You, Me, and Her

Chapter 1: Beginnings

It's not easy being a cold-hearted bitch. 

It may seem like it might be simple, but unless you're a total sociopath with zero regard for other people's lives, you're always going to care at least a little bit about the people around you.

I achieved the hard-earned title of Queen B by my Sophomore year—the B standing for Bitch—by meticulously keeping up my "I'm better than you" persona throughout high school.

There were rules to my bitchiness, of course, I still had class. I was never rude to my superiors. Teachers would gush about my politeness and they never had a bad word to report about me. My parents were generally proud to have raised such a polished and understanding young lady. I paid attention in school, did my chores, and always waved to the neighbors as I walked past them on my way home each day, even if I rolled my eyes once I was out of their view.

When it came to my classmates, however, I could be as honest and judgmental as I knew was acceptably possible. I had a rule to never criticize someone's weight or any aspect of themselves that they couldn't control. But what they could control? That was fair game. How they styled their clothes and hair, how loud or annoying they acted, their immature senses of humor—all were too easy to quip a snarky remark at.

I was proud of my ability to so smoothly put someone in their place with just a raise of my groomed brow or a flick of my honey hair over my shoulder. It made me feel better than I was, to humble others, even though I knew it made me a few enemies throughout my schooling years.

But when I looked around my classrooms, I could not be bothered by how anyone in there perceived me. These kids weren't worth much, bred and raised in the dinky old hills of Stardew Valley, most destined to stay put in their small towns with their small dreams and low aspirations. It was like a curse of this place; people tended to settle here their entire lives, never migrating out of the valley and being so content with continuing their bloodlines in the same old place.

I wasn't dense — I could understand the valley's appeal to tourists coming for a weekend stay. The mountains surrounding the scatter of small towns provided many refreshing hiking trails, boasted seasonal waterfalls, and was home to variety of beautiful wildlife to discover. The beach was nice, not as packed and smelly as the beaches in the towns closer to the big cities, but with the same dark blue Pacific water and golden sand. And of course the town had its charm... that is, if you were into run down, rustic micro-cities with only two restaurants and absolutely nothing to do.

But to stay here in the valley, specifically Pelican Town, for your whole life deserved its share of ridicule. To not have the motivation to pick up and leave to another state, or country, or town, even. It was pathetic, which made my indifference to my peers a lot stronger as I grew up. I wasn't close to many of them, but I didn't care. I didn't hate them, but I generally didn't like them either. I was happy in my role as the pretty blonde girl who acted better than the rest of them because she was better than the rest of them. I could gladly graduate and head to university in a big city without ever genuinely caring about a single person in this town.

And I would have done exactly that if it wasn't for Alex.

That damn Alex. Sheepishly shuffling into my home room one day in October of my Junior year, accompanied by the disheveled school principal, his eyes cast down to the speckled tile floor.

In the boy's lack of excitement to be there, the principal had vibrantly introduced him to us. Alex was a Sophomore, he'd just moved to the town this week, and he should be welcomed into our school with open arms. Instead, he was met with blank stares and awkward, forced smiles from the locals who didn't very often get the experience of meeting new people our age. Alex slipped into a seat near the edge of the room, diagonal from me to the back right, and didn't make a sound for the rest of the day.