Her Cautionary Tale

3

"I'll try my best." Maeve whispered.

The woman watched her daughter climb out of the car. She didn't dare roll her eyes, knowing how to respect her parents enough to avoid being punished. She knew if this was another adult or one of her friends, it would have been different. Maeve should be grateful her daughter had manners and more respect than that Regina girl she insisted on hanging around, but it did nothing but cold her heart in the situation.

Reign forcefully closed the door, though didn't let it slam shut. In fear it might fall off, as well as anger her mother. She shuffled her backpack over her shoulders and stared off toward the school. How could this place be filled with people she's known since middle school, yet she felt like her only friends were people that didn't want the best for her? At least, not all the time.

This whole situation with her father's addiction was getting out of hand. Reign didn't feel comfortable talking about it with anyone besides maybe Regina. Though she was a bitch, she knew her blonde queen of a bestie would keep her word until they reached limitations.

There was always a limit with Regina George. Once they hit it, there was no telling what secrets would leak from her luscious lips. Same with her other friends. She couldn't even trust Janis and her friend Damian to keep their mouths shut.

In this world of social media and miscommunications through text, Reign couldn't live her life knowing there were blinding secrets hiding behind her thunder thighs and beautiful hair.

"I used to think I would spend every second I have right where my story began." Reign stepped off away from her mother's car, watching it drive by out of the parking lot. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed as the old SUV disappeared in the distance. "I'd be happy here. Every day, month, year of my life."

Reign strolled through the parking lot and watched families drop of their children. She smiled weakly when she spotted a few freshman best friends prepping for another day at the daunting school together, not knowing what they were getting into.

"But now I'm wishing for whatever comes after goodbye." Reign ran a hand through her hair. "On every star in the sky. I'm dreaming of what I could become."

She looked across the street and tilted her head seeing Gretchen jog toward Karen in excitement. The girl shoved her phone in their friend's face, showing her something that carried laughter across the road where Reign stood.

"This is where home will be. As long as my lungs can breathe." Reign's smile slowly fell. "But my heart is dying to leave 'cause I know there's more to me. I don't wanna live with 'what ifs, might haves.' 'Could have been if I had only tried, not held back..."

Reign licked her lips and nodded to herself. She stepped across the street after a bus zoomed by–always looking out for those mother fuckers–and shook her head in the wind blowing behind her.

"Oh no, that's not a part of my plan." Reign raised her chin and walked across the street, listening to the thumps of her boots. "That's not the me that I, that's not the me that I am."

The tall junior walked past the cliques around the front lawn and gazed through the mass of teenagers. She smirked to herself when a few people moved out of her way, eyes holding on her longer than appropriate.

Fuck. Did these kids have no self-esteem? Reign hated every minute they would look at her like some sick role model. Her friends may have enjoyed it, but there were only little perks to being a Plastic.

And Reign had a hard time finding them.