Cady chewed on her eraser pensively, reading the problem over and over. She could do derivations in her sleep, but her mind kept drifting back to the weekend, to peach schnapps and the purplish plum shade of Janis's lipstick. She had worn the same color today, and when Cady hugged her friend hello in the morning, the flowery scent transported her back to the converted garage in Janis's backyard.
"What did you get for number thirteen?" Aaron whirled around in front of Cady, slapping his paper down on her desk and smiling at her.
"Uhh, I haven't even made it that far," Cady giggled in the way Karen always did, high pitched and empty. "I'm stuck on number six." Aaron's teeth were criminally white. How did he get them so white?
She had started pretending not to know the answers to math problems last week. It was after her first trip to the mall with the plastics, when she found out Aaron was Regina's ex and would be strictly off limits. Regina could never find out about her crush on Aaron—it would ruin any chance she had of getting to stay friends with the plastics. And spy for Janis and Damian. Somehow though, everything in the AP calc classroom felt safe, off limits from Regina's reign of terror over the rest of the school. So Cady would pretend not to know every third question, bat her eyelashes at Aaron, and let him explain the answers to her with his pearly teeth and perfectly floppy hair.
"Do you want help?" Aaron asked, reading Cady's paper upside down.
"Sure!" she replied eagerly. He patiently explained the basic concept to her—she had taught herself this particular subject when she was fourteen, when her parents were off on a trip to Namibia for something over a long weekend.
As Aaron explained, she looked at his eyes. They were this slate grey color—in the sterile lighting of the classroom, they had no depth to them. They didn't sparkle like Janis's had that night. Cady felt a warm glow in her stomach—she was lucky to have a friend like Janis, who put her so at ease and made her feel so. . . comfortable. That was the only word she could think of to describe how she felt when she was with her. Comfortable. It was way better than always feeling on her toes, like she had to be around Regina.
"Hey, what did you get on that quiz last week? I got an eighty-five," Aaron bragged, leaning against his desk to smile at Cady. He had this way of smiling through his floppy bangs that made Cady swoon. She had gotten a perfect score on that quiz, but Aaron really didn't need to know that. She didn't want to make him feel bad, or make him realize that she didn't need his help after all—if she didn't have math to talk about with him, she wouldn't have anything else. Or at least, anything else that Regina couldn't punish her for if she found out.
"I uhh, I got a sixty-five. I am like, soo lost with this stuff," Cady laughed self-deprecatingly, her heart pounding. What if he thought she was stupid now? She should have said she got a B too.
"Do you want me to tutor you?" Aaron asked.
"Say what?" Cady did a double take.
"I mean, I'm not going to say I'm any expert on the stuff or anything like that, but I'd be happy to help you out. What it takes to pass, ya know?" Aaron half-smiled and Cady swooned even more. If she kept going like this, she would fall out of her chair before the period ended.
"Oh my god, yeah! I mean, that would be great. I would love that—"
The bell rang, cutting Cady off. Before Aaron could see the scarlet hue her cheeks were turning, she grabbed her worksheet and flew out the door of the classroom, almost tripping Ms. Norbury on her way out. Could she have sounded any lamer?
"There you are."
Regina was standing with Karen and Gretchen in the hallway, chewing on a piece of gum, her face an expression of pure boredom. Cady hadn't even noticed her as she approached, so pre-occupied on the idea of tutoring sessions with Aaron. Hanging out with him! One on one!
Behind Regina, Cady could see Janis and Damian standing and looking at her out of the corners of their eyes. She always hated this, when she was with the plastics and they were off talking about something. What if it was her?
"Why are you so red? Totally unflattering. You need some foundation. Gretchen, give her your foundation." Regina didn't even look at Gretchen as she gave the command, watching people walk by in the hallway. Whenever they felt her eyes on them, people would cower and almost scuttle away. Even her bored glance had that effect.
"Umm, Regina, I don't think she's the same shade as me. Asian, remember?" Gretchen was searching through her handbag nonetheless, following Regina's directions as though on autopilot.
"Fine. Karen?"
"Huh?" Karen looked up from her phone, smiling blandly at Regina.
"Oh my god, never mind." Regina turned and smiled, something piquing her interest. "Hey Aaron! Don't you have soccer practice or something?"
"It's fall, Regina. It's not the soccer season yet," Aaron replied, walking up to the trio. "Hey Cady, you ran out before I could get your number! We should plan our first uhh, study session, right?"
"Oh!" Cady turned to face him, smiling nervously. "Yeah, totally! Sorry I totally ditched when class ended."
"It's fine, I get it. Math fries my brain too," Aaron smiled and leaned against a locker as he proffered his phone to Cady, a new contact file already opened. Cady looked at it for a moment, not understanding, before she realized what he meant for her to do. She snatched the phone form his hand belatedly, tittering nervously—she had noticed Karen and Gretchen both did that, so it seemed appropriate that she should too. As she typed in her number with shaking hands, she noticed Regina glaring at her out of the corner of her eye. It was just studying, so Regina couldn't be mad, right? Cady handed the phone back with a weak smile.
