Redeemable

Dear Bonnie,

I know I really should call you to say this to you. Heck, maybe I should come back home, but practice for the team is already starting and I might make starter this year and Coach says we have to stick close. I can't pass up an opportunity like that.

For a while I really missed you. I got so used to being around you before I graduated that not having you to talk to really hurt for a while but then I started meeting some people. I've gotten to know some more girls here at the university and I've finally started to realize something. There are so many like you its not funny.

I always thought you were hot and I thought it was my rightful place to have you as my girlfriend. Now I see that it had a lot more to do with how people thought of me, that it was cool that I was dating one of the hottest girls on the cheer squad.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I have to say this to you. I was blind to it when I was around you but now that I've seen other people like this, I now know that you are just a petty, mean-spirited girl. I thought you had a lot of friends, but you don't. You have a circle of girls who are so afraid of you they fawn for your attention so you won't hurt them. That's not friendship, even if that's how you see it in your book.

I also now see it clearly how you used me. You teased me, strung me along so you could have the quarterback on your arm. I used to think it was so cool when you would kiss me, but I wanted more, but that wasn't what I was there for, was it.

Please stop trying to call me. I've finally met some nice girls who want to date me because they think I'm cool and are interested in me, not because of how I'll make them look. It's been more than a year since we broke up and I think it's time for you to move on, if you can. Maybe you'll take this to heart, I don't know, but if you don't change, I think you'll end up alone when everyone else starts figuring out the real you like I did.

Sincerely,

Brick

Bonnie sat on the edge of her bed, her legs crossed, her shoulders slumped forward as she read the letter over and over. Her tears were flowing freely, staining her face with dissolved mascara. Brick was right. After graduation her posse had all but dissolved. The few who remained after school ended quickly lost interest in being around her and most of them would be headed for schools all over the country in just a few short weeks. Free from the high school social structure referred to as the 'food chain' they were no longer under any illusion that being around her would secure them a place in it.

For the first time in years she found herself alone and adrift. There were no friends to call, no guys to entice into a date. The kind of guys she had been willing to attract to her never called for a second time. They were interested in one thing and she was not willing to do that, despite the unearned reputation she had while she had been dating the big blonde. Once they figured that out, it was over. Word spread quickly about 'Bonnie the Ice Queen' and not even the social climbers were interested in being seen with her any more.

Her senior prom just a few months before had been an unmitigated disaster. She had gotten it in her head that she would have to 'put out' if she was even going to have a date, a thought that almost made her physically ill at the time. The thought of having some boy pawing all over her, his sweat stinking body against her was just repulsive. Still, she gritted her teeth and picked the least heinous of those who would even speak to her, subtly implying what awaited him after the dance.

The Prom itself was an exercise in despair for her. Just watching those two dancing, not once taking their eyes off each other almost made her physically ill. Seeing that tiara placed on her red hair, the princess becoming the Prom Queen was the last straw. She stormed out of the gym, her date abandoned to his own devices. Her 'virtue' intact simply because she could not stand the thought that her rival had won so much for settling for so little.

It didn't occur to her that night that what she was feeling was jealousy. Intense, burning jealousy that poisoned her heart. Wasn't she the most beautiful, the best liked, the most popular girl in the school? How come it all went to that squeaky clean princess and her loser boyfriend? How come they got to be the ones with all the friends? How come she was the one who got to be happy?

How come she was the one who was loved?

Why were those losers the biggest winners?

She ran home, crying the entire way. No solace waited for her there either. First her mother ripped into her after finding some of her 'preparation' for the night, misunderstanding why she was so upset. Her sisters were in on it as well, heaping all kinds of scorn on her for besmirching the family name like that, even though both of them were notorious for such behavior themselves. She ended the night crying in her room, grounded for something she hadn't even had the guts to follow through with.

The tears lasted until the anger started setting in. How dare her mother ground her? She was eighteen, she was an adult!

The screaming match that followed almost ended with her being kicked out of the house. It also led to her finding her date the next day, not to apologize, but to follow through on her promise to him.

That only made things worse for her. She felt dirty and used and never spoke to the boy again. It didn't matter, because he was more than happy to report to his cronies what had gone on. Her reputation, finally backed by a grain of truth, was finally shattered. Graduation couldn't come quickly enough.

Bereft of her false friends, Summer had dragged by like with an endless succession of pointless dates with boys who could best be described at only one step above losers and repeated attempts at patching things up with her parents. At least her father came back to her side, buying her a nice car as a graduation present. Even that paled when she saw the fluff piece the local news stations ran about another graduation party.

The Princess sure looked silly with her goofy little car and that goofy boy sidekick of hers fawning over her on the television. It didn't help when the spot ran again later that night on one of the entertainment shows.

