Masked Girls

04. INFORMATION

"Oh my gosh, no, listen! That Gillian is actually such a desperate, attention-seeking bitch. Go - "

I slammed on pause, a chuckle escaping my throat.

I couldn't believe it. I, the pathetic frog in the well, actually had information for once - crucial information that no one else in Rifton knew. Jumping off my chair at the study table, I plopped onto the bed and began to scroll through the essential phone application that every student had which supplied all necessary information and was key to maintaining a certain level of social status.

Of course, said essential app was none other than Instagram.

Upon receiving my first smartphone when I got to secondary school, I was quickly coerced to download it and conform to the norms of being a typical teenager, just like my peers. I enjoyed it not so much because of it being 'a platform to share about your life', but more because it was the site where you could find out who was going out with who, who was closer to who, et cetera. It was relatively interesting to gather nuggets of information through screenshots and such even when most of the information on it was covered by facades and masks of perfection, hidden behind filters and perfect grins. It wasn't enough to find out anything big like I'd just sprung upon by chance, but it was more than anyone without Instagram could get.

Even that little bit of intel, however, was enough evidence to explain my lack of ability to click with anyone in school. No, I wasn't poor, but these girls were on a whole other level of wealthy. From fancy hotel restaurant dinners to what looked like debutante balls, their Instagram stories and posts were essentially modest flexes of old money. On the top of my feed was a new post by Natalie herself, with already more than a hundred likes.

nattyy.k hi i love boba tea

gillbish omg yall went to get boba IM SOBBING RN

             nattyy.k yes omg your presence was missed !!!

addytion oml the boba looks good,, big regrets sjsjs

averyday.tired wtfrick this is so cute

Ew, I thought, double-tapping out of habit. Honestly, it was still horrifying to know that this girl was able to smile in your face and stab you in the back - and even so with the girls she proclaimed to be her very best friends. I knew they were probably all terrible people deep down using each other for their own gain, but the whole concept of it was just... ugh.

But now, things were different.

Now that I had crucial information, information that could bring her down and taint her reputation forever, I could potentially do something. I had the ability to expose the shit out of this fake birch and show the entire school who their perfect Queen really was like behind her perfect mask. This time, I was no longer weak and pathetic, no longer powerless. I had evidence - and I could use it.

It was perfect, really. After she'd ruined my social standing in the school and shattered every dream that I had of being happy in Rifton, I could finally give her a taste of her own medicine. I could make her feel like the burden at every lunch table. I would make her pay, make her regret ever thinking of talking behind my back.

Knowledge is power - and the video clip that granted me with power had come with a great responsibility, to see to it that Natalie Kingsley was knocked off her pedestal and her ass roasted on a grill. Perhaps, this year was not going to be as mundane and boring as I thought. No, in fact, it would even be my year. They had hurt me the year before, thrown me into the darkness and left me to rot - but our first year had passed. This chance discovery was sheer dumb luck, but this - this could be a sign that times were changing.

No longer would it be fitting to lament my fate in my self-created darkness. Now, it was up to me to step out and fight back.