The Same Mistakes Club

Chapter Six

I got away from Maishely and Gabriel as quickly as possible, before they could become MaishelyandGabriel in the middle of the halls.  But Maishely's name popped back up at lunch.

"So guess who tried to make small talk with me in Biology and French like we're friends?" Margaret asked while we walked to the cafeteria after morning classes.  "Maishely Creston - can you believe that?  I think she is probably jockeying to get as many votes for Homecoming Queen as possible."

"Yeah, she's acting weird," I agreed.

"Ugh, I can't stand her."

Margaret had never really been a big fan of Maishely's - not many girls in school were.  Maybe it was her perfect appearance or the fact that she excelled in everything.

But that was petty jealousy.

There was really only one person at Isabelling who had a valid reason to hate Maishely Creston.

Me.

If it wasn't bad enough that she was a prime example of A Girl Who Gives Up Her Identity for a Guy, she'd also given me up.  I'd always thought those girls who'd dump their friends whenever a guy showed interest in them were pathetic.  But when I became one of those friends, I'd found out how much it hurt.

Just another example of what guys had done to ruin my life.  As if treating me like crap wasn't enough, they stole my friends.

Even though I hated Margaret's list for how much it upset her, I was usually secretly glad when it endded up being a big failure.  I never wanted to lose Margaret like I'd lost Maishely.

Once we made our way through the long line of confused freshmen who were not yet aware of the cafeteria poison, Margaret and I established ourselves at our lunch table - the same one as last year.  Our friends Melany and Pride soon followed.

"Hey, guys," Melany greeted us as she and Kiara sat down.  "My parents are so riding me about having more extracurricular activities on my college applications.  Can you believe that?  I have to start worrying about college already.  Didn't we just start junior year?"

We all nodded in agreement.  Pride shifted uncomfortably and fiddled with her apple as the rest of us dove into our lunches.  It was hard not to notice the fact that she had lost even more weight over the summer - if that was even possible.  She was practically drowning in her gray Isabelling High hoodie.

Suddenly Pride's body was pinned against the table by a short, curly-haired girl who must've slipped on the floor.  Her tray hit Pride's head and her soda spilled on Pride's shoulder.

"Oh no!" the girl screamed.  "My soda!"

We all looked in shock as she picked up her plastic cup and surveyed her outfit, ignoring Pride completely.  I'd never seen this girl before, so I figured she had to be a freshman.  There was no way I would've missed her, even though she couldn't have been more than five feet tall.  Everything on her was done to the extreme - acrylic nails meant to look like a French manicure, light blonde hair dip-dyed in brown, eyebrows narrowly plucked, and lips overly penciled in.  She was wearing a very mini denim skirt and a lace tank top - in other words, looking like she was going to strut down a catwalk instead of eat lunch at the school cafeteria.

"Are you okay?" Melany handed Pride some napkins to clean up.

"Ash-ley!" the girl screamed at her friend.  "Did I get anything on my shirt?"

Margaret whipped her head around.  "Excuse me - what about apologizing to my friend who you just soaked?"

The girl looked at Margaret like she was speaking a foreign language.

"What? I spilled my soda."

Margaret shot her the patented Margaret Glare - eyes squinted into tiny slits, lips pursed, a look of complete disgust.  "Yes, you spilled your soda - onto my friend.  Do you understand what an apology means?"

The girl opened her mouth in annoyance.  She mumbled something that I guess was supposed to be an apology (it sounded more like a question: "saw-reh?") and she walked away.

Margaret sat back down.  "Unbelievable.  It's the first day of school and already these freshmen think they own the place. Oh, and, what a shock, look what table they're going to."

There was a long group of tables against the windows that would always hold the jocks and cheerleaders, including the infamous Elite Eight: Gabriel Smithers and Maishely Creston, Manuel Dupart and Taylor Andy, Josh Levitz and Audrey Werner, Jacob Valadict and one of his many revolving girlfriends.

Margaret and I were among the few girls left in our class who hasdn't made it to the table as Jacob's girl of the moment.  I'd never desire to be part of their demented version of Noah's Ark, where you could only survive if you were paired up with a member of the opposite sex.  If I had to choose between dating Jacob and missing the boat, I was fully prepared to drown.

Both Pride and Melany had dated Jacob.  Melany had dated him in eighth grade, and he would go around and lie to the cross country team about how far he got with her.  After he'd dumped her, Melany had become increasingly popular with the other guys in class, until she'd realized it was because they all thought she was easy.

You would've thought that Pride would've learned from Melany's mistakes.  But no.  Jacob had managed to disarm all common sense in a girl.  Pride had thought it would be different, so she'd taken the plunge... and found that this girl named Natasha Vargaz was swimming in the same pool at the same time.

I couldn't help but wonder why it was that a guy could find two good girls to date at the same time, when we girls couldn't even find one decent guy.

My face became hot as I thought about how much trouble Jacob had caused - not just with Pride and Melany, but with practically half our class.  I never understood the power he had over girls.  He was your typical dumb jock: a tall guy with a black fade hair cut and an outfit that always showed off at least two sports teams logos.

Thinking about Jacob made me realize I wasn't the only girl at Isabelling who would benefit from a boy boycott.

Those nasty freshman girls were all over him now, and he was enjoying every minute of it.

"Guys are jerks," I practically shouted.

A laugh escaped Margaret's throat.  "What to the evs - like you don't spend your time flirting with Gabriel and Jacob!"

Like I WHAT?

"What are you even talking about?"

"Are you even kidding me?  Every time you're around Gabriel, you flirt up a storm."

Yeah, well, that was the old Alissa. New Alissa was done flirting.  I'd be happy if I never had to speak to any guys for the rest of the year.

"The guys in the Elite Eight aren't the problem," Melany said.  "Those girls are so shallow and have zero - and I mean zero - things to discuss outside of their boyfriends."

"Well," Pride interjected, "Maishely is always nice to me.  But Audrey and Taylor are a little full of themselves."

Melany glared at their table.  "Please.  Sure they're cheerleaders and date the star athletes - how boring! - but nobody really likes them.  You know that's what's totally ridiculous about all of this - all those guys who are allegedly the popular ones are despised by most of the students.  And anytime they're nice to somebody outside the group, it's always, always because they want something."

"Exactly!" Margaret chimed in.  "Today in class, Maishely pretended she wanted to BFFs with me.  And she tried the same thing with Alissa this morning."

Melany nodded.  "Exactly.  It's obvious she wants something."

"Yeah, well, whatever it is," Margaret said, looking over at the Elite Eight table, "she's not going to get it."

HELLO for the people out there that i'm using their names!! I really hope I don't offend you lol it just works with the story. I love you all and that's why i'm using your names ;* m'kay byeee