Rat Race

The sound of violent retching filled the school bathroom as her knees scraped the gritty floor and her hands braced against the cool barriers that barricaded her inside the stall. She finally finished her favorite pastime and smiled as the anxiety stopped clamoring inside her. Rising slowly to her feet, she approached the big, smeared mirror and grasped her thick, sandy blonde hair up in two fists, checking all angles of herself out critically in the mirror before letting it tumble down, her corkscrew curls bouncing around her shoulder blades.

She gave a lazy grin at her reflection and murmured, “Time to beat the cats off with a joint, Lombardi…” When she unlocked the door and stepped into the hallway, it was like being greeted by millions of paparazzi and friends, minus the maniacal photo taking. Well, there was one guy who whipped out his cell phone, but he was just a perve.

“Hey, baby, comin' to that party tonight?”

“Hey, Briar.”

“Hi, Briar!”

“Yo, Lombardi!”

She nodded slightly at all her greeters and made her way through the crowded hallway to her locker. She knew on some level she wasn't just an average girl with a normal amount of friends. She could tell by the way people gravitated towards her that she wasn't invisible. And the fact that she wasn’t just some loser who blended in with the walls was the reason she needed to keep what she just did a secret.

Briar treated life as if it were a game that had its rounds but would end fairly soon. She had this laid-back attitude that basically said, “Screw life and those that take it too seriously,” which many people disapproved of, teachers and parents included. They thought she was just an attention whore and it was an act.

But it wasn't. She really thought that people should live life to its fullest. Why take things seriously if they're gonna die anyways? Some people said she needed to grow up. She wasn't even seventeen yet and felt that she would know when her time was up being a teenager.

Her parents were too busy to do anything about it anyways. Her dad was a famous rock star that traveled the world, and thought she was as innocent and good as can be. Her mom was a skilled actress who had to fly out whenever a movie was in need of making. Despite her dad's desperate groupies and her mom's hot co-stars, they still managed to make their marriage work and keep their love ‘passionate’. Briar tried with all her might not to delve too deeply into that.

She wasn't specifically blaming her parents, because they were there for her when they needed to be. Most of the time anyways.

Briar stopped at her locker to get everything she needed. When she closed it, she was greeted with the cherub-like face of Tabitha Green.

“Hi... Tabitha.” Briar knew her own smile was excessively toothy.

“Hi Briar,” Tabitha flashed a smile. She opened her locker and checked her refection in the mirror she had installed at the beginning of freshmen year. She blew her blond bangs out of her face and shut her locker.

After an awkward moment of looking everywhere but at each other, the warning bell rang and they walked to English class.

When they sat down, Tabitha swung her head around, almost taking Briar’s head off with her hair.

“I’m sorry,” Tabitha blurted out.

Briar shrugged, “Hey it’s no problem, my own hair could stop tra—”

“I always get so strung out at the beginning of the week and over the weekend I wanted to go to the mall but daddy was like no. And I was like ‘why do you hate me so much?!’ And...”

Briar drowned out her best friend’s voice, giving her the occasional ‘uh huh’ and ‘that’s interesting’ when it really wasn’t. She started doodling the Joker’s face in the margin of her English notebook.

Then Tabitha’s voice started to make itself known again. Briar knew that she could only ignore her for so long.

“So, I forgot to tell you this, but last Friday... I saw Rosalynn and that James guy huddling under the staircase during lunch.” Tabitha took her white nail polish out of her Prada messenger bag and began to paint her nails.

“Really?” Briar said, uninterested. She had no interest in knowing how Rosalynn Sinclair repaid James Fowler for doing her homework. She'd rather everyone's affairs be kept secret and not the main topic in school gossip. She hated any kind of gossip, really.

“It was totally gross!” Tabitha said while stroking her nails carefully. “I would give anything to wash the image out of my brain. They were-”

“Tabby,” Briar interrupted. “I really don't want to know what they were doing. I'm pretty sure I got the idea.” She started doodling again.

Tabitha shrugged. “If you say so.” Then her eyes lit up mischievously. “But Rosalynn is not getting away with fucking a loser without the whole school knowing.”

Briar stopped what she was doing and looked at her friend disapprovingly. “You are not going to start trouble for her and... James is not a loser.” Sometimes she wondered if Tabitha really was the perky, nice girl she portrayed herself to be. “Plus, Rosalynn would kick your ass. You don't want to mess with her.”

“Oh come on Bri.” Tabitha closed her polish and put it away. “I think everyone deserves to know what a slut Rosalynn is.”

Briar sighed and went back to her doodling, wondering what happened to the nice girl she was best friends with in sixth grade.

Things change, she thought.