Revenge (4 page)

Ally had never broken a single bone in her body. She was rarely ill and always took any falls she had without crying or screaming. But not this time, Ally had shrieked when she hit the ground, which was a good indicator that her injury was serious.

Finally a nurse gestured them to come back into a room. Ally’s mom pushed her in her wheelchair and Ally’s dad hurriedly packed his laptop stuff and caught up with them. The room the nurse directed them to was terrible. Ally took note that the color scheme was so the fifties and there was a good reason people don’t match colors together like that anymore.

Ally sat perched on the wheelchair nervously awaiting the results. Ally’s mom bit her nails and Ally’s dad bounced his foot up and down.

A young man walked in and was quite cheery; that was good news, right?

“Hello, my name is Dr. Cooper,” he reaching out to shake everyone’s hand. “I’m going to give you the test results.”

“Okay. Cool,” Ally said trying not to sound nervous.

“So according to these notes I see that you took quite the spill today at lacrosse practice,” Dr. Cooper said.

“I suppose so,” Ally said sighing. She was so bored and done with this place.

“Can we get to the test results?” Ally’s dad asked annoyed.

“Yes. Yes, of course! Ally, I am sorry to inform you that you have a broken ankle,” Dr. Cooper said hurriedly.

“Excuse me?” Ally said rudely, “I have never broken a bone in my body before! How could this happen?”

“It happens to the best of us,” Dr. Cooper said thoughtfully.

“Well, it can’t happen to me. I’m perfect,” Ally said.

“No one is perfect, Ally. Everyone has weakness. Even you,” Dr. Cooper said.

Gabriella walked into school Wednesday with perfect poise. Her hair was perfectly styled and glistened in the light. She was wearing a pair of shredded jeans; black boots that when up to her knees, a ruffled gray top with a lavender cardigan. She looked fabulous. As she walked by, people did double takes. Her head was held high and she did a little three finger wave every now and then.

She sat down in her first class, which was World History and her desk partner’s mouth dropped.

“Gabriella? Is that you?” her partnered said confused.

“Of course, it’s me!” she laughed, “who else would it be, Tony?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said, “but you look great!”

“Thanks!” she said beaming.

“No problem! Hey, do you want to hang out this weekend?” Tony asked.

“Maybe,” she said winking “But we have to pay attention to class now, silly!

The rest of the day mirrored Gabriella’s first class. Lot’s of people asked her what happened. She got complimented over and over. She also got asked out twenty-two times, not that she was counting. She got asked out more today then she ever did in her life. However, the worse thing she heard was getting asked if she was new to school. Both guys and girls offered to show her around and told her about all sorts of activities and clubs the school had to offer. Most of the time she just let people think she was a new student. In some ways she was new, she was a completely new and different Gabriella. People obviously didn’t pay any attention to her before because they thought she was a new student today. Well, either way, Gabriella could get use to the attention. Who knows, maybe she would get asked out even more tomorrow!

Ally faced a lot of murmurs when she came into school on Wednesday. She was on freaking crutches with a broken ankle. Life absolutely sucked for her. However, on the plus side she convinced Wesley to carry all her books for her and walk her to every class. “Take that, Gabriella!” Ally thought with satisfaction.

Today had been quite odd for Ally as well. She was hearing rumors about this new girl in school. No one seemed to know her name though. Apparently she walked with the poise and confidence of a supermodel. Her hair looked perfect, it was flowing and glossy with stellar waves. Supposedly, her outfit was amazing too. She was wearing the latest knee boots, shredded jeans, a ruffled gray shirt and a lavender cardigan. Everyone’s overall comments for her was “gorgeous”, “beautiful”, “stunning” and “spectacular”. Whoever this girl was had made quite an impression and it was Ally’s job to meet her. Ally had to befriend this girl before others did so. From what Ally had heard of this girl, she was Ally clique material.

Ally roomed the halls most of the day looking for this new girl. Admittedly, Ally was slightly embarrassed to meet this girl under her current medical condition. Crutches were lame and she didn’t want to lose a new recruit because of them.

Ally finally spotted the girl at the end of the day by the gym. “Maybe she plays lacrosse,” Ally thought excitedly. Ally had finally reached the girl when she stopped dead, “was that? No. It couldn’t be,” Ally thought.

The girl turned around and smiled brightly, “hello,” she said sweetly.

“Hi,” Ally said confused. “Are you new here?”

The girl laughed, “no! It’s me! Gabriella Marcs! We’ve been going to school together since elementary school.”

“Oh,” Ally said blankly. “May I ask what happened?”

Gabriella didn’t even skip a beat responding, saying, “well, I decided that while my grades are A pluses, my fashion sense is not. So I upgraded.”

“Oh, that’s quite lovely,” Ally said in the sweetest voice she could muster.

“Awe, thanks!” Gabriella said brightly. “See you around!” Then she turned around and walked away. Her head held high and her stride perfectly composed. What the heck was Ally going to do? Should she invite a girl she hated into her inner circle? Did she even have a choice? Gabriella went from loser to cool within a day, which meant Ally could go from cool to loser in a day, especially with those crutches.

Gabriella was walking home from the convenient store at the corner of her block. This meant two things. First, she could show off her amazing looks around the neighborhood. Second, she would have to walk past Wesley’s house and he might see her.

Gabriella was walking down the sidewalk causally when she saw him. “Perfect,” she thought. Wesley was walking crossing the road after retrieving the mail. They’d surely run into each other. Gabriella hastened her pace and looked down at her phone. Wesley was also distracted because he was looking down at the mail. By the time Gabriella looked up, it was too late and they collided. They literally ran into each other. Mail flew everywhere and Wesley was in shock.

