The Downfall of the 'It Girl'

Things from a different perspective....

  Did I really want to get involved like I already seemingly was? Did I really want to take that plunge, make that commitment? While the logical part of my mind bellowed, ‘No! Of course you don’t, you fool! What could you possibly be thinking?!,’ the other part of my brain, the one with the smaller, although more persistent voice, chimed in with my heart, both smiling like shy little school girls, suggesting that yes, yes I did want to take this plunge. And like it or not, I was already committed, if not at least mostly, anyway.

Shuffling my feet down the hall, I stopped in front of the school’s office doors, and lightly pushed on the polished wood, silently opening the door. Walking up to the front of the secretary’s desk, I stood silently and waited for her to turn her attention from the disarray of papers scattered across her desk to me. 

“Oh, Calvin, hi. How are you today?” she said after a few lingering moments. Her hair was slightly frazzled, and her eyeliner had smudged a bit at the corner of one eye.

“I’m good, how are you Ms. Richards?” I replied, plastering the warmest, friendliest smile that I could muster onto my face. 

Relaxing slightly back into her desk chair, she gave a half-hearted shrug. “Same stuff, different day as always,” her kind smile warmed her face and brightened her eyes, it seemed. “Are you turning in your attendance papers?” she added, suddenly seeming to realize that I wasn’t here just for chit-chat purposes only. 

Nodding, I reached my left arm around and retrieved the rolled up paperwork from the side pocket on my canvas shoulder bag. “Here you go,” I answered, unrolling and smoothing out the white paper as I placed them into her outstretched hand.

“Thank you. Let me just run this to Mr. Smith, and then I’ll have them back to you in a flash,” she replied. I watched as she stood up from her chair, smoothed out her floral skirt, and tried her best to walk gracefully to where the Principal’s office door was, approximately twenty feet behind her desk. With a slight shake of my head, I sat down in one of the chairs lining the far school office wall and waited for her to return.

“Your name’s ‘Calvin,’ right?” I looked over to my left and saw a small-framed girl with messy brunette hair and wrinkled clothes looking back at me with dull gray eyes. 

“Um, yeah,” I replied, racking my brain as to who this girl could possibly be. I’d made it a point not to get close to anyone at this school, and did my best to avoid starting any kind of friendships. Being an ‘Army Brat’ usually tended to put you in that kind of mindset. But then there was Jenna. Oh, Jenna. Coming up empty handed, I chalked her knowledge of me up to being a lifer at this school. She’d probably been born and raised here; one of those that knew everyone, and noticed any ‘newbies.’ 

“Oh, I thought so,” came her hushed reply.

“I, uh, I’m afraid I don’t know your name…” I trailed off. 

“My name is Sarah Hemsworth. I used to be friends with Jenna. Best friends, in fact. Until she started dating Landon, that is. Then she dropped me like a bad habit,” the mouse-like girl indulged.

Caught off-guard, I wasn’t quite sure how to respond at first to the information this girl had just laid out before me. “I, well, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said finally, trying my best to look and sound apathetic.

“It’s okay. Jenna has always wanted that kind of life. You know, where people fawn all over you, thinking the sun rises and sets at your feet? Yeah, that had always been her biggest ambition: to be one of the ‘It Girls.’ And as fate would have it, she ended up being the ‘It Girl,’ until Landon dropped her like yesterday’s trash, of course.”