Once, she'd had it all. The whole school terrified and in awe of her, the Fashion Club at her feet. Just like her mother, she ruled with an iron fist. Nobody dared to cross her, and she always got her way.
She was resilient. She'd recovered from having to wear ugly braces as a child, a failed dance committee, being dumped by her date among her soaked classmates, being fat. No matter what life threw at her, Sandi Griffin fought back and came out more on top than ever.
Then senior year happened, and everything was ruined in ways she never would have expected.
In hindsight, she should have seen it coming. The end of the Fashion Club had only been the beginning; first Quinn started talking back to her, and since Sandi owed her a debt for having helped her lose weight she could no longer bring her to heel as she once had. Stacy finally stood up to her after a birthday wish gone horribly wrong. And Tiffany was finally starting to grow a brain and form opinions of her own.
But she didn't need them. She was Sandi Griffin, she could start a new Fashion Club with cooler, more attractive, more popular girls who would listen to her. Not challenging her authority like Quinn, saying geeky things like Stacy or sitting there checking her reflection in the toaster like Tiffany. Who needed them when she could do so much better?
It was when she started looking for other girls that she realized something was wrong. In the past, girls fell all over her and the others hoping for even the smallest chance to join the Fashion Club, even for a day. Now, though, they raised an eyebrow and went on their merry way. It was as if Sandi wasn't even there most of the time.
Soon, indifference turned to derision. People would walk by her in the halls and sneer, whispering things she couldn't make out but knew weren't any good. She began to hear her name in snatches of conversation, and none of it good. Dumped me because my car wasn't expensive enough (Brent, a past date of hers). Pretends you're her friend, then stabs you in the back (Tori Jericho, the girl she'd kicked out of the Fashion Club to make room for Quinn). Thinks she's so stylish, but you should've seen the overalls she wore all throughout freshman year (Three years ago! She hadn't worn them since!).
In the past, she would have run to Quinn and the others and the four of them would have made a revenge plan against these unfashionable nitwits. But those days were over; Quinn had dozens of new friends, people she never would have talked to before. Stacy was a peer counselor for younger girls, she didn't have time to worry about silly things like makeup and gossip. And Tiffany was apparently dating some computer geek, someone Sandi herself had rejected coldly in the past.
She gave up trying to rebuild the Fashion Club. She went out of her way to avoid Quinn and the others. She wasn't desperate enough to turn to schoolwork yet, so instead she spent her days angry, bitter, depressed. Alone.
By the time she realizes she's done this to herself, it's too late to make amends.
In the end, everything that once mattered so much only brought her to her knees, alone and unwanted. Once Queen of the School, now a reject and an outcast. The girls who used to fear her now laugh behind her back.
She was once everything. Now, she is nothing.