The Nobody Chronicles: Chapter One (part one)

            Today began like every other day:  my alarm went off way too early (interrupting the best part of my dream), I sat up looked at myself in the mirror, thought “umm…yeah, no” and lay back down.

            As I burrowed back into my covers, cursing the Taylor Swift song that had roused me (and was now running on repeat in my head), I tried to come up with some reasonable excuse for why I needed to miss school. Not that school is all that bad, in fact I actually kind of like learning and everything, I just mostly hate people. Well, not all people. I guess it sorta comes down to the fact that I just get all nervous when I have to go out in public, like I gotta impress everyone and stuff, and then its like, a total stress fest, and I end up acting like some total dorked out loser, and I feel like everyone is laughing at me, and it just basically, totally sucks.

            But anyway, after realizing that I had no hope of convincing my mother to let me miss school again, especially since I had just asked yesterday to stay home, I dragged myself out of bed.

            Now, like most teenage girls (and I do apologize for being such a cliché) the way I look is of critical importance to me. The sad thing is, I’m actually quite well-off, since my dad invented some sort of computer organization system that all of the big corporations are just dying to have, but my mother is relentlessly anti-designer labels or, as I say, anti-my future wellbeing.

            This said, my morning routine has become somewhat of a tribal ritual, like sacrificing a goat or a virgin, although definitely less graphic and bloody. Basically, I have to do everything in its order and it all has to work out perfectly, or else I might as well be a freaking gorgon with snake hair and scale face. Since I can’t tote a $2500 Michael Kors handbag or strut the streets in a new pair of $800 Jimmy Choo’s, I take a lot of time to make my “economically prudent” wardrobe look like it could just possibly make it on the pages of Seventeen magazines bargain hunting section.

            Okay, so that is a little snobbish and whatever, but don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I have a bad life or anything. I mean, compared to most, my life is pretty damn good. I’m not homeless, or starving, or neglected or anything you would expect to see on the 10 o’clock news. I’m actually quite well-off, or however people are saying it now.  Like, I swear I’m totally not one of those vapid rich girls you see on “reality tv”, it’s just that surviving in my world requires a little bit of “upper-class” vanity. Seriously, my attitude is merely my life-jacket to keep myself from being drowned in a sea of thousand dollar bags and other such accessories. 
            Let me explain. Basically, I come from a rich suburban neighborhood called Lincoln Lodge. You know the type, a bunch of cookie-cutter houses all in a row behind some menacing looking gate all decked out with similarly hideous patio furniture upon perfectly manicured lawn. I mean, you would think that with all this money the residents would at least attempt to have some sort of style but of course, the parents are notoriously cheap. Seriously, they wouldn’t even shell it out for their darling children’s educations. Like they were all up in arms about the idea of spending $30,000 a year on some hotshot private school in the city but of course most of them will spend twice that or more on their kid’s first car (seriously, priorities in this town are whack!) But whatever, in the end the parents all petitioned the school board to build them their own high school and just like that the High School for the Elite: Lincoln Lodge was born.

            That’s right, H.E.L.L! Honestly, I bet the parents never even realized it when they made the dumb ass name, all they cared about was getting their way. But like, you can totally see what I mean by being overly snobby. I mean, even the name has the word elite in it!

            Whatever though, back to getting dressed, I suppose some people would call my obsessive compulsion to look perfect on a daily basis OCD or something, but personally, I have a different diagnosis. It’s called TTBP, “trying to be popular,” and basically every person enrolled in a high school falls victim to it.

            Not that I’m obsessed with being popular or anything. Heck! I’d settle just to not be invisible anymore. I mean, I’m totally just that girl who isn’t a nerd but isn’t popular either and doesn’t really fit in nicely to the high school caste system so sorta just orbits around outside of it. You know the type, average. The ones that Disney doesn’t make movies about and you’d never catch on a Girls Gone Wild video or some reality show. Yep, I’m just plain-old jane or whatever the saying is. I don’t get my prince charming and I don’t get my perfect "happily ever after" fairytale ending. I guess the best I can hope for is to get something just close enough. But seriously, if I could just have one cute guy to tote around with me, my life would be 100% a-okay. It’s kinda like that Moulin Rouge quote, something about all you need is to love and be loved in return. That’s sorta my mantra for life. Probably why I get into trouble all the freaking time when it comes to guys. I mean, let’s be honest, most 17-year-old boys aren’t really interested in falling in love, unless it’s a three-letter word and it can be over in less then 30 minutes. 

            Okay, so that may not be entirely fair, I guess I’m just a bit bitter because of all my failed (aka nonexistent) love affairs over the years. Anyway, I had just finished putting on my outfit: a short, tutu style black skirt with a ruffled blue polka dot top, tucked in, and lacy black thigh highs (super adorable, if I do say so myself) when I heard this bizarrely unfamiliar sound of my phone buzzing on my desk.