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They were lounging against the wall, reveling in the smell of decomposing garbage and cigarette smoke. The bricks were slightly worn, and decorated with little bits of graffiti: Mark loves Jan, Maddie is a whore. Still, it was clear to who this wall belonged. The cool kids, the popular, the loved.
"My boyfriend called me a b***h, Jan. Me, a b***h? I should dump his white a**," Maddie bemoaned quietly between smokes. Her short red cheerleader skirt hitched up, and inconspiciously, she tugged it back down.
Janet blew out a cloud of smoke, and laughed out a lie, "Honey, I don`t know what he`s talking about. You`re the nicest person I know. He doesn`t deserve you."
Happily, Maddie agreed. This was their game.
The bell rang, and a few in the group swore. The girls latched onto their boyfriends like sea urchins, tottering in their too-tall heels. Janet echoed these motions, grabbing her boyfriend`s arm.
Mark was by no means the best boyfriend. He wasn`t very bright, and he possessed both wandering eyes and hands. But he was hot, and popular, and that was what Janet looked for in a boyfriend. This is how the game worked.
There was another boy Janet had liked, once upon a time. Back before Janet was Jan. His name was Kieran and he looked like a gypsy, dark and mysterious, like you`d wake up one day and he`d put a curse on you.
But that was a long time ago, and now they were too different.
Jan strutted into her English class, fashionably late as always, and blew one last goodbye kiss to Mark. The teacher just sighed, realizing the fruitlessness of trying to reprimand her into being on time.
"Mr. Tate, looking good," she winked flirtatiously, assuring her tardiness would be unrecorded. Mr. Tate most definately was not "looking good." His hair was graying, and the top of his head was bald, but the most off-putting of his looks was his glass eye, which wandered through the room, not seeing anything.
In the back, Kieran sighed, and for a second, Jan`s heart skipped a beat. They were too different now. She still loved him, though, no matter how much she hated it.
She slunk into her seat, far away from Kieran, luckily. Mr. Tate talked and laughed with his students. Supposedly, he was a fun teacher. Jan would never know. She napped, head in her hands, eyes wide open.
It was a skill Mark taught her.
The bell rang again, and the juniors wandered off to lunch, including both Jan, Mark, and Kiernan. Jan grabbed her usual lunch, composed of french fries, her kryptonite, and a Caesar salad, like every other girl at their table.
And she wandered back to said table, shaking her hips and batting her eyelashes, only to find Maddie there, feeding Mark grapes like he was some variety of god.
Maddie looked up and, finding Jan`s heated glare directed at her, she said, "Hey. I decided to join you guys for lunch. You don`t mind, right?"
Gritting her teeth, Jan replied, "No, of course not." She didn`t like Maddie, not at all. She couldn`t get her hands off Jan`s boyfriends.
"Good," Maddie smiled devishly, and kissed Mark. The people at the table gasped simultaniously, like a bad movie. And then, awkward silence insued.
"What ya gonna do about it, Jan?" Maddie leered, breaking the kiss with a sucking noise.
She grabbed Maddie`s stupid fruit smoothie and dumped it on her bitchy little head.
"You can have him, doesn`t bother me," Jan replied fiercely, lying out her a**. "I have somewhere else to be."
"Oh," she spun around and glared," I lied. You are a b***h, Maddie."
And she stalked away, wondering where the hell she could go now. Jan couldn`t go back to that table. But she hadn`t sat anywhere else for years, and she wouldn`t give Maddie the pleasure of her proving Jan wrong.
She went back to the table she had sat at, pre-Jan. It was just instinct, really. But, thank God, none of her ex-friends commented on the situation, or leered at her. She turned to look out the window and cried softly.
"People don`t like to be told lies, Janet. Then they have to work to figure out the truth," said someone gently, patting her on the back. "I told you that." Janet recognized the voice.
"I know, Kieran," she sniffled. He handed her a napkin, which she took gratefully, wiping her eyes. "Look, I have to go," she stood up and left, and Kieran watched her go.
"Good luck," he said quietly. "Stay honest."
Mascara Maniac · Tue Jul 12, 2011 @ 12:19am · 0 Comments |
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