Paper Crown

Prologue

Dear me,
Why?

Sincerely,
Me

High school is a structured hierarchy of sweat and lipgloss and short skirts and braces and tears and smudged mascara.
Adults tell you it's the best time of your life. Oh god. Yeah right.

The ones that have it easy are the girls with the flawless skin and the tailored skirts. The boys with naturally broad shoulders that play on the football team. The ones with the parents who can buy their way out of every problem they run into.

Girls like Cathy Colton. Veronica Blanchard. Melody Woods. Boys like Kurt Mathews. James Steel. Jordan Hannes.

Glowing idols of equal parts perfect and psychotic.
People who would sell their best friend out for another week as top dog. People who already have.

If you aren't one of the idols of the school, then you fall into one of the two other categories; loser or invisible.

And god trust me its better to be invisible. To be able to walk past a group of people without a second glance. No silent judgement based on how high you skirt sits, or what shade your lipgloss is.

I was one of those people, invisible to the world I only looked into from afar. Was as in past tense. As in, not anymore. As in, before 2 weeks and 3 days ago.

Before, I didn't wear makeup. I had a small group of friends I trusted. Good grades and a part time job at Woolworths.

Now, I spend 2 hours every morning applying creams and powders over my face to contour myself to the beauty standards of the in crowd.

Now, I'm teetering on the edge of a cliff, each word I say could be my last, a wrong outfit could be my downfall.

Now, my grades are being bribed, silent payments well over a salary no teacher could ignore.

Now, I have a full time job.

My job is a Social Hitman.