craquaria ✰ i love you, or whatever

Chapter 2: Bonjour!

I smiled, standing right there in-front of the huge doors, which had two crew members, each at every side, grabbing the door knobs, ready to open them and allow me to perform my entrance.
Then I heard it. Once they said action my head blew up and I shouted "Bonjour!" from behind the door. Then I d walked inside and smiled and posed for the camera. I took a quick glance at the girls. Literally just blinked my eyes on their direction. Not being able to tell if there were any known faces.
- "Sorry to keep you waiting"
I said, with a huge smile and in a sassy tone of voice.
Then looked back at the camera. I stood there for a minute or so, posing playfully, knowing that every single girl in the room knew who I was.
I hadn't even started walking towards the table in which the girls were located and I heard Yuhua -"Another New York girl!" - she screamed
They all starting cackling over one and other, I heard many different voices, mouthing things all at once. Making sounds that I couldn't really understand, until I heard Dusty Rae Bottoms' voice
- "Cracker, your twin is here!"
As soon as I heard that I turned my head over to where they were, and my eyes immediately looked for Miz Cracker's face. She was here too! Brianna Cracker was on the show. How could I have not seen this coming. Suddenly I started feeling sick, but I wasn't planning on showing it. No sir, if there's something that I've learned is that I need to know when to react and when not to. Or well, it's something that I'm still learning, I guess. Cracker was definitely more worried than I was <I thought to myself>> and it showed in her face.

I walked towards the table, ready to meet the girls. Miz Cracker came to me first. I air cheek kissed her, one time at each side, feeling the tension grow between us. I smiled at her and then continued greeting every other girl. There were 5 New York queens, whom which I had worked before. They were all great, but I knew that the only one I needed to worry abut was myself, and that i by any reason would allow any type of drama to get in between what I came here to do... Winning.

They gave us sometime to kiki and get to know each other. And although I looked as happy as I could, all I could think of was about what everyone would say about Brianna and me. I've always tried to ignore what everyone else says, I know who I am and how hard I have worked to get here. But I could already hear Monet X Change mentioning the Cracker and Aquaria "twin drama" and my in the back of my head flashbacks and scenes from home in NY, back during the time in which Miz and I were friends started playing. Back home, everyone knew about the drama. How could they not know? It was all everyone would talk about every time they saw us close, and each time all I could do was wonder if they didn't have anything else to do than creating some drama that up until some point, I hadn't even realized existed. I tried really hard not to pay attention to what people said about Brianna and me. We actually made fun of the whole drama, we knew that we were really close friends and the "twin" thingy only made us get closer. Once we did a photoshoot as twin sisters, and it was really fun. I gave her some makeup tips and we had a blast while taking the photos and laughing at the ones that didn't turn out as great as we would have wanted to. Before that I had noticed that being around her felt great, I would be the happiest person alive every time she'd enter a room. I never really said anything and nothing ever really happened, I knew the feeling wasn't mutual. But that didn't stop me from secretly crushing on her. As Miz Cracker, she was really fun, and very beautiful. Her performances were great, really campy and dumb, but also super entertaining and captivating. But oh, when he was out of drag, that was a whole other story. When he was Maxwell, he was much more interesting, or at least he was for me. We'd have deep conversations, he's an intelectual and such a charming person to have around. He's like ten years older than me, but we would always have fun when we were together. I have always considered myself as an old soul, i enjoyed the company of much more mature people, and Max was no exception.
However, once the twin photos were out, that one thing that we considered a joke that joined us together, only became bigger and bigger, and ended tearing us apart. My friends would insist on saying that she copied my every look, showing me receipts of makeup looks and garments that looked very similar. So I believed them and started avoiding her company and calling her a copy cat behind her back. Jealousy and bad blood started growing among us and before we could even realize it, we had already turned into complete strangers.

I knew it would be hard being around her 24/7 while we were shooting. We had such a long history, i was certain that ignoring it wouldn't be easy, but I had one main goal coming here, and it wasn't to start any drama or reunite with old friends. I came here to win and prove to everyone that I'm not a talentless look queen.
I came out of my bubble of thoughts once the the megaphone-like sound from RuPaul's announcement started echoing all around the room and we gathered together infront of the TV, hearing to what she had to say.

***** time skip to the end of the day*****

- "Can i get an amen up in here?"
- "Amen!"

Once i mouthed those words I felt like we were done for the day. Music started playing and we all danced around for a couple of minutes. Then they shouted "CUT" and got off the main stage. We waited for around 10 minutes back stage, before going into de Werk Room. The day had been very intense and all I needed to do was de-drag and go to bed. I was safe, thing that i didn't really understand, because i knew i looked amazing, but I knew that I still had the entire season to impress Ru and the judges. During untucked, someone brought up the fact that Cracker's makeup and mine looked very similar today, I just had to set the record straight and clarify that she was the one copying me and not the other way around. I told them the truth, kind of. I said we were acquaintances and that we always worked hand in hand in the same clubs, and once the twinning jokes started, she literally started copying me. And I was donde with it.

We went back into de Werk Room and reacted to Vanjie's message. I was sad for her but glad that the first girl had been eliminated and that it would be like that every week, all I had to do was to make sure that I was the last one standing. Production asked us to sit down on one of the Werk Room sofas and talk about how we felt and all of that. We sat down and before I knew they were already asking about what I had said in untucked. If im sincere, I have never been too confrontational. Yes, I enjoy drama and yes I do have some shady things to say at some times. But I don't really enjoy the screaming and the fighting. I tried to explain what I had said during untucked in the least hurtful way possible, because I knew that my relationship with Cracker was already fucked up and I didn't want to do more harm than good. I said the people said the she copied me and that that was all. All of the sudden The Vixen started shouting and said
- "No! Too vague! So what had happened was...."
And then continued to say that I had said that Miz Cracker was a copy cat, and she said it in a harmful way, trying to just instigate the fight between us. I tried to talk over her, telling her to shut up, but she would just keep screaming. Everyone was talking over each other. It was pure chaos. Ant although Brianna's makeup was already a smoochy brow sad eye kinda look, it didn't really cover up the fact that while The Vixen was talking she was hurting. And so was I. I realized that I shouldn't have said what I said in the way that I said it. I was done with the drama and I could tell that Cracker was too. I fought with The Vixen, and once we were done we just proceeded to de-drag and clean up all of my stuff before going back to the hotel.

We all jumped into the van and I sat as far away from everyone as possible. I needed to avoid drama and because I was as tired as I could be. I put my earplugs on and without even realizing it I fell asleep against one of the windows. Once we got back to the hotel everyone of us went inside our rooms. I realized then that Cracker's room was right across from mine. I stared at the door with a sad look on my face. She had just gotten inside. I knew that we needed to talk in order to bury the hatchet and continue with the competition. But I was the one who had hurt her feelings and I didn't have the nerve to take the first step towards reconciliation. "Damn it" I thought to myself, while I got inside of my room and shut the door behind me. I felt so frustrated. Max and I used to be so close. I used to care so much from him, when did our friendship turn into this huge mess.
As I continued to torment myself with thoughts of how much I had screwed up my relationship with Cracker, I finished getting my things for the next day ready, I got into bed and then drifted off to sleep.