The Price of Beauty

three | "nothing"

 "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." ― Maya Angelou

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"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT back there?" I said to Aiden as we walked down the stairs to find Chloe.

He shrugged.

"Nothing," he began, "it's nothing."

"Then why be so rude at the only actually friendly person to me?"

"Sis you have to chill lol. I act like that with everyone except friends and family." Aiden said, not looking at me.

It was so obvious he didn't like Eevee. The question was, why? And why did Chloe say that Eevee wasn't the best person to be with? It was all a mystery to me.

I had to drop it, as we were approaching Chloe by the minute, who was smiling and was standing next to an awkwardly tall girl with brown locks of straight hair. Chloe ran up to me and hugged me.

"How are you??" she said, enveloping me into a hug.

"You're suffocating me," I laughed. I loved talking to Chloe. The entire thing at high school was so uptight. Maybe it was cuz it was the first day and all, but everything was just so uneasy and complex all of a sudden. It felt so great to start talking to my best friend, who I had known since junior high. A touch of home amidst a lot of new things.

"I'm okay though," I began.

"I'm so glad." she smiled wide, her crooked teeth showing, "this is my mentor, Angie, short for Angelina." She pointed at the awkwardly tall girl, who smiled.

"I have to go to basketball practice hun, but I'll catch you at the party tonight?" Angie said to Chloe, who nodded at her.

"Great, take care." I watched Angie walk away and smiled. She seemed really nice. It was weird how Angie had said Eevee was a bad influence though.

"How's your mentor though? You said you got Eevee? Angie is so nice. She's the head of I.T. club and she's a total technoweenie. I know it's not that cool but I adore it!" She giggled enthusiastically. "I'm just so excited." 

I rolled my eyes. "You're doing the entire word vomit thing again."

Chloe was a huge chatterbox. She's great at talking, definitely - super persuasive too. I will never forget the time when she convinced me that she had a dog for half the summer when I went to Paris, and then when I came back, she said she never had a dog and that it was a prank. I was freakin' emotionally attached to this dog, I swear. It's funny, honestly.

"And we don't have exactly the same classes together because she has so many AP classes. I mean, I thought I was supposed to be a nerd, skipping a year and all," she started again, "but somehow she's so smart too. GOD. How am I supposed to compete?"

"Chill, it's just the first day of school, it's supposed to be overwhelming." I laughed. Another trait of her - total overthinker.

"So like, she also said that Eevee isn't a good influence because she dates a lot of people. And has slept with tonnes of people. And is kinda rude, you know. She's totally nice to you though, even though you hang out with her." 

I nodded. It wasn't as if it wasn't expected - popular girls just had to throw people down to come up. It's a bit like the entire Newtons' Law thingymajiggy. Every force is acted by an equal opposing force. As you climb up, something goes down. That's just how the world balances.

And in this example, Eevee goes up, losers go down. Social pyramid, society works, whatever you'd like to name it.

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