Daria had had enough of Val's shit. "What do you mean pushing yourself as some kind of role model when all you care about is how you look and what celebrities you know? Aren't teenage girls screwed up enough without you foisting your shallow values on them and making their lousy self-images worse?"

Val scrutinized Daria for a long moment, before she gave the young cynic a sad smile. "Oh Dar...Daria," she corrected. "You remind me so much of myself at your age."

"What?"

Val looked down at her hands. "That's the reason I picked your essay, you know. It sounded so much like something I'd write in high school, so I wanted to...I don't know, see if you lived up to your so-called angst."

"You couldn't have been anything like me in high school."

"No?" Val looked back up at Daria. "Ms. Li let me look over your permanent record, Daria. I sure as hell wouldn't have picked fashion as a career choice in high school, let alone report on it for the school paper. Can you honestly tell me you willingly chose to be a fashion reporter down in Highland? No coercion involved?" Daria's silence was answer enough. "I never wanted to be a fucking fashion magazine editor, Daria, pandering to twits like your school's Fashion Club, having to act like a goddamn party-hardy highschooler just to keep the image up, just to keep the job..."

She pulled out a flask and took a loooong nip. "I do party hard, you know," she explained, staring hard at the flask. "I've got three of these, in case I can't reach a liquor store in time. I'm actually 38, and if I haven't destroyed my liver in the next two years - if my liver isn't a dead piece of meat right now, in fact - I'll be really goddamn surprised." She offered the flask to Daria. "Want some?"

"No thanks," Daria said, her voice wavering with horror.

Val shrugged. "If'n you really want to do anything involving writing as your career, Daria, you better start working on raising your alcohol tolerance now." She took one last pull on the flask, emptying it, before returning it to its hiding spot. "Unless you luck into doing something you really, really love - and you fucking won't, believe me - you'll find that you either take a job you fucking hate and learn to love drinking, or you find another career."

She pulled out her second flask and took a long pull off it. "I've considered prostitute, myself. I already whore myself out, it'd just be more honest." Once again she offered the flask to Daria, who now accepted it and took her first sips of alcohol.

Only a few sips, though, and Val took the flask right back. (She may have been drunk as hell, but she wasn't stupid enough to liquor a kid up at her school). "So, New York. You in?"

"...You said earlier it had great parties. Does that mean more alcohol?"

Val smirked. "Among other party favors. I personally recommend coke, though only until you hit 30. Coke is a young person's drug."

"...Yeah. I'm in."

XXXXXXXXXX

Hahahaha, I was just going to make this a comical short, titled "Lost Girls: The Alternate Ending", and have Daria hang herself in depression after Val's crushing wake-up call, and Val cackling with glee upon hearing the news later.

Instead, I came up with something MUCH MUCH DARKER!