The Switch [COMPLETED]

Chapter 3

Paisley Monroe:

The weekend with my family had passed the same way it always did.

After Saturday's breakfast, we all took our weekly trip to the mall, where Ashley and I were each allowed to purchase one modestly-sized organic fruit smoothie and gaze longingly at the trendy outfits in the store windows out of the corners of our eyes when we knew our parents weren't looking. 

Sunday had only the slight variation of church added between breakfast and the mall, where Ashley and I sat in-between my parents in our crisply starched dresses and sweated in the Arizona heat that no amount of air conditioning could ever remedy. 

Now, finally, it was Monday. As much as I disliked school, I was grateful that it at least gave me a small pardon from my own personal version of the Partridge Family. 

Since my mother insisted on walking me to my car every morning, I had dressed to please her in a printed calf-length skirt and plain white tank top with a coordinating cardigan thrown over top of it. I had seen her satisfied smile turn down slightly at the edges when her critiquing gaze ran over my scuffed white Converse, but I was in the car and out of the driveway before she had a chance to say anything about them. 

As soon as I could no longer see my mother in my rearview mirror, I shrugged out of my cardigan and threw it into the backseat, leaving me in just my tank top. At the very first red light I came to, my skirt followed, revealing a pair of ripped boyfriend jeans underneath. After running my fingers through my perfectly curled hair and throwing it all into a haphazard messy bun, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. 

I was me again. 

The school parking lot was already packed with students when I pulled up, and I was grateful once again that the administration office assigned a specific parking space for each upper-classman at the beginning of every school year. My thankfulness was overshadowed, however, when I saw that the space next to mine was already occupied by a little red sports car, its driver leaning casually against the hood surrounded by various cheerleaders and football players. 

Dang it. 

I always tried to make it to school BEFORE Mackenzie Eldridge for the sole purpose of avoiding her in the parking lot. 

Mackenzie was our school's own Regina George. She was gorgeous, popular, and completely vicious. I had managed to spend my first few years of high school flying under her radar, but sometime during our junior year she had managed to dredge me up from within the masses of inferior creatures and make it her sole mission to complicate my life as much as possible. 

I turned the key slowly in the ignition of my secondhand Chevy Cobalt, which looked like the mechanical version of a decrepit old woman next to Mackenzie's shiny Corvette. I twisted in my seat to gather all of my school supplies from the backseat without opening my doors, hoping to maintain peace within the sanctuary of my vehicle for as long as possible before I had to face Mackenzie and her blonde-tourage. 

Eventually, I couldn't stall anymore. Mackenzie and her gang were beginning to look at me and whisper, and I realized that sitting alone in my car for no reason probably offered more grounds for ridicule than just getting out and walking to class would. With a deep breath, I pushed open my car door and stepped outside, taking extra care to keep all of my movements graceful and purposeful. 

Of course, the intense focus on the nature of my movements only served to make me even more self-conscious of every minuscule adjustment, so I probably ended up looking more like a rusted tin man than executing the easy-breezy aura I had hoped to achieve. 

"Hey, Paisley," Mackenzie drawled the second I was completely out of my vehicle. Her tone was friendly enough, but her friends giggled conspiratorially as she spoke and there was a malicious twinkle in her eyes.