Portrait of a Cheerleader

At first glance, she’s got it made: Pretty hair, pretty face, lots of friends to giggle with. She’s spent her entire life trying to get to this point, and she’ll spend the rest of it trying to stay this way, yet you’d have to be blind to think that she’s happy. The artificial blond hair and pretty face come at the cost of her paychecks and free time, and the friends who giggle with her will also giggle about her. They’re back stabbers, every one of them, her included—making up for their mistreatment by torturing those unfortunates who don’t have pretty hair and pretty faces.

Yet she doesn’t seem to notice. If you ask her how her life is, she’ll say “Oh, the usual. School sucks, but I like my boyfriend.” Not realizing that the boyfriend is also going out with her “best” friend, or if she does realize, letting it slide until she can summon enough anger to slap him and then storm off in a huff, then eat chocolate and watch chick flicks for the rest of the week.

If you ask her why she eats nothing but salad every day for lunch, she’ll say “Well, it tastes good.” Even though she really eats it because she’s terrified of losing her twiggy figure from all the junk food she eats during class.

She dresses herself as slutty as her parents will let her, because that’s what all her friends wear, because that’s what the models in the magazines and on TV wear. Yet she’d be horrified if someone were to mistake her for what she dresses as. She’s terribly confused, and if she realizes it, she attributes it to what happened the day before during English class, forgetting that she skipped English class to go make out with her boyfriend in the stairwell.