“Why were you talking to that drug dealer?” Andii asked as she saw Chelsea come out of an empty class room not too long after the drug dealer came out.
“Nothing.” Chelsea said. “Okay fine,” she added hesitantly when Andii was still skeptical. “I heard some of the girls on the squad are buying illegal weight loss pills from him and I called him to warn him. I just don’t want them to harm their bodies in ways they’ll regret later in the future.”
“Really?” Andii asked shocked “That is so risky.” She added “I suppose I should talk to them today during cheer practice.”
“I really don’t think you should do that. Everyone thinks you’re so perfect, they’ll probably think you won’t understand what it’s like to be them. They are after all trying to live up to the standards you’ve set. How about I talk to them? I debated taking these drugs too, but I resisted, I could probably give them a few pointers on how to resist temptation.” she added sweetly.
“Me? Perfect? That’s a laugh but thank you. Please talk to them, it would really help. I’m glad to have you as my second in command.” Andii said as she hugged Chelsea.
Andii appreciated Chelsea,she always had her back and kept an eye out for her, and she really appreciated that.
Perfect? Andii thought again as she walked away from Chelsea. She was anything but that. She lived a doubled life. Nothing like ‘Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana’, it was more like she was a criminal trying to pretend to be royalty.
And that was exactly how she felt.
She hated herself for not being able to speak up for the things she believed in because it was ‘uncool’.
For instance, she couldn’t stand bullying, it made her sick to her stomach but she couldn’t do anything about it because the bullies were her ‘friends’, the people she hung out with, her boyfriend…and her by default. She may not have literally laid a hand on any of the nerds but not doing anything about it was pretty much the same.
Nerds. Geeks. Jocks. Popular. What was it with all the labels anyway? She imagined a world with no labels were it was okay to hang out with whoever without the fear of falling off the high pedestal she was placed on. Her parents, her teachers, her friends, everyone had put her on some sort of pedestal that it hard made it had for her to be anything other than what was expected of her.
She had joined cheerleading because she loved dancing, being popular was meant to be serendipitous and fun but lately it had become a chore. She could no longer hang out with Hall, her childhood best friend, because Hall was incredibly nerdy, so nerdy it was almost unbelievable, she thought with a laugh. And he literally had a video camera attached to his hand at all times. It was so weird it was almost cute.
She couldn’t paint her room the color she wanted to, or listen to the music she honestly liked or dress the way she wanted for fear of being address as ‘Goth’ or ‘Emo’. So she had to put on the preppy teenage act and painted her room white and pink, listened to Miley Cyrus and Taylor swift so she could sing along with her friends whenever.
Perfect was…was a really annoying word. Like every other girl on the cheerleading squad she felt really insecure about her body but she kept that to herself. She was their leader and she had to be strong for them.
Like them she had also done some things she wasn’t proud of, she still did, anything to look perfect, right?
Whatever problems leading a double life brought, she still had a role to play as head cheerleader and she was going to do it and do it till she graduated. She just had to pull herself together till she went away to university. It was only a matter of time, what’s the worst that could happen?