Kneeling down to pick up the mail, Wesley said, “I’m sorry that I wasn’t paying attention, Miss. It’s all my fault.” Gabriella then knelt down smirking and helped him pick up the mail. Wesley glanced over at her and gasped. “Gab-Gabriella?” he said stunned.

Smiling she said, “that’s my name! Don’t wear it out!”

“What? What?” he said confused.

“Hm?” she mused.

“You look different...,” Wesley said.

“That’s the point, silly! You could say I had an upgrade.”

“An upgrade to what?”

“Popularity! Obviously! Before I was nobody! Now I’m glamorous and everyone knows me!”

“So?”

“Before no one knew me. I got asked if I was a new student today. I was invisible!”

“You were never invisible!”

“Yes, I was! I was an ugly, dorky, loser! No one gave me the time of day! Now everyone thinks I’m pretty and fabulous!”

“You weren’t a loser! And I thought you were beautiful before! I tried to tell you but you never listened!”

“If you thought I was soooo great why did you drop me? Friends don’t drop each other. You were all that I had. You left me, Wesley. I was alone.”

“I know and I’m sorry!”

“You’re not sorry! If you were sorry, you would have come back but you never did!”

“Gabriella, I wanted to! But I couldn’t!”

“Why not?”

“Because Ally said I couldn’t talk to you!”

“So, you listened to Ally? A girl who just recently gave you the time of day?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because she said that you would hurt me more!”

“Hurt you? How have I ever hurt you, Wesley?”

“You hurt me all the time....”

“How?”

“Just last week you showed off those pictures of me! That was so embarrassing!”

“That wasn’t me!

“I don’t believe you. Who else would know about what I sleep in?

“No one.”

“Exactly. You’ve changed, Gabriella.”

“I...”

“I loved you, Gabriella. I’ve loved you for years. But you never seemed to care. You were always busy with something. You had homework or studying to do. I didn’t even think you would notice me leaving you. Now I don’t know where the girl I loved is but she’s gone.”

“Oh, Wesley...I...”

“Don’t, just don’t.” Then Wesley spun around and stormed to his house. He forgot his mail.

“Hello?” Ally said into her phone.

“Hey, it’s Jess. My phone died and I’m using my brothers,” Jessica said.

“Oh,” Ally replied blankly.

“So, I was talking to Christina earlier about that new girl,” Jessica said.

“She’s not new,” Ally said annoyed.

“See that’s the thing. Everyone thinks she’s new and technically she’s not new to our school. However, her makeover makes her new and gives her that wow factor.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I think we need to take her in.”

“Why should we?”

“Because we can’t let someone walk around school with that much style and not belong in our group. Plus, if someone else takes her into their group they’ll score popularity points. We can’t afford that.”

“That’s true but I don’t like her.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I have disliked Gabriella for years now. It is a deep dark secret that only I and her know about. You can’t know.”

“Well then, why don’t you get over that deep dark secret so we don’t lose our popularity?”

“Because-“

“Don’t even start, Ally, we love you but we love our popularity too. We get into the coolest parties and access to the latest styles before anyone else.”

“I know.”

“Well, can’t you just let that grudge go then? Can’t you just play nice girl to Gabriella’s face?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Fine, Ally. You don’t have to worry then.”

“You won’t try to add her as a friend?”

“No, I will. But you don’t have to worry about being my friend anymore. You can kiss me and popularity goodbye.” Click. Jessica had hung up the phone, just like that. She slammed Ally repeatedly and Ally was now shunned. Her only hope was to call Christina before Jessica could get to her. She quickly dialed Christina’s number hoping that she could when Christina over. The phone rang once, twice, thrice and then she heard Christina pick-up.

“Hello,” Christina said, “I don’t have a lot of time to chat, Ally.”

“Oh, it won’t take long,” Ally promised.

“Err-okay,” Christina said

“So,” Ally started, “Jessica talked to me about the new girl today.”

“Mhm.”

“She wants her to join our group.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I disagree with the idea. Why share our popularity? Why expand our circle to someone who got attention one day? I mean Jillian got attention the day she decided to make a statement by flashing a teacher at school but that doesn’t mean we let her into our group. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, we didn’t allow Jillian in but that’s different. Jillian pulled a stupid prank. Gabriella today had the wow factor. Every single person at school just stared at her. From head to toe she was glamorous.”

“We look glamorous all the time.”

“Yes, but it’s different, Ally. Gabriella’s makeover is new and fresh. It’s drawing attention to her and away from us. If we don’t make friends with her, we’ll lose our status. We can kiss all the VIP parties and first dibbs on new clothes goodbye. Do you want that?”

“No, of course not! But I don’t trust her. Gabriella is a terrible person.”

“I don’t know what she did to you but maybe you deserved it. Remember what you had us do to your boyfriend, Wesley?”

“Yes! And just a week ago you were willing to frame Gabriella. Now you want to be best friends?!”

“Think of it as girl politics. Sometimes if you want to win a campaign you have to pretend to like people.”

“Don’t start that political crap with me. You’ve been talking to your father too much.”

“Don’t start with me! Listen, either you give in and make friends with Gabriella or Jessica and I leave you. Do you understand?”

“I refuse to be friends with her.”

“Then consider this friendship vetoed. Goodbye, Ally,” and with that, Christina hung up the phone. Ally was furious. How could her friends do this to her? Couldn’t they see that Gabriella was evil? Heck, Gabriella was probably doing this as revenge for stealing Wesley. She had no right to do that and Jessica and Christina had no right to leave her either. Ally was queen bee. She was in charge. There was no way that her friends would really leave their master. It was all just a bluff, wasn’t it?