Dangerous: A Marcel Styles Fan Fiction

35: Status Quo

35: Status Quo

   “Popularity.” It was another sickening word, probably twice as worse as “love.” Popularity was the most of my problem. Because of my lies to protect it, it had caused this all. It was worse than the plague!

   According to Marcel, all that mattered to me was popularity. Now all that mattered was that he accepted my apology, no matter how many times I had to make it. Obviously, normal written and vocal apologies weren’t enough. I had to show him something. I needed to show him the truth. Maybe it wasn’t “love,” but whatever connection we had was pushing popularity back into the darkest corners of my mind. Over popularity, I chose Marcel.

   “V? You okay?”

   I met Georgia Rose’s hazel gaze as her voice snapped me out of my trance. She, Tara and Riley were all staring at me from their chairs. A plate of the cafeteria’s…what looked like mashed potatoes…sat in front of me untouched aside from the lines I’d drawn with the prongs of my fork. There were three sets of eyes locked on me, waiting for the answer to Georgia Rose’s question.

   I broke our stares for a second, looking over my shoulder to the core of my distraction. Marcel sat alone at one of the tables like the social pariah he’d become since we’d broken, picking at his gross cafeteria food. When we were apart, we were nothing, but with this mess of lies and popularity there was no chance of him even considering an apology.

   “No,” I said to Georgia Rose, “I’m not.” I rose from my chair, causing them all to gain puzzled expressions, but I knew what had to be done. I had to create a world for myself where I was as outcasted as the nerd I’d first slept with; where popularity didn’t matter. More eyes reached me as I stood up on my chair, then stepped onto the table, and when murmurs arose, and when I was sure even Marcel’s eyes were on me, I made my declaration, which once and for all renounced my high school fame:

   “I slept with Marcel Styles,” I admitted to the crowd before me, turning my gaze to the bad boy, “Back before he kicked Kevin’s ass. Back…back when he was a nerd.”

   Murmurs all talking about me; the popular girl who had lost her virginity to a nerd – thick glasses, sweater vests, a terrible stutter, the works! Even Georgia Rose’s eyes were wider than ever, and her gapping jaw was covered with both hands at my confession.

   “Oh, and the rich daughter of HJ Productions also works there,” I confessed, “voluntarily.” I paused for the gasps at this. I was the only decently rich kid in school who worked, and I wasn’t ashamed. Instead, my heart felt lighter. “So there,” I concluded, “I’m a loser.”

   Murmurs, and whispers, and laughter was what showered me next, but I stood tall, embracing the shame. In half a minute, I’d shed my popularity. Even with this fact in mind, Marcel still held a blank expression, almost uncaring I’d lost what he thought was important to me. The truth was it wasn’t.

   Something took me off guard next; the squeak of a chair. Then, my blonde friend stepped onto the surface of the table alongside me, sending the cafeteria to silence. What she said, no one – not even I – expected.

   “I’m a virgin!” she declared, making everyone in the crowd before the two of us let out a gasp and my jaw drop. If anything she’d been known as the slut bag of the school! My heart raced at this as she further explained: “Yeah, that story about losing my virginity four years ago at camp…well, I chickened out. That’s kinda why every relationship I’ve had since hasn’t outlasted a day.”

   More murmurs arose and the realization hit me. The two of us had just both broken from the status quo and forfeited our popularity. At least she had the mind to come down with me – the mind of a true friend – however, I soon learned Georgia Rose wasn’t the only one willing to confess alongside me when, a few tables away, Kevin Heartwood leapt up with us, and all attention turned on the quarterback.

   “Those theories on TV or whatever about dance helping with football,” he began, “Yeah, those are true. I’ve been in ballet since I was four.”

   It took literally every bit of my wellbeing to keep from collapsing into laughter. Sufficed to say, Georgia Rose wasn’t as strong-willed as I.

   It didn’t even end there. In a burst of a sort of “High School Musical” spirit, everyone admitted their acts of straying from their status quos. Without this, I never would have known happy, smiling Diana Matson had been battling with depression and had attempted suicide on three separate occasions in the past year, or that the weird kid from Georgia Rose’s English class had actually lost his virginity before Georgia Rose had. Some people even “came out” sexually. Secrets poured out from every which way until there was nearly nobody standing on the floor, and the tabletops were cluttered with students.

   At each confession, and the revolution I’d begun, I let my smile grow bigger. The idea of a social chain and the flow which had been established naturally deteriorated! The idea of this web of lies and a hierarchy fell apart and the term “popularity” was a thing of the past only because of one confession!

   But, this still wasn’t good enough. This wasn’t an apology after all; this was just the set up for it. I looked back over my shoulder to the table which had once been mostly unpopulated. Now it was completely empty, and there wasn’t a sign of a bad boy clad in leather anywhere. As long as he’d seen me renounce my popularity, I was fine – still entirely broken, but fine. I’d done a great thing, so why was I so sorrowful?

   He’d just gotten up in the midst of all the beautiful commotion and left. Marcel had left and now he was gone. The bad boy clad in leather was gone. The nerd underneath I’d given myself to all those long nights ago was gone. The boy…I love…was gone….