The New Heather (Mean Girls x Heathers AU) ✓

Chapter 18~ Karen and Gretchen

•Karen's pov•

Walking into school Monday morning was one of the hardest things I might've ever done. Everyone whispered and stared at me. Some people came up to me and muttered some apologies. The word about what happened at the party had gotten out.

"KAREN! Karen are you okay? Where did you go after the party!?" Gretchen ran up to me and tackled me with a hug.

"Gretch, I'm fine. Some stuff just happened. Chandler and McNamara were there to help and took me to there house. It's fine."

"So, you're a Heather now?"

I thought about it. For a minute, they did say we were friends. "Yeah I guess."

"You're safe from the wrath of the school then."

"What?"

"Cady slapped Martha, everyone hates the plastics now."

"Oh no Gretch, I'm sure the Heathers won't mind if you sat with us."

"You sure?"

".... Yes."

"Okay?"

Then lunch came.

"Are you sure about this?" Gretchen asked nervously holding her lunch tray.

I nodded and across from McNamara and next to Veronica, Gretchen next to me. Chandler glared at us.

"Why is she here?"

•Gretchen's pov•

"Why is she here?" Chandler's words rang through my ears.

"To escape Cady." Karen said with a nod.

"Finally came to your senses huh? She's a bitch." Chandler tossed her hair and began to pick at her food. The way she did everything seemed graceful yet fierce, kind of like Regina...

OH NO, Regina was going to sit here too. Right now it was only me, Karen, McNamara, Chandler and Veronica. Soon enough Duke, Regina, Janis and Damian would be here.

Duke and Damian came first. "Gretchen?" Damian asked.

"I needed to escape Cady, everyone is mad at her." He simply nodded. Duke shrugged and sat down.

Not long after Janis and Regina walked in. "Gretchen, what are you doing here?" She asked. How come no one was questioning Karen? I mean she was there too and that's not normal. But then again she had been all over Chandler's Instagram the night of the party so obviously they were friends.

"I'm escaping Cady." I said quietly.

"Mhm." Regina said, she sat at the opposite end of the table from me next to Janis.

I felt jealous of Janis. I was always Regina's right hand woman. Well I did leave her for Cady but I still felt weird. I had a feeling this would be awkward for a good bit.

After lunch I went to the bathroom to reapply my lip gloss. Out of one of the stalls came none other than Regina George.

"Gretchen." She said turning on the sink to wash her hands.

"Regina."

"Why did you really sit with the Heathers today at lunch?"

"What?"

"Come on, you can't really just want to sit with us to escape Cady."

"What do you mean?"

"You sound like such a... Follower when you say that." Regina laughed.

"Huh?"

"As soon as I lost my power at North Shore you went straight to Cady, the next person in power, when she failed you went to Karen because she had aligned herself with the next person in power? I'm not stupid, you are a follower, Gretchen, you don't think for yourself."

"I do!"

"When? You did everything I said, you did everything Cady said and you are with no doubt going to do what Heather says so tell me Gretchen Weiners how do you think for yourself, how are you a leader?"

I froze, Regina was correct, I was just a follower. I had no meaning other than that.

"If you want to survive, you need to become your own person." Regina said before drying her hands and walking out of the bathroom and leaving me with my thoughts.

A/N: I saw a video breaking down Gretchen's character in the movie so I decided to experiment with making her into more of a leader than a follower. This wasn't really part of the initial plot but I think it would make great character development so I'm going to test this out

Also here is a question, I have finshed typing the rest of the book, so I can either publish it all at once or I can just spread it out over a span of time, whatever you guys want

Kk love y'all, bye <3