This choice: You need to think about it a lot more • Go Back... Yes, it's surprising indeed because the conclusion you come to is ... no conclusion at all! Getting up from the desk where the laptop sits you groan in frustration and flop face-first onto the bed. After laying there for a minute you reach for the phone that you'd earlier tossed up near the pillow, flip yourself over and push yourself into a sitting position. Another frustrated noise exits as you look at the phone and the messages you'd missed while it was out of your reach; nothing more than the usual stuff from the usual people so you give some of Yumi's usual responses.
That takes a bit longer than anticipated though by this point you've long gotten the hang of it. Yumi knows a lot of people after all so you've gotten a good feel for how long this stuff will take... and that frustrates you even more. Why are you having such a tough time finding anyone? Yumi's got a lot of friends so there's a lot of people to choose from so why is it so difficult? You squint at the phone as if you're harshly judging it, then in resignation you go to the contacts to see if someone, anyone stands out to you. Cindy and Eva and Jessica and Jenny? No not them. Yumi's cross-town cousins? Promising on their own but you don't think Chelsea would go for it.
So many people; too many people. Is that it? Could that be the problem? Yumi knows so many people that maybe it's just making it hard to narrow it down. Maybe it's having some kind of psychological effect and there's a part of Yumi's mind that, deep down, doesn't want one of her friends to be used in the service of Chelsea and it's so strong that it's having an effect on you. So maybe that's the angle you need to approach it from. It's not about who Yumi knows but who doesn't she know?
You push yourself off of the bed just enough to snatch the laptop off of the desk and moving to a sitting position at the head of the bed you flip it open. You pull up a browser and open as many tabs as you feel you'll need pull up Yumi's various SNS profiles. You try to think of names that you might know of but none that you don't actively know. Facebook and Twitter and x2z and whatever else you feel you need to check; you start putting in names that ring a bell and the results are fast. There's people that yourself and Yumi have seen around or heard about, some that you or her might even share classes with, but none that you've ever really hung out with.
Some of them are friends Jenny's mentioned but that Yumi doesn't really associate with. Others are complete strangers beyond a name and a face. Things start coalescing and ideas start swirling around in your head. This person leads to that person leads to this other person, the way this and that student connect or in some cases don't connect at all.
You close the laptop and put it back on the desk then rummage through Yumi's backpack and pull out a notepad and a pen and begin writing down some of the more intriguing groups and names. You spend the next fifteen or twenty minutes studying it and approving or disapproving of certain people and by the end you've got things narrowed down into two broad groups. They're groups that seem like they would be fun to infiltrate and who you can sell on Chelsea as helping to consolidate her power. Chelsea's reach extends far but there are some places that even it can't quite get to after all.
That's where you come in however. Much as you might have once been loathe to admit it after all the horror stories you've heard you have to admit that there's something fun and exciting about helping Chelsea. There's a thrill in knowing that you're bound together by a secret that only the two of you know. You further have to admit that her plan to consolidate her hold on the squad was genius as it was devious and you're thankful that you are now firmly on her good side.
* * * * *
Deep down you sense a stirring in the Yumi-mind that shares space with your own. Yumi hates Chelsea of course. She's made things difficult for her and made them difficult for her friends. The thought of working with Chelsea should disgust her... so why doesn't it? Why is there a part of me, that voice wonders in a mix of horror and shame, that's thinking this is right? That I had it all wrong and that I should've been working with her from the start?
That Yumi voice keeps running. Maybe things would've been different if she'd sided with Chelsea at the beginning. Maybe things could've been better for her and for Jenny too. Maybe she could've stopped Chelsea from being such a bitch. Why does she insist on being friends with stick-in-the-muds like the Garners? Is Cindy all that different from Chelsea? Is Lin worse? She's been a huge bitch about Gary after all; as her friend shouldn't Lin have been happy for Yumi? Maybe even proud that she managed to tame the beast that is Gary Chen?
Thinking of it like that then it can't really see what's all that objectionable about helping Chelsea then. So long as she agrees to not make life difficult for Jenny then what's the issue? Beyond that there's an urge from the Yumi voice: it'd like to get a little revenge on Lin and knock her down a peg for her shitty attitude.
* * * * *
However you don't know how much of that is actually Yumi and how much is your own thoughts mixing with her own. So you push it to the side. The important issue is deciding which of these two groups would be better to take. Which would Chelsea appreciate more?
In column A is the Bohemians, a catch all term for the group of students that constitute practically an entirely parallel student body with their own hierarchies, cliques and social structures. Some times they mingle with the other above ground groups but often times they're left largely to their own devices and united only by a shared artistic streak and a love of partying down at the Warehouse. Emily Sparks, Mia DeWitt, Brianna Gould, Lori Sherman; these are a few of the more prominent names among that crowd though they're far from the only ones.
Even among the Bohemians there's a split. The musician types like Jelena Petrovic, artists like Fatima Zahedi and many more.
In column B rests the miscellaneous athletic teams. At Westside the big teams are the boy's basketball team, the baseball team and of course the cheerleaders. None of those are any sort of problem for Chelsea what with the cheerleading squad in her hands, the basketball team under the control of Gordon who is in turn under Chelsea's control and one of the leaders of the baseball team being Gordon's buddy Jason Lynch.
But there are still a lot of other teams that that exist out in the margins. That's not to say they're unpopular just that they're an obvious rung below the big three. The girls' basketball team, volleyball, swimming, track, the girls' soccer team (the boys' is no issue with Chen). Chelsea would love to get foothold into any of those teams and effectively bringing names like Catherine Muskov or Hannah Westrick under her control.
You figure that you'll sleep on it, talk to Chelsea in the morning and the two of you can figure out what to do from there. So you get ready for bed and try to drift off to sleep but a thought keeps you up. It's the thought from earlier from Yumi's mind, the one about wanting to get back at Lin for her attitude and knock her down a bit. You yourself couldn't care less about what Lin thinks but there's someone -- or someones -- that you keep having the same thoughts about. You thought all this business with Chelsea would put it behind you but instead you find it dragged to the front of your mind.
You might not want to get back at Lin but you'd love to get back at that jackass Mansfield... and at Lisa. But you have no desire to become Mansfield just so you can date Lisa because how is that really getting back at him? No getting back at him means stealing Lisa from him like he stole her from you. At the same time you don't want to become another guy and date Lisa because where's the fun in that? She doesn't receive any blowback or whispers from breaking up with Mansfield to date another guy.
No, not another guy. But if rumors started spreading that she's batting for the other team... and think of the blow to Mansfield's reputation: Geoff Mansfield is such an awful boyfriend that he'll cause a girl to swear off of men for good. Yes if you could get a mask onto Lisa and get a Lisa mask onto yourself then you could get your revenge on both Mansfield and Lisa. A little bit of hot and heavy with a girl of your choice courtesy of that second mask would be more than enough and through Yumi you could get it to the right people.
Of course getting into Lisa also gets you into the AP group. Chelsea would certainly like that.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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