"Here you go! Maybe we can do my house tomorrow? Three thirty?"
"That sounds great! I'll text you so you have my number, then you can send me your address."
"Yay! I mean, yeah. Sounds good." Cady smiled at him til he turned and sauntered away, then let out the breath she wasn't aware she had been holding. She desperately wanted to rest her face against the cold metal locker in front of her, but that would reveal way too much to Regina.
"Studying? With Aaron?" Regina appraised Cady.
"Yeah! He's gonna uhh, help me with math. Calc, ya know?" Cady rolled her eyes as if hoping to drum up sympathy.
"If it's so hard, why not just drop it and take statistics?" Regina countered.
"You could take math studies with me!" Karen piped in, smiling. "We're doing graphs right now and I am like, sooo lost. But Mr. Nelson's really hot, so I get to look at that every day. Totally worth!"
"Fetch!" Gretchen looked up from her phone momentarily to insert the word. "It's fetch!" she said again, looking at Regina hopefully.
Regina rolled her eyes and pulled her phone out to text someone. Gretchen's face fell—she looked like she might cry.
"Yeah, maybe," Cady said to Karen absentmindedly, watching Aaron begin to talk with a group of football players down the hall. The way his silky t-shirt fell across his shoulder blades revealed how well-muscled his back was. Cady wanted to run her hands down it, to feel the sinewy muscle stretched beneath his skin. . . when she noticed Regina watching her, she snapped out of her appreciative reverie. Thankfully, the bell rang before Regina could say the mean comment that Cady could see brewing in her mind. Anger still swirled beneath her gaze, but for now, Cady was safe.
Cady always hated the way the plastics were with the bells. When she first got to North Shore, she had no idea about the bell system—she thought they were really irritating, and Kevin Gnapoor had had to explain it all to her, how they were told to transition by the shrill ringing every hour. He had explained the whole system with tardy slips and detentions—it all seemed so serious to Cady, and she had practically run those first few days to make it to all her classes on time. The plastics, on the other hand, viewed the bells as more of a suggestion than a rule.
"The bells don't control you—you control you. Just watch: the kids running in a minute after the bell are the ones that get the tardy slips. Walk in five minutes late and act supremely bored—none of the teachers have the balls to give you one," Regina had explained on the second day Cady ate lunch with them.
Thus far, that hypothesis had not held true. Maybe Regina had some special aura that prevented her from getting the awful tardy slips, but Cady had received several. Damian was pulling some favors in the office to get her out of detentions—she valued the plastics approval more than she feared getting the notes at this point, so even though the ringing bell sent her nerves firing and her adrenaline rushing, she forced herself to stay in place, laughing at whatever stupid gossip Gretchen had to share and watching the hallway clear out around them.
Down the hallway, she watched Janis linger by her locker after the last students had left. She was clearly hoping for Cady to peel off or for the plastics to finally decide to be on time for once, but she was out of luck.
"Look who's stalking us. Cady, does she like you?" Regina giggled, appraising Janis with a pitying look. Cady's stomach panged.
"Disgusting!" Gretchen was eager to provide the response Regina was looking for. Cady giggled too, high and shrill. Regina turned her hawk eyes on her—a giggle wasn't enough.
"Ew, gross!" Cady parroted, trying to commit herself to the nasty words and not fully understanding what they meant. Why were they laughing at Janis? For liking her? They were friends. Obviously she liked her. But Regina couldn't know that if Janis's plot was going to work. Maybe she was right, too. About Regina being not nice. . . but maybe Cady was just thinking that because Janis was the topic of their gossip for the first time since she became friends with the plastics. Maybe. High school was just so confusing sometimes—she'd have to see what Janis had done to make the plastics dislike her later.
For now, though, Janis could hear them. Maybe not the comments, but the laughter, and the glances her way. Cady watched her eyes—previously hopeful—cloud over. Those gorgeous, brown, fiery eyes now filled with something Cady hadn't seen before. Hatred?
She gave up on waiting a few seconds before the tardy bell rang, slipping into a classroom and leaving Cady standing with the plastics, an empty feeling in her stomach—was that guilt?
Hi friends!
So I hinted a while ago that after I saw Mean Girls in previews (pinch me) that I had had a story line floating around in my mind. I'm not going to spoil what happens (obviously), but I did want to preface this story with a bit of a disclaimer:
If you've read my work before, you know that I mostly work with alternate realities; for instance, I did a Dear Evan Hansen fic where Connor's initial suicide attempt failed (the basic premise of that musical) and I wrote what 'would have happened' in that universe. This story is no different in that it's an alternate universe, but I feel like I need to justify it since I'll be changing some bigger aspects of the story.
Mean Girls is a pop culture icon that's existed since the original movie was released. So as I mess with it, I feel a bit more tentative in changing things. I promise with whatever I write, all the characters will be there, with all their opinions and facets and good parts, and hopefully you will like what comes of it. Just please don't expect me to re-render the entire movie/musical here for y'alls benefit, because that's not why y'all tend to read fanfic in the first place, now is it?
Thank you all so much for all the other little things that give authors like me great big smiles and fueled creative passion. You are the best. Now read on!