I liked driving my crappy car really fast down the road and blasting loud music. I also liked to stay up until 4am when I had to wake up at 6am for school, and then drinking about ten cups of coffee throughout the day just so I could stay awake and be in a bad mood. To top it off, I liked to wear all black clothing and not care what others thought of me. And on this Monday morning, I was doing all the things I liked to do.
We Are The In Crowd played through the entire car, and I drummed my fingers along to the beat on the dashboard, glaring at bad drivers who either drove too slow or didn’t signal when they changed lanes to cut in front of me. This was a very typical school day for me, where I hated everything and everyone.
Now, I may seem like a very crazy and negative teenage girl, and I can absolutely assure you that I am most certainly one. Sending me to school where I had to be around people who constantly thought that they were better than you, or be lectured by teachers for chewing gum in class, and the result would be a very cranky and short-tempered girl. Don’t get me wrong, though, I have my moments where I can be sweet and nice, but most of the time, I have my headphones shoved on and I’m trying my best to ignore the world.
Even more surprising is that I actually have friends!
Mom was pretty shocked when she found out. She thought that she had a daughter who sat in bed with pizza and her laptop as her only friends, but it turns out that she was actually wrong— I had my phone as well. That was the thing though, I was mostly unlike other teenagers in my school, which liked to dress up to school and socialize. Unfortunately, I was spending too much time on tumblr to know how to socialize.
I pulled up into the school parking lot about ten minutes before the first bell would ring. I spotted Populars scattered across the entire space, typing on their iPhones and kissing their boyfriends/girlfriends. I sighed and took a glance at my own phone screen, to see it still void of text messages. That just meant that my own friends hadn’t arrived yet and I would just sit inside the car and observe people until they did. It entertained and amused me to see others in their daily activities, to try and figure out what type of person they were by the little actions they did that no one else noticed.
This entire high school operated in ways that somewhat matched with the stereotypical high school you read in stories and watch in movies.
You had the Populars, who were the people at the top of the social pyramid. They were the children of the richest people in this city and were definitely taught politics before they could walk. They flaunted their wealth and looks as well as they could, all while being charming just so they could wiggle their way out of trouble and get whatever it was that they wanted. These people were often the talk of the entire school, and at any point of time, there was at least one rumor about them. Gossip spread like wildfire in this school, and everyone (even the ladies at the front office) was interested.
After the Populars, you just have the rest of the school. We remain irrelevant to the Populars and while the Populars are always in the limelight, we make up the surrounding darkness around them. Personally, I myself liked to be the surrounding darkness. I didn’t like all my mistakes and flaws scrutinized under the microscope that was society, and to add a spotlight shining on it would be even worse. I liked hiding in my room and watching TV shows. However, there were still other people who weren’t quite contented with being irrelevant, and therefore tried their best to imitate the Populars and be like them. They mostly fail miserably, by the way.
My phone screen lights up and I look at it to see that my friends were finally here. Seeing as I lived on the opposite side of town from them, they all carpooled to come to school and I drove a shitty car to school on my own. Fair enough, I supposed.
