I used to think I was the shit before I even met any of my new friends. I thought I was different, unique and special because I liked different things. I was told once that there are about seven other people on the planet that look exactly like you. Those poor, poor bastards. I thought I would be okay though, you know, because I was me. I don’t remember when it was exactly that grew up and began to see that I wasn’t the only person that read Sylvia Plath, or listened to The Smiths, but that’s probably for the best. Looking back now, I was a pretentious dick that looked down on people for all the wrong reasons. People have their own problems and once you realise that everything is in a new light.
On my first day back at school, after Summer vacation, I walked around like I was so much better than everyone else. I had finally gotten my braces out after 2 gruelling years of watching what I could and couldn’t eat just on the off chance that they might snap and rip the inside of my mouth out like the girl at the start of Scream. You know the one, she was dangling from a tree? I know that wouldn’t happen, kinda, but I didn’t really want to take that chance. On the upside of not eating burgers on the first whim, I lost a little bit of weight. I’m not saying I was heavy to begin with, but I’m a girl, so I’m was to bitch about my weight no matter how thin or heavy I was. Anyway, I had my braces removed, I wasn’t smiling though. I never really liked school. It always felt like they cared more about what I was saying on twitter than wanting to teach me about, well anything. So even with perfectly aligned teeth, I was sulking around, trying to navigate my way to my locker without having to make small talk with anyone at all. My locker was of course the other side of the school, where all the soon to be seniors were hoisted at the end of last year. I walked past some of the kids that had just started school. You can always tell who was new, standing around by themselves waiting to see someone they recognised, or fumbling with lockers and the mountain of books that weight the equivalent of a small pony. As I made my way to my locker I heard a familiar squeak. “Madison!” That’s my name by the way. I never know how to introduce myself. I groaned and turned around to see my friend Chloe running over to me. I say running, but I really mean strutting her way over in her six inch platforms. “There you are! Oh I am so excited to be back! Aren’t you? Sorry we didn’t speak much over summer..” She must have kept talking because I remember her mouth moving, but not what she said. To be fair, this time I wasn’t being up my own ass, it’s just Chloe and I have been drifting apart for a long time now. I was reading John Green and fan-girling over TV shows and well, she wasn’t. I remember I tried to talk books with her and she couldn’t even remember a book she had read in her life. I’m not being a snob, but she was one of those stereotypical blonde girls that talked nails and make up. I just simply had no interest. “We spent the summer at Cooper’s Dad’s beach house! Oh! Did you see Khloe Kardashian’s tweet this morning?” “Eh, no. Sorry.” “Well look at it later silly! It’s a picture of her nails, you should try it out. Okay, have to head back to Cooper, love and kisses. Mwha Mwha.” She pulled me closer for air kisses, carefully placing her hands on my shoulders so she very obviously didn’t make a botched job of her freshly painted nails. As she shuffled away, I watched as her long blonde hair curled ever so slightly at the ends. I looked at the ends of my hair which were partially broken from lack of giving a fuck. Snapping back to reality I continued on my journey to my locker that seemed to be placed in Mordor. Unfortunately, and somehow fortunately, Chloe was my only friend. All that really meant was that nobody else cared if they talked to me.
I hung around by my locker for a while, tumbling and tweeting and went to my first class of my last year in high school. Thank God. I couldn’t wait to get to college and have intellectual conversation with attractive people drinking coffee and hanging out in coffee shops.
