It's nearing grad, and summer is in the air. I walked through the entrance of my school, passing through the stone lions in front of the Admissions Office. I can't wait to see all the new outfits everyone's wearing, I thought.
In front of the nerd hangout, I saw Nishan, our school's resident genius, and his girlfriend Sakura, a constantly angry gamer girl, crouched in front of a Nintendo DS. Nishan was wearing his usual nerd attire of a three-quarter-sleeved blue shirt with a nebula on it and green striped sleeves underneath with gray jeans and bright green sneakers. Sakura didn't even bother changing at all. She was in the same steampunk gamer outfit that she always wore.
By the jock hangouts, Julian, our school's star football player, wore his football uniform with an "88" on the back, and Mia, the head cheerleader and my best friend, wore a variation of our school's usual cheerleading uniform, but in yellow instead of red.
At the prep hangouts, Payton, the school's party girl and one of my close friends, wore a gorgeous light lavender dress with an adorable light silver bow belt cinching her waist as she talked to her boyfriend, Ezra, who was in his standard musician attire of a band shirt, an unbuttoned light-sleeved navy shirt over it, and distressed dark gray jeans.
All the trouble started, though, as I approached the artist hangouts. Autumn Brooks was in a blue dress with little pink flowers patterned all over it. She wore a gold necklace with a fake green stone in the center, and white flats with blue flowers printed on them. I immediately knew something was up. Why would Autumn "Ratty Sneakers" Brooks be wearing a dress like that?
I walked right up to her.
"Autumn, what the hell?" I asked her.
"What?" Autumn snapped and glared at me.
"You're wearing the same dress as her," I said and pointed to a prep girl with brown hair in the distance. "Way to rip someone else's style!"
"No, I'm not," Autumn pouted. "It isn't my fault everyone wants to copy my style." She scowled.
"Uh, I doubt anyone wants to copy your style," I raised my eyebrows.
"She's right, you know." Mia came up behind me and put her hands on her hips. "We've seen guys' sneakers that are cleaner than yours."
Autumn's brown eyes started to water.
"Oh, is whiner baby Autumn gonna cry?" I mocked.
"Can't handle learning the truth about her fashion-challenged self?" Mia smirked.
Just then, I heard footsteps running in the grass towards us.
"What's going on?" Wes, my boyfriend, asked.
But before I could speak, Autumn pointed at me and Mia.
"Those… those bitches are so cruel to me!" Autumn wailed, burying her head in Wes's shoulder and sobbing.
Mia and I exchanged a look.
Oh no, she didn't.
"Autumn… Autumn, relax. I'm sure they didn't mean any harm. They're your friends, remember?" Wes tenderly stroked Autumn's brown hair. I felt like I wanted to smash her face in.
Mia took one look at me and walked up to Wes.
"Wes, we were having a normal conversation when Autumn started getting mad for no reason and insulting us." She glared. "I think you should be there for your girlfriend, not Autumn, especially considering the fact that she's the one who just called her a bitch."
Wes looked stricken and started to let go of Autumn, but that just made Autumn sob even more and hold on tighter to him. Panicked, he looked into my eyes. I made an expression that wavered between hurt (he deserved to feel guilty for comforting Autumn instead of me) and anger (he also deserved to pay for what he did) and stormed off.
"Wait!" Wes cried, but it was too late. Of course, I would eventually forgive him, but only after he spent the next few weeks begging on his knees.
"Shame on you," I heard Mia say to him before she stormed off too and caught up with me. Wordlessly, we walked to the girls' second-floor bathroom in the center prep hangout. It was our own private bathroom, and no one except Payton, Mia, and I were allowed inside. After we entered, Mia locked the door behind us and plopped me down on one of the glittery pink salon chairs we had sneaked into the bathroom. She took some tissues out of the Kleenex box we kept by the windowsill ('cause normal toilet paper totally ruins your complexion, duh) and handed them to me. I wiped my tear-stained cheeks and pulled out my pink striped Victoria's Secret makeup bag out of my Céline handbag. Mia patiently waited as I re-applied my makeup.
Finally, I re-glossed my lips, gave my hair a final flip, and put everything back in my bag.
"You okay?" Mia asked, grinning because she knew what I was going to say next.
"Never been better," I smirked. "You know what they say… don't get mad, get even."