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Chapter 31

BRIDGETTE

We were sitting inside the diner just a few blocks away from Cara’s apartment. Scott had just set aside his empty plate while I finished my milkshake. He raised an eyebrow from across the table.

I arched an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“The story?” he asked.

“Oh, that. I was hoping you forgot about it.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said with a shrug. He had taken off his white coat and he was now facing me with his loosened tie and gray, button-up shirt.

“No, I guess you should know,” I uttered, sitting back against my chair. “I want you to know everything about me after all.”

He smiled. “I’d love to know everything about you.”

“You won’t like who I was years ago,” I pointed out. “In fact, you won’t like who I was before you met me.”

He chuckled. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Okay…” I said slowly, my mind already reeling back to the past. “Hmm…I guess I should start with once upon a time, there were two ladies who were so much different. The other one was beautiful--that’s me--and the other one was just the plain nerd with ugly big glasses--that’s Cara’s, of course.”

I let my words linger for a while. I watched Scott as he listened with a smile on his face.

“I didn’t really consider Cara a friend at first. We were in high school and I was the alpha girl. Everyone adored me, the girls envied me and the boys were very nice to me, if you know what I mean. So I didn’t really need anything, much more be friends with a nobody. I only knew of Cara’s existence when we partnered during our Biology class. I knew then that she was smart and so I decided I could use her services. So there, I pretended I didn’t mind being friends with her and all until the time came when I grew fond of her and her ignorance over a lot of things such as makeup, clothes and boys. She became my mentor in all things Biology and I became hers in all things girly. We were quite a match, actually. I grew to like her and I always defended her against the mean girls at school.

She would spend some time in my home where I would dress her up and do a makeover and I would come over their house to make projects. It became a routine for both of us and people started tagging us as best buddies. It went on for years until our senior year in high school and I met Quinn. He was just one of those cool high school guys you would see in television. He was a great basketball player, he was smart and he was hot. He took interest in me and we started dating. That also meant that he spent a lot of time with Cara whenever she was around and they mostly spent it fighting or throwing snide comments toward each other. The two became three for quite a while. Until it happened. The break-up.

I should let you know that I was not as good as Cara back then. I was the alpha girl, right? And I always got what I wanted. What I didn’t want, I threw away. But it was Quinn who broke up with me, not I. I couldn’t take it. It never happened to me before. I was angry and worried that everyone at school would know. And they did. For a few weeks, I had to suffer the truth that I, Bridgette Finn, was dumped by Quinn Carter.

Cara felt bad for me, of course. She knew how I adored Quinn and how I had been chasing him around for years. But when I found out that he broke up with me because of Cara, I was devastated. Can you imagine it? He decided she was much better than I. I felt betrayed by him. He had been spending all that time with me and all the while, he was eyeing my friend? That was just unacceptable, right? I had to get even, I thought. And I did. I cooked up a great plan.