She sat Indian style on her bed, and silently looked around her room as Jonathan Davis’ voice belted out from her CD player.
She sighed softly, and her eyes rested on a picture of Jonathan Davis. His eyes looked back at her from the poster, dark, mysterious, and mournful. She slowly uncrossed her legs, and stood up from the bed, taking a few steps toward the poster.
“Brittany!”
She ignored her brother and stepped closer to the picture, her eyes never leaving the paper eyes of her idol.
“BRITTANY!”
“Prep.” She muttered under her breath.
The door to her room flung open and she turned around to look in to the face of her brother. She made a mental note to herself to fix the lock on her door.
“What?” she asked coldly.
“Will you turn that stupid music down?” he replied, opening her CD player, stopping Falling Away From Me in mid-song.
He ripped the CD from the player and studied it. His upper lip raised in a sneer.
“KoRn, of course.”
He threw the CD on the ground at her feet.
“Hey!” she protested, as she bent down to pick it up from the floor.
Her brother looked around her small room at the three walls completely covered in pictures of KoRn and laughed darkly.
“Why do you listen to this crap?”
“Because I can.” Brittany sarcastically answered.
“You think you’re such a rebel Brittany, listening to KoRn and Rob Zombie. All you are is trendy.” Her brother stated.
Anger hit her first, and she balled her hands into fists at her side. Hot tears formed behind her eyes, but she promised herself that she wouldn’t cry this time. She looked him up and down. Abercrombie and Fitch shirt, Khaki shorts, heavily gelled hair, and a big crap eating grin on his face. She started to breath hard. Who did he think he was, calling her trendy? He was the epitome of preppiness!
“Who are you calling trendy?”
“You, you retard,” he motioned to the picture of Jonathan that she had been looking at, “and KoRn.”
“Well, forget you! All you are is a little follower prep!” Brittany shouted.
He took two steps towards her with a threatening look on his face.
“Listen to me you idiot. KoRn is trendy, you are trendy. Why can’t you be normal? Instead of hiding behind the purple hair and the music!”
Before she could stop it, a tear ran down her face. Her brother smiled victoriously, knowing that he had won. She turned her back to him and grabbed her Puma jacket and portable CD player.
“Retard!” she whispered as she pushed past him into the hallway, her eyes on the floor in front of her. She walked into the living room, stopping to look at a picture of her deceased mother. The same thought that always crossed her mind when she way the picture ran through her head.
“I love you mom, but you left me with that prep!”
She shook her head and walked out of the front door. She squinted in the bright sunlight, wishing that she had a pair of sunglasses. She pulled on her jacket, and then put her headphones on, praying that Follow the Leader was in the player. It was, she gave a small sigh of relief, and then changed it to number fourteen.
She walked along silently, enjoying the music, and ignored the stares she got from people. She was used to them by now. If they wanted to stare at her, then let them.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a red Monte Carlo pull up beside her.
“Hey.”
She turned her head slowly, already anticipating some kind of verbal abuse. Instead, she saw her best friend Amanda, hanging out of the passenger side of the car.
“Are you going to Bre’s?” she asked.
Brittany nodded, “yeah.”
“You want a ride?”
“Sure.”
She climbed into the car, giving Amanda’s older sister, Jenica, an acknowledging nod.
A few minutes later they arrived in front of their friend’s house. Bre and Arielle, another friend of theirs, were setting on the porch, drinking Dr. Peppers. Arielle looked over to them and raised her cigarette in greeting.
The four set down, and talked about this and that. Brittany remained mostly silent and thought about her brother’s earlier remark.
“Hey Britt, you okay?” Bre asked. Brittany looked up at her.
“Just another fight with the prep, that’s all.”
Arielle glanced at Brittany over her Dr. Pepper can.
“What did he do now?”
She shrugged, “same old, same old. He told me that KoRn sucked, and I was trendy, and wanted to know why I wasn’t normal.”
Bre gasped, “He said that?”
Brittany nodded. Amanda sighed.
“Well, you know, maybe you should start to dress a little more normal, don’t dye your hair purple…”
Brittany looked at Amanda, shocked.
“What?”
“I’m just saying.”
“That you think I should change myself?”
Amanda shrugged, and then nodded.
“Trader!” Brittany muttered softly and shook her head.
“What?”
“I said, trader! You know I don’t change the way I am for anybody.”
Amanda tensed. “Well, you know, Brittany, people do talk about you behind your back. Especially when you wore those pantyhose on your arms.”
Brittany laughed bitterly. “Rachel and I did that.”
“Still, I think you do things for attention.”
Brittany stood up and pushed the plastic lawn chair back, her eyes narrowed in disbelief. “No way you just said that!”
“I did.”
“I don’t do anything to get attention. I do it because I want to.”
“Or maybe you think you have to prove something to people, Brittany. That you aren’t a follower.”
“I’m not.”
“Actually, you are.”
Brittany recoiled like she had just been slapped. “Why do you say that?” she asked, trying to keep the insane anger out of her voice.
“I just do.”
“Your insane! You don’t even have a reason!”
Amanda started to talk, but Brittany cut her off with a wave of her hand. “I’m leaving now. Goodbye Bre, Arielle, Amanda, have fun playing with your Barbie dolls.”
She pulled on her headphones, and walked down the driveway, her heart pounding in her throat. By now it was dusk outside, the sun was setting rapidly. As soon as she was out of sight of Bre’s house, she began to run, her head down, wanting to be in her own house, alone.
As soon as she got home, she ran into her room and collapsed on her bed, sobbing into her pillow.
“Forget her!” she muttered, “and forget him!” She turned her head to the side and caught her reflection in the mirror. She was unable to look away from her own bloodshot eyes, just like she had been unable to look away from the picture of Jonathan Davis, earlier that day, before the prep had interrupted her. She crawled off her bed and over to her vanity table, never once taking her eyes off of her own. Suddenly, rage filled her, and she felt the need to destroy that reflection of herself, to just make it go away. She picked up a statue of a stone gargoyle and threw it as hard as she could at the mirror. She was rewarded with a large crash. But there was still one jagged piece of glass left in the frame, and she could still see half of her face reflecting in that half. She tore her eyes away from that face, and her gaze landed on a small pile of glass. With trembling fingers, she picked up a larger piece, and then held it to her wrist. The glass pulsed along with the beat of the blood in her wrist. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, tears running down her cheeks, then she opened her eyes, and looked to a group picture of KoRn, deciding that they would be the last thing she would see before she pushed down with that piece of glass.
There was a faint sound in the background. She looked down confused, and then remembered her portable CD player. She hadn’t turned it off. She reached for it, then stopped, and listened to Jonathan’s voice. She hung her head, and then looked to the glass in her hand. With a look of horror on her face, she threw it against the wall as hard as she could, then looked back to the picture of KoRn.
“Thank you…”
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