A Tiffany Necklace

She sighs as she leans her head against the shimmer-glass window in her impeccably unorganized room. It’s been a rough day – not as turbulent as some, but definitely rougher than her normal gliding-through-the-smooth-waters journey. She can’t remember if she meant to start her chemistry homework or maybe just sit at her desk and think. It’s not the first time it’s happened, but it seems like one too many – people talking behind her back, that is. She never stops to wonder if it’s her own fault, never stops once to consider she might be the cause of all these supposedly unwarranted injustices. Never stops once to consider the people she’s stepped on in her race to get ahead. It can’t be her fault.

Of course, she doesn’t mean for it to hurt people – there’s no malicious intent in her actions… At least not usually. Oh sure, she’ll call someone a bitch every now and then, when she’s only had a measly six or so hours of sleep, but a simple apology suffices for that, of course. It’s not that she doesn’t like the people per se… They’re just disposable. She sighs again and looks outside at the trees gently waving their branches in the subtle wind. People are disposable – that’s a lesson she learned early from her parents. And that’s why she disposes of them. They’re there to help, at least she believes they are, but sometimes the way they can help most is to have you get rid of them. She only wants to get to the top – she only wants to be the smartest, the prettiest, and the best overall. After all, doesn’t everyone? You can’t just be content with where you are. There’s always something better out there. And sometimes you just need to get rid of those people who stand in your way. Those once-friends, now obstacles. But even worse, they don’t just get in her way – unacceptable, but at least not intentional – some of them block it actively. They try to… “screw her over” in colloquial speech. She can’t believe why they would be out to get her, to keep her from rising to the top. She should be at the top. She deserves to be at the top. Don’t they want the best and brightest leading the way? She can’t imagine why they’d talk behind her back when they were the ones in her way.

After all, people are only there for so long as the best purpose they serve is to be there. There are plenty of people who like her. Well… Most of them don’t know her very well, but she always has those few friends who would trust her with anything… Even if she doesn’t trust them nearly as much. You can never be too careful. After all, she used to be best friends with the ones spreading rumors about her now. But she can always go complain to these friends about the people who spread hateful lies, and they always understand. So she’s not wrong. She can’t be wrong. She’s never wrong.

After all, she’s gotten this far in life, hasn’t she? She has an immaculate diamond of a life, and it can’t be because of anything besides the carefully mapped blueprint by which she lives. A 4.83 GPA, president of a club she doesn’t have to do anything for, the leisure of playing piano for leisure, teachers who love her, people who trust her, occasional outings with friends, and lots of sleepy late-night conversations about the most random things. But now there’s a chip. She just can’t understand why people would backstab her and say the nastiest things behind her back. She never did anything to them. They were the ones who got in her way.

She looks around her bedroom and sees little remnants of people she used to know. They don’t usually bother her – in fact, she usually never even notices these reminders of people she used to talk to – but she just can’t comprehend why these people would even entertain the notion of spreading despicable rumors about her. Of course she doesn’t use people, of course she’s not manipulative. She just can’t understand from where they draw these blatant lies.

She paces to her rhinestone-studded jewelry box and fingers her sparkling Tiffany necklace. It was a gift from a friend who got too ambitious and just got in her way every time she tried to be the best at something – she doesn’t even remember her name anymore, but that doesn’t matter. That girl was just one of many. She just had detach herself from them. But the necklace was still there, and sometimes she still liked hiding behind its shine, the way she hides behind a skirt and blazer even though everyone thinks she’s a jeans and T-shirt sort of girl. It’s just something she has to do – after all, the general consensus nowadays is that the prettiest girls flaunt the most feminine clothes. She never really liked shopping, or high heels, but at the same time, she loves them. She has to. She’s so good at keeping up the glazed façade that sometimes, she can’t even tell if she’s pretending. Even with her friends, she knows she has on a mask so carefully molded the distinction between reality and fiction isn’t so much a line as it is a gradient of truth. It’s a game – they must know she’s playing. But what if they don’t?

No, that can’t be right, people are disposable. Her friends are disposable – each of them should know that by now. Or at least, they should. It’s just how life works. How would she ever get through life without acknowledging that fact? People don’t mean anything. They can’t mean anything, because then maybe she’ll break and have the craziest notion to let someone get in the way of her greatest aspirations. She always catches herself in time. No one can be the best but her. It has to be her.

It’s just the answer to life. She has to end up at the top. It’s always been about the answers. And sometimes people are just the variables that you have to eliminate to get the final answer. But maybe “eliminate” is too harsh of a word. Let go. Sometimes you just have to let people go.

And everyone understands that. That sometimes you just need to clean up. And it’s so easy to brush people out of her life. Random cards from faceless people, letters signed with “love” from those whom she doesn’t, and never did, care about. It’s not like they remember her anymore either. She swept them away, and doesn’t even recognize the name signed they signed, so why would they even think about her? But then why did these people keep talking behind her back, when these memories were faded and gone? She apparently wasn’t even important for them to consider her feelings. She was just part of the collateral damage. The body nobody cares to bury.

She doesn’t understand, and doesn’t want to understand. But she doesn’t mind too much. It just makes it that much easier to let them go, to say goodbye. Because in every one of her friendships, it’s always a one way street. They talk, she listens and pretends to care. Or maybe she does care. But what does it matter? They always end up betraying her anyways. She lets them go and they turn on her, bitter and vile and full of hatred. Sometimes she wants to lash out, and sometimes she does. She doesn’t hold grudges, but she never forgets. Never forgets the unnecessary pain they caused her. She holds trials in her mind for these criminals and their unforgivable acts, but the verdict never comes back innocent. After all, they don’t deserve to be innocents, these people who backstabbed her and caused her all of this pain. There isn’t much to her trials. They’re straightforward. She weighs the weight of the crime with the benefits of a pardon. It’s just the game of life. You win or you lose, and there isn’t much in between. And losing is unacceptable. She has to win.

But what was she doing, thinking about this? She had chemistry homework to do. Thankfully, she only had simple review problems assigned today – stoichiometry and such. Just eliminating the labels. Simple. Just crossing out an Amy, a Max, a Sarah, a Linda…