With an audible growl, Bonnie balled up the letter, throwing it across the room where it bounced off the side of her waste basket. She sat there a few minutes more, steaming.

How dare Brick say those things to her? She stuck by him almost all the way through his senior year. It was right that she tossed him aside after the way he acted at the Prom, leaving later with that little hussy friend of the princess. He had to be taught a lesson. A couple weeks then she would allow him back on her arm for the big party at the lake.

Yet he never came back. The last nail in their relationship had been driven. All she could think of was the fact he was gone because she wouldn't put out for him.

Now it was clear that wasn't the reason. His eyes had been opened to the real Bonnie and he wanted nothing to do with her.

Nobody wanted anything to do with her any more. Didn't they see the hurt she lived with, the need?

She wanted what that goody-goody redhead had.

A door opened downstairs. She could hear voices. It was Connie and some guy. Her face scrunched up in anger, she sat down at her mirror, reaching down to scoop up the balled up paper beside the trashcan. She unfurled it, spreading it out on her dresser, not so much reading it as looking at it, hating what she saw there, hating it as much as what she saw in her mirror. She balled it up again and reached for her ash tray, dumping its contents in the can.

She opened her purse and took out her lighter, burning the letter into black ashes, fighting back tears as she watched black bits leap up from the burning paper as it was consumed, some landing on her, smudging her slightly. As soon as the fire was out, she dumped the remains out, a look of determination crossing her features.

Using a makeup remover, she cleaned the smudged ash off her skin, doing the best she could with what had fallen on her clothes. She could hear her sister climbing the stairs. For a tense moment she thought the snide, over made up blonde was going to come in, but she heard another door open and close, giggling wafting through the shut portal.

That was all she could take. Using a fresh clothe she wiped the smeared remains of her makeup off and grabbed her keys from the dish. Moments later she was in her new car, peeling out of the driveway, leaving her slutty sister to have her good time with her boyfriend.

She drove for almost an hour, the quiet and the solitude calming her down, letting her think. She left the top down on her convertible, letting the wind chase away some of her tears. The sun was going down and people were coming out, wanting to make the most of the beautiful Friday evening in the waning days of summer.

Just as the evening settled in she noticed a car on the side of the road, its hood up. She knew instantly whose car it was, but the sight of him was totally unexpected.

He was sitting in the open driver's door, a look of utter and total dejection on his face. What was surprising was how he was dressed. Bonnie always pictured him in a ratty red jersey or some tacky bowling shirt, not in a nice suit and tie. He was dressed to the nines. Even his unruly mop of blonde hair had been brushed and styled.

Before she could stop herself she asked "Loser-mobile conk out on you again, Mad Dog?" She winced at how automatically the cut had escaped her lips.

"Duh!" was all he replied, a look of anger and fear flashing in his brown eyes.

Bonnie looked at the young man, automatically smiling viciously. Any one of a dozen hurtful barbs sprang to mind, ready to be hurled at her main rival's boyfriend and near life-long companion. Then she started to wonder. Why is the Loser so dressed up? Wasn't K's B-day a couple weeks ago? That mean's Stoppable's birthday was just last week! Surely they had already had their special celebrations! Why would he be dressed to the nines for a date? Unless…

No! This is so rich! The loser is even screwing this up!

She looked at him a moment. He was so dejected. This wasn't right. Being rivals is one thing, watching something like this go wrong is another thing completely. This sort of thing was not to be screwed up. Not if she had anything to do with it.

Plus she would have something to hang over them FOREVER!

No! This is the kind of crap that has led you here, today, driving around alone without a friend to cry with. Can it start here? Can I be redeemed? The boy might be a pitiful geek, but he's always seemed to have such a big heart. I know where his heart belongs, but is there room for a friend? Can I even act like a friend?

"Get in, Ron." She reached over and opened the passenger door.

"Huh?"

"I said get in before I change my mind."

His head hanging, his face screwed up in confusion, he numbly got in. She noticed his hands were covered in black grime, most likely from the engine block of his pitiful excuse for a car.

"Here." Bonnie handed Ron a moist-nap for his dirty hands, followed by a small bottle of hand sanitizer. Sure, it wouldn't hurt for his hands to smell like gardenias!

In minutes they were in front of the Possible home. Bonnie simply pulled up to the curb and let Ron out.

"Thanks, Bonnie. I really don't know what to say."

"Just don't screw this up."

"What do you…"

"Uh huh. Just for one night, don't be a loser. K deserves better than that." With that she sped off, not waiting for Ron to say anything else.

What was that all about? Why did I just do that?

She drove on, the notion that she felt a great deal better because of it slowly becoming the answer.

A/N - This is the other side to a scene in Soulmates of the Fury. Some people need to find a turning point, to decide for themselves how to make a change for the better.