really start it, you see. I never expected that the people I talked to would make people hate me, despise me, call me names. I never wanted to be the same as that. But this place, it has such set boundaries, I couldn't escape it. In the beginning I tried to talk to the 'not cool,' but they shunned me, told me to go talk to my 'cool friends.' So after a few years, that's all I did. I fell into the role everyone thought I was supposed to. I became what everyone thought I was. A bitch. And I hate it.
Actually for awhile it became normal, I just fell into it so well I stopped noticing. It was just so normal… But lately I've been reminded that I'm not who people think I am. I don't care about cool or not cool, I don't care who's elite and who's a geek. Lately I've been doing things I regret so much, I get angry at myself. But as angry at myself as I am, I'm scared to set things right.
There's this girl, she's part of the 'elite' too, but it's not really who she is. She's nice, and sweet. Last Fourth of July her boyfriend fell into a coma. He woke up about a month ago with amnesia. I felt so sorry for her, that must have hurt so much. I tried to help her, but she never expected me too. And I have this amazing talent to only be what people think I am.
Anyway, last September, or, October, I forget, this world famous neurosurgeon comes to Everwood of all places after his wife dies. He brings his two kids with him. A little girl, I think, and a boy who's in my grade. He was new, and had purple hair, and cartoons on his shirt. My friends went after he like he was Barney the Purple Dinosaur. I did too… I was mean to him, and he took it, he expected it. He fell for Amy, the girl with the coma boyfriend. He said there was nothing, she said there was nothing, but there was something. My friends went after him more. He was loosing the glue between Amy and her coma boyfriend Colin. Amy and Colin were like JFK and Jackie O. Guys wanted to be him, girls wanted to be her. They were everything, they were perfect. And now this boy, Ephram Brown, was beginning to ruin that, and while Colin was still in a coma, no less.
He never knew what exactly he was getting in the middle of. All he knew was that on the first day of school, a pretty girl talked to him. Hell, she punched her own brother in the face for him… No wonder he fell. But, in all truth, where I couldn't, where no one could, he made Amy happy. And instead of thanking him for bringing some joy into the girl's life, we make fun of him, and attacked him. We lived up to what people think we are. Bitches.
You have no idea how much I want to go over to him and apologize for being so mean. I should apologize to everyone, but mostly him. He didn't hate me until I gave him cause. I should thank him for making Amy happy, even though Colin is awake now, and whatever happened between Amy and Ephram is causing problems, I should still thank him.
But you have to understand this is not an approachable guy we're talking about here. He's 5'11", dark purple hair, and this sunken face. He looks like he belongs in a Marilyn Manson video. But even though I love Marilyn Manson, I couldn't talk to Ephram for my life. Actually, he reminds me of my first boyfriend. Same face, same attitude. It's creepy, kind of…
So this is how it is currently. Ephram's at his locker and I'm just coming out of the girl's bathroom. He's trading his science book and gym clothes for a bottle of water and his Algebra book. I'm walking over to him, my uncomfortable heels 'clunking' on the floor and a school bag hung over my shoulder, bouncing on my hips as I try to approach him with some confidence. Just as I reach him he closes his locker and turns away from me down the hall, never once noticing I was there.
"Ephram!" I yelp out in such a scared, panicky little voice that I don't blame him for the look he gives me when he turns around. He hates me…
"What?" he demands, his voice translating everything his face showed into sounds. I panic, and my voice is gone for about two seconds.
"You made Amy happy!" I blurt, turn, and run away.
