Loser

Chapter 9 "Unpopular Once Again"

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed this story, I had no idea it would be so popular when I wrote it and am so happy so many people like it! This is the end; the next chapter is just an epilogue.

wAnNaBpIpEr: Here's your spot. See? I remembered this time lol

CharmingTess: You get a spot too, just because. :-D

Kangaroo, Rorybabe and Charmed Fanatic: thanks so much for reviewing all of my stories regularly.

A/N: On with the story:

            A month ago I would never have believed how different my life is now. A month ago I thought my life was bad because the popular people made fun of me and my only friend was Bree. Well, a month ago I had no idea how hard my life could get. No idea. I've been a cheerleader for a month now and everyday it gets worse, the other girls whispering behind my back, the glares I get when Prue isn't around. Before only Kelley and her friends actually used to go out of their way to be mean to me, I was invisible to everyone else, but at least with invisibility comes indifference and most people were just that; indifferent towards me, they ignored me, but they didn't really pick on me either. Now everyone hates me. Absolutely everyone, Kristy has told the entire school that I cheated to get on the squad. All day long I hear people call me a cheater or a cheerleader wannabe. I don't know how much more of it I can take, the cheerleaders don't even talk about me behind my back anymore, they say every thing straight to my  face, I guess they know there's nothing I can do about it anyway.

            I don't know why Bree doesn't help me, she just stays silent when the other girls pick on me, but at least she doesn't join them, so I guess that's something. And Prue, she still has no idea what's going on. Everyone is nice to me when she's around, although I don't know how she doesn't notice that something's wrong with me, I never talk anymore, and every time she invites me to hang out with her and her friends after practice I always make up an excuse why I can't, but Prue's been walking around in her own little world for a while now, all she thinks about is college anymore. She applied to every east cost school imaginable and she day dreams all day of going to New York or D.C., anywhere, as long as it's far, far away from California. I still can't believe the year is almost over and Prue is going to be in college next year. It's weird to think that I'll be the big sister then and Phoebe will be a freshman. I'm really going to miss Prue, since I became a cheerleader, we haven't fought at all, we're actually starting to become friends and now she's going to be leaving.

            "Prue?" I ask, knocking on her door. "Come in" Prue answers cheerily. I open the door and see her sitting at her desk staring at a stack of envelopes. "Are those the replies from the colleges?" I ask, trying to keep my mind off what I'm about to tell her; that I'm going to quit cheerleading. "Yeah" Prue answers with a sigh. "So?" I ask "Did you get into any of the ones you wanted?" "I don't know" Prue admits, "I've been too nervous to open them" she shoves them at me "Here. You do it." My mouth drops open. Prue is nervous about something? Prue's never afraid of anything. "Okay" I answer, "but of course you're going to get into, like, every one, I mean, it's you" you always get what you want, I add silently. "Yeah it's me, and I'm not exactly academically inclined, so open them already!" Prue says, practically bouncing off her chair in anticipation. I giggle thinking she looks like Phoebe on a sugar rush.

            I pickup the first envelope and tear it open, "Okay, this one's for University of Washington D.C." I tell her. "Ooh, that ones my second choice" Prue says excitedly. "What's your first?" "NYU" "Oh" I open the envelope and pull out the single sheet of paper, reading it aloud "Dear Miss Halliwell," I pause dramatically and giggle when she jumps put of her chair in anticipation, "Piper!" she screams ripping it out of my hand and walking over to be bed bounding on it as she reads "Dear Miss Halliwell, we regret to inform you…" Prue trails off and crumples it up, grabbing another one and ripping it open. She read silently this time and after a second crumples that one up too. "Prue, I need to talk to you" I tell her, wishing I would have told her before she started to get rejected from colleges. She's really going to be in a bad mood now. "I'm busy" Prue snaps, opening envelope after envelop and crumpling each one up after she read it, until only the one from NYU remained. "Prue" I said again. "Go away Piper!" she snaps and picks up the last envelope, about to rip it in half. "You haven't even opened it yet!" I exclaim, surprised. "I'm not going to get in anyways" Prue said, her voice cracking as the end. "I'm going to be stuck in San Francisco forever"

            What's so horribly bad about San Francisco? At least Prue has friends here, and a boyfriend. I'm the one who should want to leave, not her. "I'm sorry, Prue" I tell her, I'm not really. As means as it sounds, I'm secretly a little happy that she got rejected by all those colleges. Prue always gets what she wants whenever she wants it, it's about time she didn't, and it's not like she actually tried to get good grades in school anyway, I was the one who usually did her homework for her.

I still can't believe that she's going to rip up that NYU envelope before ever reading the letter; she's such a drama queen, pouting and putting on a big show of tearing it in half. She's just as bad a Phoebe, except she's older and should be more mature, she is 18 after all. "Fine Prue, don't listen to me" I snap. And pick up the remains of the envelope, with the letter in it. Prue just pouts from her bed and I open what's left of the envelope and pull a fragment of letter out. "Oh my god, Prue" I say, my eyes skimming the words, "you made it." "What?" Prue asks ripping the piece of paper out of my hand and reading. "I got in!" She screams bouncing off her bed and knocking me to the floor in a hug. "I'm going to NYU!" She says getting up and jumping up and down in excitement.

