history. | SWEET PEA [2]

CHAPTER EIGHT

"What am I gonna do?" She whispered, fighting back a sob in a rare moment of weakness, "I tried to talk to him, and he blew me off for some Vixen he's screwing!"

Alice let out a bitter chuckle, the moment of weakness gone and her bad girl façade back in place. She turned around to look at the mirror, a bitter chuckle escaping her lips.

"Ha, classic FP Jones."

Melinda's jaw dropped; the cigarette perched in her mouth nearly falling to the disease-infested bathroom floor.

"FP Jones?!" Both Sierra and Hermione nearly squealed in unison.

She took another shaky drag from the cigarette and tried to look anywhere but at Alice.

Luckily, a distraction by the name of Penelope Blossom stormed through the bathroom door, effectively ending the painful conversation.

"Well, well, well," The red-haired girl sneered at them, pushing up her thick glasses, "I thought I heard a party in here. Hall passes, ladies? Also, Melinda, that death stick in your mouth is a code three violation."

"You're a code three violation," She mumbled half to herself, putting up her dark hood and inhaling defiantly.

Hermione, ever the good girl, quickly gave Penelope her own hall pass. She looked down at it briefly, before turning her gaze expectantly towards Alice. There was no remnant left of her revelation from before as she looked at Penelope with nothing short of menace in her eyes.

"Oh, it's up your ass, Penelope," She shot back with a smirk.

The red-haired girl scoffed, uncapping her pen and writing something on her clipboard, "Classy as always, Alice Smith. Just curious, were you born with that mouth or is it something Southside mothers teach their bastard babies?"

Hermione gasped, covering her mouth in shock as Sierra let out a disbelieving 'wow'. Melinda, on the other hand, stifled a grin, enjoying the show from afar.

Alice gave a fake smile, pushing off from the sink to come stand in front of Penelope. She backed up slightly, suddenly aware of the Southside girl's menacing form. In one swift motion, Alice's hand shot out and slapped Penelope across the cheek.

"You trashy bitch!" The red-haired girl slapped Alice back before the two of them grappled each other.

The fight descended into chaos, each one of them pulling at each other's hair and pushing at one another while Hermione and Sierra tried to break it up. Eventually, they crashed into one of the bathroom stalls and onto the floor, wrestling each other on the disgusting tilework. Meanwhile, Melinda sat perched on the radiator, watching the scene unfold with a wicked smile as she took another drag from her cigarette.

There was never a boring day at Riverdale High.

While Penelope and Alice were going at it in the girl's bathroom, across the school, something similar seemed to be unfolding in the boy's locker room.

"Come on FP, it's Bulldog tradition," Rick Mantle taunted lightly. Circular yellow glasses sat on his nose while a towel had been wrapped around his otherwise naked waist.

"Streak! Streak! Streak! Streak!" The rest of the football team chanted with him.

Hiram looked appreciatively at him as Rick glanced at the other boy for approval. Before junior year, Hiram Lodge wouldn't have even so much as looked at Rick Mantle. He was a computer nerd, sitting at the lowest rung of Riverdale High's social ladder. That summer though, he'd beefed up, and when he came back in the fall, he'd easily aced football try-outs. Hiram wasn't on the football team; wrestling was much more his style.