[REWRITING] When He Sees Me, Steve Harrington

001 Boys and Girls

CHAPTER 001. BOYS AND GIRLS

LAURIE DANTE NEEDS TO BE PERFECT.

Ever since she was a little girl, she's always wanted to be the best of the best. Whether that be at spelling, or playing piano, or how to administer first aid.. you name it, she was probably trying to perfect it. She doesn't mean to sound cocky, but at one point in time, she was perfect.

Her family was great, she did amazing in school, she had enough friends any preteen girl could want, and even had boys falling in love - or what middle schoolers counted as love, anyways - with her almost daily. She found pride in earning as many gold stars, metaphorical or literal, as she could muster. Laurie Dante was and always will be an overachiever.

However, much like many child overachievers, she became burnt out during her Freshman year of high school. Freshman year was rough. The naiveness she once had was abruptly snatched from her when girls like Carol Perkins and Vicki Carmichael started picking on her for wearing "Prissy bitch clothing!".

She tried to pretend like it didn't bother her. She tried to pretend like maybe these girls were just trying to be funny. Laurie didn't fight back, and the girls just kept getting meaner and meaner. Of course that bothered her, because who likes to be slapped in the face with the realisation that life isn't always going to be peachy?

Laurie struggled to grasp this new view on life for a while, but she was always glad to have a family to come home to that would help her forget about the bad parts of her day. They'd play board games, watch Miami Vice or Family Ties, even have karaoke nights and laugh at her father belting the lyrics of Dancing Queen by Abba. They made her feel like she was special, even when other people didn't.

But that safe haven quickly dissipated when problems started bubbling up. Her parents started going through a rough patch in their marriage, her once kind little brother, James, slowly turned into a jerk who picked on students younger than him. For a while it felt like the Dante family were walking on eggshells around each other, scared that one wrong move might cause the entire family to collapse. So much for perfect.