            I can't believe it. Prue was sad all of, what? Two minutes? Three? Before she got what she wanted. She always gets what she wants. "That's great Prue" I tell her, "But I still really need to talk to you" "Un-hun, later, sweetie, I've got to call, like, everyone I know and tell them" Prue says excitedly. When she's mad, she ignores me, when she's happy, she ignores me, and I'm the one who read the damn letter in the first place. If it wasn't for me she wouldn't even know she got in, but does she thank me? No, she just keeps on ignoring me.

            "I'm quitting cheerleading" I blurt out. That'll get her attention. Prue hangs up the phone with out even dialing and turns to me, "No your not" she answers, scooping up the pieces to her acceptance letter off the carpet, "Help me tape these back together" I just stare at her amazement, she actually said, 'no your not' like she has any choice in the matter. "Yes I am Prue, I hate cheerleading and I'm going to quit" I tell her again. "Piper, you know that if you quit you won't be popular anymore" She tells me, shaking her head. "I don't know why you'd want to throw that away" "Prue, I'm not popular now. You don't know how the other girls treat me!" I exclaim. "Sure I do" Prue answers, "Kristy Thomas told everyone the only reason you got on the squad was because of me" Prue says calmly, as she tapes pieces of her letter back together. I gasp, this month has been hell for me and she knew the whole time? The whole damn time? "What?" I ask. "You knew?" "Well yeah Piper, we go to the same school, and have all the same friends now, I know what they're saying about you. But I just thought you could handle it, I had no idea you'd want to do something stupid like quit cheerleading over it." Prue rolls her eyes at me "I mean come on, that's total social suicide, no one just quits cheerleading" "But they all talk about me and yesterday, at practice, when we were doing flips, I think Misty Tanners dropped me on purpose" I tell Prue trying to make her understand how bad it is. Prue grinned "Yeah, Misty does that, she's a real bitch sometimes. Remember when I broke my ankle last summer at cheer camp and had to come home early? Well someone told Misty that I made out with her boyfriend so she didn't even try to catch me when I did that triple flip and of course I didn't even touch her boyfriend, but you know" Prue shrugged "It's just one of those things." I was incredulous, one of what things? "But you just went to the movies with her last week" I said. "Duh, she's my friend. Piper, if your going to let it bother you every time a rumor gets started about you or people are mean to you, you'll never handle being popular" Prue said, "That's just the way it is, the other cheerleaders aren't my friends really, but it's all a part of the show." "The show?" I repeat. "Yeah, to everyone else we look like we get along so well, popularity is completely based on what others think. Why else do you think I spend every weekend with Aaron, because he's such a great guy? Hell no, he's an asshole, but he's an asshole with a convertible Porsche and he's caption of the football team. It looks good for me to date him." Prue explained.

            I just shook my head in wonder. How incredibly sad. Prue is going to graduate in two weeks and she's spent her whole high school time, hell, her whole life being friends with and dating people she didn't even like just because it looked good to others. I knew then that I could never be Prue, and for the first time in my life I didn't want to be. If that's all that popularity is, then I don't want it. I can't believe how many people are jealous of Prue, how many girls at school who want to be her, if they only knew…

            It was like I was seeing Prue through new eyes. I didn't see the perfect, popular, confident sister I'd always seen, but Prue, just as she is. 18 and small for her age, wearing too much make up and too tight of clothes, looking like she was desperately trying to impress somebody, and I realized, she's just like everyone else, just wanting people to like her, except, she was too afraid to be herself in the process. Looking at Prue it made me want to cry, I felt bad for her, I might never be popular, but at least I'm always myself. I tried to change for other people and it didn't work, not because I couldn't have made it work, I'm sure If I dressed and acted just like Prue I could be as popular and her, become her when she left for college, but I don't want to, I want to be me, be Piper. And sure, I won't have tons of friends or parties to go to every Friday night. But in the long run I'll be happier. I don't want to be Prue, I want to be me, I guess under all the shyness and inner criticism I like who I am. I like being me; I wouldn't want to be anyone else but Piper Halliwell right now.

            "I'm sorry Prue" I say, hugging her, I'm sorry for her, sorry for the person she's become and that she's two years older than me and still has no idea what I've just figured out, the depth of it and I wonder how many more years it will take before she can become the person who she's truly met to be.

            That was last night, it's after school now and I'm about to tell the cheerleading coach I quit. I thought I'd be terrified of how everyone was going to react, but I'm not. I just don't care, and it's not the depression type of not caring where you really do and just hide it from yourself like I used to have. This is completely different I don't care now because I know that this is the right decision, not for the other cheerleaders, not for Prue, not for Bree, but for me, it'll make me happy and really that's all that matters. I know I'll never be able to fully ignore what other people think of me, it's just human nature to care a little bit, but I won't let it consume me like before. For one in my life the fact that I'm Piper Halliwell is okay by me.

            "Um, Coach Williams?" I ask after practice. "Yes Piper?" she replies, looking at me in surprise as I hand her my cheerleading uniform "I thought I wanted to be a cheerleader, but I don't, I quit" I say, grinning  from ear to ear at her puzzled expression as I leave. I guess no ones ever quit cheerleading before.

A/N: Please review! And look for the epilogue; I'll probably post it tomorrow.