A/N: Okay, yes, it’s something new, and I know all you people who are waiting for me to update Life’s Little Chances are gonna be mad, but oh well. I wanted to put this up. So... enjoy, and let me know if you think it’s worthy.

PS. Femaleodd, you aren’t allowed to just ask when I’ll update the other stories. And that goes for this WHOLE STORY, got it?

PPS. I know it’s a long title. It’s also subject to being changed if I feel like it.

A Non-Prep’s Complete Guide to Pissing Off a Prep

Chapter ONE: Payback? Definitely.

Holly

Okay, one little thing about preps: while they are frighteningly adept at kissing the asses of any and all adults in the immediate area, they tend to leave something to be desired when it comes to dealing with the emotions of their peers. Either that or they just don’t care.

How do I know this? Simple. The pitiful proof of the truth behind just such a saying, AKA my best friend Lena, was sitting on my bed, sobbing and using every Kleenex in the house to the point that it became nothing more than confetti on the rug.

“I don’t believe him,” Lena finally choked, chucking a wad of used Kleenex at the garbage can (it missed). “Why’d he do it? I didn’t think there was anything wrong with us, I thought we were okay, I thought we were good together, but –”

“–But O’Connell is a dumbass. Forget about him, okay?” I cut in, my voice softening at the last bit. “James O’Connell is an asshole, and if he’s too stupid to see for himself that he made a mistake in cheating on you, then it’s his problem, not yours.”

As I spoke I sat myself on the bed beside my best friend, rubbing her back soothingly... or at least as soothingly as was possible for me. Under my continued coaxing and reminders that James O’Connell is an idiot, a prick, a bastard and generally a fine example of how far society has fallen, she began to look a little better, and eventually her back straightened, losing the helplessly crumpled shape it had held while she cried for approximately the last hour, and Lena sat up, pushing back her long blonde hair and wiping the last few tears from her blue eyes.

“Holly, you have some pretty unorthodox ways of comforting people, but they work,” she sniffed, going to my mirror to examine the damage her tears had done to her make-up – a definite sign that she was over James. “So I won’t complain.”

I grinned and went to stand beside Lena as she redid her make-up. “I know that we’ve been told to keep our own opinions from influencing what we tell others, but I never believed that garbage.”

As we both stood there I compared our looks. We were so different that I found myself wondering for probably about the hundredth time why we were such good friends.

Lena is tall and blonde, with the light blue eyes of an innocent little girl. (SO not true.) She’s also somehow been graced with the figure of a supermodel despite the fact that dessert is and will forever be her favorite meal. Yes, I said meal. I suppose Lena is a bit of a prep; after all, her grades are great, sports ability comes easily to her, and she’s the type of girl who can befriend just about anyone in the space of five minutes.

As for me... I’m basically the polar opposite. I have black hair, cut in layers to about my shoulder blades, and it has a blue tint to it. Mom says she’s slowly getting used to seeing blue in my hair; Lena says it matches my eyes. Lena’s a nice person. I tend to wear black or navy blue cargo pants or jeans most of the time, with tops of varying colour. Lena, on the other hand, wears what she will always consider to be “in style”: T-shirts and jeans. Lena complains often that I “wear too many gloomy colours that in turn make other people feel gloomy,” as she puts it, but I don’t really care. Today my theme seemed to be gravitating away from the endless blues and blacks: I was wearing a purple tank top and black cargo pants.

Something else that drives my mom nuts are my earrings. I have three piercings in each ear, and according to Mom, I’m maiming my earlobes for life. Thus I have decided not to tell her about my belly button ring. My tattoo, on the other hand, she knows about and is okay with. It’s not a very big tattoo – maybe an inch and a bit high, about an inch across – but its meaning is intensely significant. It’s a Sonia rose, and I got it three years ago after my grandmother died of cancer. A Sonia rose was her favorite flower, and Sonia happened to be her name, too. Hence the significance of a Sonia rose.

I guess I could be labeled as a goth or an emo, but what a lot of people don’t seem to get is that goths/emos aren’t all depressed, suicidal kids who wear nothing but black, speak in soft voices all the time, and cut themselves for the hell of it. I’ll have you know no blade has ever pierced my skin... except for that one time in grade three when the class’s resident bully stabbed me with his safety scissors. I survived.

Anyways, that was off topic... I’m actually quite a cheerful person (once I’ve woken up, that is). Sure, I have my darker, moodier days, but who doesn’t? I have my... err, quirks, but the way I see it, the insanity and the (questionable) intelligence balance each other out.

Lena’s finished with her make-up, so now we both go to sit on my bed again. Lena sighs, her gaze distant, and I know she’s thinking about James again. I have to say I can’t blame her: James O’Connell, albeit a prep and a royal (although he is far from royalty) pain in the ass, is... well, gorgeous, to put it simply and to steal a word from Lena.

Corrington High School’s resident casanova, James has had more girlfriends than I have had years to live. (Seventeen, if you were wondering, and I’m positive James has surpassed that number of girlfriends quite recently.) In fact, I’m reasonably sure that I’m the only girl in the senior grade that hasn’t gone through the D&D – that’s Date and Dump – routine with James. Not that I’m really heartbroken over it or anything. I’m sure I’ll survive.

Lena sighs again. “I wish I could get him back,” she mumbles, and I look up in horror.

“Lena, are you crazy?! I thought we’d already agreed that James O’Connell is a scheming, lying sonofabitch and deserves to be hacked into a million tiny pieces.”

She shakes her head vigorously. “Ew, no, are you crazy?” she countered. “I’m with you one hundred percent on the whole hacking-James-into-a-million-tiny-pieces thing. I mean get him back.”

I sit a little straighter, a grin splitting my face. “You mean payback?” I asked hopefully.

Lena pulled a haughty look. “Well, duh! Cripes, Holly, don’t you know me better than that? You oughtta know by now that if a guy cheats on me and expects to get away unscathed, he’s got another think coming.”

My grin is so huge it feels like my face is going to crack. Finally, a chance to give James O’Connell what he deserves!

I’m in heaven. I really am.