Girls Like Us

Prologue

Amelia Reine.
A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.

Her last name literally meant 'queen' in some language, I didn't even remember which one.

We could say her name described her well.

She was a literal queen.
Had boys pinning after her at school and girls at her feet. Teachers were almost bowing to her whenever she entered their classroom.

Amelia has always been the type of person you would want to be.

She has been the popular and social beautiful hot girl cliché ever since I've known her. She was the type you would want to be friends with, to show people you had, her.
Because if you had Amelia Reine as a friend, or even if she just told you a 'hello' in the morning -even though you had greeted her first- people would like you.
Yes, because everyone liked Amelia.

She was so beautiful, confident, clever and just so nice with everyone, wasn't she?

That's always what I've liked about people.
They see someone's exterior, whether it be physical appearance or just the way they act around people, and they imagine they've got them all figured out, as if life was that simple.

To people, Amelia was the nicest and most caring girl in the world.
Whenever you had a problem -whether it be with your family, homework or anything else- she would have your back, always.

I am guessing you also think Amelia seemed the type of girl you would want to hang out with, since she loved everyone, oh! Did I forget to mention she volunteered at an animal shelter twice a week and worked as a waitress on the week ends to give half her salary to an association against world hunger?
Well, yes, she did that too.

So people saw her like this, the sweet and selfless girl who was always ready to do anything for others.

She was such a good person, right? Wrong.

Right from the moment you put 'feminist, activist and fights world hunger' in your Instagram bio, everyone assumed what kind of person you were.
They assumed it through the hashtags you used, the photos you posted and the nice comments that spread love everywhere.

They assume that since the apple is so bright and clean on the outside, it can't have rotten insides.
Well, that was Amelia's case.

I guess no one could have seen how rotten she actually was on the inside, and how imperfect her life actually was.

Every single day since I'd known her I'd tried to pretend as if she didn't exist.
That she didn't exist when I 'fell' off the stairs at school, that she didn't exist when I was 'accidentally' soaked in orange juice -that bloody sugar free brand she likes- and that she didn't exist at all and that my life wasn't miserable.

I had never understood why people acted this way.

Why they needed to make others feel miserable in order for them to feel a little better.

At first, I'd thought it was just because they found it funny, laughing about the nerd who 'tripped' over her own feet or about Sarah who had a little 'accident' because of which she would not be able to attend school for the nine months to come, but when I had discovered what it actually was about... oh boy.

In reality, Amelia's life wasn't perfect at all, it was far, far from perfect. Because of this, I hadn't realized that in the middle of this whole mess -that I didn't understand at all- I had stopped to hate her and started to pity her.
She wasn't dying or anything, but compared with my life... well let's just say I guess I understood why she needed to make me feel low so she could feel a little higher, and weirdly, even though I'd been blaming her my whole life for making it miserable, after I'd taken a close look to hers, I didn't blame her anymore.

I remember that, at the beginning of this mess, I was so freaked out I even avoided looking in any mirror.
I wouldn't use her phone or wear her clothes that were different than mine.
I would not look at her parents whenever they came in her room and see this look in their eyes, so much concern for their daughter, telling her they loved her even though she couldn't hear them.
Telling me they loved me even though I couldn't answer and be completely honest.

I'd missed my family the most, and the way my mother had fallen on her knees when they had told her that her daughter hadn't made it, I would never forget.

But what had been the hardest, and I guess it still was, was the way they -all of them- said my name, well her name.

Every time I'd felt as if I was going to faint, people would put a hand on my shoulder and look at me with so much concern, saying her name.
I couldn't bear it anymore, I wasn't her!
I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that I wasn't and that I'll never be her, and that for that I was sorry, but who would have believed me?
So I lay low, even though I knew that deep down I was nothing like her, I was literally everything she wasn't.

Amelia's parents had taken me to a psychiatrist shortly after the accident, a certain 'Dr. Tristan Daugherty'. I supposed they wanted me to feel better since they'd thought I apparently had some trauma because of the horrifying experience I'd been through, seeing my 'friend' die this way... ha! If only they had known...

But I was forced to comply and to shut my mouth. I didn't like it when Amelia's friends would come to me and ask me how I was, taking me in a big embrace. I didn't like it when her boyfriend put his lips on mine. I didn't like it when people that were supposed to care about her approached me.
I knew at the way they were acting so fake that they didn't care at all, but I was the great Amelia Reine after all! They had to pretend to care!

You know, after all this damn time I've spent loathing her, I've finally understood what it meant to be her.

The irony was that people didn't.

Even her closest friends didn't, they just pretended they did, because it made them feel as if they were good persons for caring.

In the end, no one could really understand what it felt to be girls like Amelia or even I, they couldn't understand what it felt to be girls like us.

Hello!

This is the prologue, I am sorry if some things don't make sense but they will, eventually.

Thank you for adding this book to your library/ reading list or just reading it out of boredom.

I really hope you like it, and to be clear once again, this is just a story.
No content of this book is meant to offend anyone.

Regarding the insults or slûrs that may be used in this, they will all be pronounced by the characters, they have nothing to do with the author's opinion or advice for that matter.

Thank you for your understanding, enjoy!