Survival Of The Fittest

Man, this girl right here looked fuckin' wasted.

((Teresa Rojas: Pregame Start))

Like, whoa. Holy shit. Girl had some wreckage on her. Messy hair, baggy PJs, she even had some bags under her eyes like what the Jackson kid had all the time. Standin' in front of the mirror, lookin' at herself in front of the glass, girl knew she was gonna have to clean herself up a bit. Make herself not look like she'd been hit with nuclear force. Her PJs - blue-black stripes, long sleeve stuff - were sorta a given and her hair could probably stay the same - given the people at her school were like, all into the party girl look - but her eyes needed a bit of work. A bit more time in the makeup room so that people didn't come up to her and ask whether she felt tired or not.

...Well, nah. That'd probably be okay. It'd give her that sleepy look. That gamer girl look, yo. She'd just say that she'd been playin' Overwatch with Forrest until that clock hit the A.M and they'd probably all go ‘whoh, you play Overwatch? That's like, super cool! You gotta join our squad sometime, man, you gotta.'

And she supposed that meant she'd be hangin' with the gamers today.

Which was cool. She'd be down for talkin' with Andy and Forrest and all the other gamer people. Just meant that she'd need to pick somethin' out from her closet right over on the other side. Find bits of clothes and tops and pants that appealed to them in particular. Maybe she wouldn't be like, blatant about it or anythin' - Dios knew what would happen to her if she became one of those girls - but yeah, she supposed she'd be their guest or however the song went. Cater herself to them. Look good and be good to them so they'd like her. Wanna hang with her. Wanna give her entertainment.

Yeah.

She'd def appreciate that.

But like, girl had to work for it. She couldn't just do nothin' and then expect everyone to want to hang out with her or somethin'. Nah, she had to work for it. Put some muscle in. She wanted to be that girl. Be that person who hung with anyone at anytime. Who put some people in fron' of her and pushed her boredom straight to the side.

Yeah.

She could do that.

And hey, even if she wasn't, her tries could do the job well enough, right? If she was makin' sure everyone liked her then that meant that she was doin' somethin'. Makin' sure that boredom stayed out of the way.

And hey.

It did work.

She couldn't really use that as an excuse to not try, though. She still had to get dressed. Still had to look good for the people she was hanging out with.

Still had to keep Gram'ma happy, somehow.

So she moved. Flopped herself right off the bed and got herself right up off the floor. Moved forward. Side to side like the song stuck in her head. Took herself right to that cupboard, opened it, and tried to see what sorta precious treasure laid inside.

Turned out: not a lot.

Like, there was the party stuff. There were the crop tops, the apple bottom jeans (boots with the fur, with the fur), but that wasn't really the ty'pa stuff she could strut around school. That was the ty'pa stuff that'd get her a visit to the vice and a talk about how the shit she liked to wear was 'inappropriate in a school environment' and 'disrespectful to the greater community' as if it all wasn't shit she'd heard like, a hundred times before. Like, seriously, miss. Reason you had to tell her that all the time is because you just keep repeating the same boring shit over and over again.

Cause, like, if you were gonna take her fun time and replace it with talks like that at least make them, like, fuckin' interesting, y'know? Give her a fuckin' reason to be there. Give her a fuckin' reason to actually listen and then maybe you wouldn't actually have to waste her time and-

She stopped. Shaked her head. Ain't no point in havin' feelings and shit when the important decision of what to wear was just hangin' like, right in front of her. Serious. This stuff was a fuckin' everyday conundrum. She had to look good. Appeal to the nerd people. Clothes made the person and if she didn't have the clothes then she wasn't the person.

…

Well, wasn't like clothes were everything but like, she had to be that girl. She had to carry that aesthetic. She had to be like, that super cool super sexy person who hung out with everyone. Who liked everyone. Who everyone liked in return because like, she got them. She did the same things they did and she could shoot the shit with them about it. Because like, she wanted options, y'know? She didn't want to be that girl who just hung around with the same group day in and day out and who never talked to anyone outside that group. That was stagnant. That was boring.

And Dios knew how much she didn't want to feel more of that shit than she already did.

So she had to dress. Appeal. She poked her head inside the cupboard a little bit, tried to see if there was any like, hidden gem in her wardrobe she was forgettin' or somethin'. To be honest she didn't really know if there was anythin' she could wear that would straight up appeal to the gamer people without lookin' like onena those fake gamer girls but hey, maybe she did. No way of knowin' until this girl tried. She put her hand in, traced them along the coathangers. Tried to see what each thing she put her hand on was and saw somethin' appealin'. A flash of colour. She stopped her hand. Went back a little. Found it. Bent the coathanger off the pole.

And saw the neon blue tank top hangin' off the hook, pink anchor design starin' at her right in the face. She'd gotten this one from a thrift shop, couple months back. She wanted to try and see if there was anything good she could get like, super cheap and lo and behold this was there with like, a bunch of other things in the $1 rack. It looked good enough, and the price was cheap enough, so she bought it. Put it in the wash and put it in the cupboard and to be honest just sorta totally forget about it right up until now when it was right in front of her face. Perfectly washed. Ready to wear and take to school.

And hey, it was new. It was was somethin' that the people around school hadn't seen her in yet. Wouldn't really appeal to the gamers, or anyone in particular (unless there was like, some sorta anchor club at her school, honestly given what some of the people here were into it wouldn't really give her that much of a surprise) but hey, it was somethin' different from the norm. Somethin' that people would look at and go like ‘whoh, hey, I've never seen a top like that around school before. Honestly kinda looks super cool, nothin' like what the other people here wear, that's for sure.'

And hey, maybe it wouldn't happen like that but it'd still happen. This top was new. New meant interesting. Interesting meant people would wanna flock over to her. Talk. Have fun with her.

And having fun was what it was all about. If she could stave off that blank feeling she tended to for one more day, then yeah. Day well spent.

She just had to put the work in so that she could earn that, though. Do the rounds. Dress for the occasion.

Be that girl who everyone wanted to hang with. Who could just sit down and and have fun with anyone she wanted to.

Be that girl who made sure there wasn't ever a time she was bored.

So she put her arms around her as she pulled her PJ's off, letting them drop to the floor as she looked into the mirror on the door. Made sure her body still looked the best of em' all. Her underwear was the first thing on and the jeans - short, sorta ripped at the ends - came on right after that. Bra was number three and number four was was the tank top - which wasn't loose or tight, kinda like that story with the bears and the cereal. Once she was dressed, once she was done, she looked at the mirror again. Checked herself out. Did a little spin to see how she looked. Tried to see if she was that girl, the one who owned this tank top. The one who looked fuckin' stunning with it on.

And yeah, she was.

No way the gamers wouldn't love this.

So the girl looked. Checked herself one last time. Anythin' else she needed to take care of? Anythin' possibly like, disastrous that she was overlookin' right now?

Well, the eyes, maybe. Maybe she needed to cover up the bags there a tiny bit, but hey, that was part of the makeup process. Not somethin' she dealt with in front of this mirror. Right now?

Yeah.

She was that girl.

And that girl standin' in front of her mirror?

She giggled.

Man, that girl right there looked fuckin' spectacular.

((Continued elsewhere))