The Price of Beauty

two | name

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." ― William Shakespeare

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"SO YOUR NAME IS CLAIRE Johnson, eh?" Eevee said to me as we approached to our next lesson, Geography AP.

"Uh.. yeah. I know it's really generic and all, but you know..." I nodded.

"Well, I'm Eevee. You're new, right? You probably don't know anyone... Maybe it's best that you sit next to me in every class." She looked at me and I stared blankly, and she smiled. "Yeah, I knew it, you don't know anyone.... But that's completely okay. You're like, a lump of white clay just waiting to be moulded!"

I raised an eyebrow as I trailed behind her. She seemed to have stereotyped me so quickly. But who could blame her, I was the empty shelf girl. Not an award winner, not anything special... Straight-As, mousy hair. The girl people sometimes ganged up on, even.

It was frustrating to think that she had done so, but there wasn't much to do about it.

"So, I got matched up with you because we have the exact same classes and timetable," she continued, "so like right now, we have Geog AP."

I nodded.

"You don't talk much, do you?" she laughed.

"Not really."

We walked into the classroom which contained a gaggle of girls and boys chatting loudly. The chatting stopped as Eevee walked in, but she seemed oblivious to how people acted around her. Perhaps I'm just observant, I have always been told I am.

Eevee sat down on the front row as expected, putting down her AP book, Geography Explorer Liberty Book 1, onto the desk. I followed her movements, but she was surrounded by a bunch of girls pretty much straight away.

"Hush, girls," she said, gently pushing them out of her way and pointing at me. "This is Claire Johnson, my new best friend and mentee!" She pointed at me expectantly, as if I was supposed to say or do something.

I waved awkwardly, not knowing what to do. "Yeah, I'm Claire." It shocked me to think that this girl, whom everyone looked up to, called me her best friend.

"Maybe she was just one of those people who calls everyone their best friend," I thought to myself. It wasn't a huge deal, I was just her mentee. It really didn't matter what I had to do to put her on my good side. I mean, she was going to guide me around for the next couple weeks, months, or even for the entire year.

--

"Where you sit in the cafeteria is like, the hugest deal in the world." Eevee explained. I stared at her blankly. "You know, every time you make that blank face, I literally want to crack up. You look so cute and innocent. And you're so young too."

I blushed and smiled. Skipping a year of junior high made me seem smart I guess. "So what's the huge deal with the cafeteria sitting?" I asked.

"Right, so basically you've got the jocks over there," she pointed, "the Asian nerds there, the band geeks there, the geek-nerd group there, the nice jocks there, and art people there, emo grunge group there, a bunch of losers there," she continued as she pointed, "and there are some really small groups. Oh, and the gossipy bunch who sits at the table right next to us. You mentioned your brother also comes to this school?"

"Yeah, Aiden..." I said, mesmerised by the entire complexity of cafeteria sitting in high school.

"Aiden, yeah, the totally cute freshman." She smiled knowingly. "We should hang out with him sometime."