Paranoia

She had been planning her actions for months. She was only going to spend a year at this college. She isn’t excited at all, not for the college like her mother thinks. She’s excited for her new life, love, and destiny.

Safire, 18 years old, was about to leave her whole life behind to go to college: her family, friends, and boyfriend, all for a good education. Who would believe her real reason, the reason for her nightmares?

At school she was the quiet girl who only ever spoke when she knew the answer. Even if she knew the answer she might not raise her hand. That’s not who she wanted to be. That’s not who she thought she was. She thought she was the girl who should be friends with everyone, not the people she was. She was friends with the nerdy kids who only ever talked about their classes. She had class with all her friends. The class was going to start a project on social acceptance. She wanted to work with all her friends. The teacher was picking the groups. So much for her working with her friends. Her teacher put her with the most popular girls in school, the ones she wanted to be friends with, Jennifer, Allison, Michelle, and Rossie. She shot an apologetic look at her friends then turned towards the popular girls with a smile. Every time she tried to put input into the project, one of the girls would talk over her. Eventually she just shouted.

“Hey!”

The whole room went silent.

“Sorry…” she looked around the room, at the faces that stared back at her.

The girls in her group were giggling. Now her friends were the ones giving the apologetic look. She turned back to her group and asked if they would like to hear her idea. They just looked at each

other and smiled.

“Sure.” They said almost simultaneously.

“I could be part of your social group for a week, one of you be part of mine, and then we write about what we learned about each group in our school. Like, what I learned about the popular kids and what you learned about the nerdy kids.”

“That’s actually a pretty good idea. Who would be the one to join yours?”

“I feel like it should be whichever one of you is most ‘in charge’ because that’s me in my group.”

“Sounds good.” Piped Allison.

“So which one of you is that?”

“That would be me.”

Everyone looked at Michelle, even her friends. Jennifer shot her an unbelievable look.

“Well, you guys don’t seem to agree on that but its okay because my group doesn’t really have an ‘in charge’ person, I just kinda give all the ideas.”

“Well then that would be Michelle because she never shuts up.”

So without another word on who was in charge of the popular kids, they accepted her as one of their own and she was invited over to Jennifer’s house so they could give me a makeover. She texted Xavier:

“Hey, I won’t be home until late tonight. Sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow xoxo <3”

“Okay… :( <3” He responded almost instantly.

She went home after school, changed into what she thought was her best outfit, told her parents where she was going, ignored their surprised looks, got in her car and left. When she arrived at Jennifer’s house she knocked politely and greeted her parents with “ma’am” and “sir” like she was taught. She was finally going to be herself, even if it was only a week. Once she greeted Jennifer’s parents they called her down. She was already to go.

“Ready?”

“Um… For what?”

“We are going shopping, duh.”

“Where are Michelle, Allison, and Rossie?”

“In the car already.”

“Oh, alright well then let’s go I guess.”

They played the girliest music ever, and she loved it. She was singing along with them. Then, Jennifer turned the radio down and looked at me quizzically.

“You know these songs?”

“Yeah…”

She was hesitant and was wondering what would come next. Jennifer just shrugged her shoulders and turned the music back up and they all started singing again. They pilled up to the mall about half an hour from town.

“Is this the mall you always go to?’

“Yeah. It’s the only one with the best stores.”

We get out of the car, everyone has their own money and own purses, except Safire, she didn’t think to ask for money. She whispers to Jennifer:

“I don’t have any money.”

“That’s okay. They don’t either. They use their parents.”

“No like I don’t even have money from them.”

“Oh. No biggie, get what you want. I’ll pay.”

She was surprised. They walked into all the girly stores. Once they walked past hot topic and Safire really wanted to go in but when she turned Jennifer grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

“No.” was all she said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Safire was mad now. She was just waiting for it to be her turn. She was going to bring Michelle to hot topic and make her buy stuff. Make her wear it too. For now, she was going to just go along with them and buy and wear what they wanted her too. I guess this is what it’s like to be popular. At least they accepted me better than I thought they would.

Without her parents and Xavier, her boyfriend, she would be able to do what she wanted, finally be herself, and stop hiding behind the image they have in their heads. She was nothing like what they

thought. They thought she was a quiet girl who only ever kept to herself. In all actuality she was only quiet because no one ever gave her a chance to be loud. She only kept to herself because no one ever gave her a chance to break out. She wanted to be the popular girl with the loud laugh that everyone wanted to hear. Instead, because of her parent’s restrictions, she was the weird girl who only sat with one person at lunch, and that was Xavier.

She didn’t believe Xavier really loved her either and she always felt guilty for making him look strange because there were only ever two people at their table. Every time she brought it up he reassured her that he loved her and didn’t mind sitting with her. She needed a valid reason to give to everyone so she could leave him behind. She needed a valid reason to leave everyone and everything behind. She just didn’t want to be someone she wasn’t anymore. She wanted to be herself. If people from her high school life followed her into college, she could never be herself. She knew her valid reason, but would they believe what she told them? She was just going to tell them that she needed focus on school for a while, then just never bring up contact again. She even had the crazy idea that she should change her name to keep them from finding her.