My eyelids fluttered open as sunshine crept in through the window above my bed. I yawned and sat up, turning off my alarm clock and glancing at the clock—6:00. Enough time to get dressed, I guess.

I crept into the bathroom and brushed my hair, before washing my face with cold water (which is, by the way, very good for your skin) and doing my usual skincare. I then got dressed.

I had already planned my outfit for the day yesterday, as I was trying to fall asleep. I picked out a pretty dark-colored top and dark blue low-rise bootcut jeans. Those were the only types of jeans I wore—I despise skinny jeans. To spice up my outfit, I put on a cute, small belt and jewellery. Gold hoop earrings, a sunflower necklace and my piercings. I also wore my signature large bracelet accompanied with a small silver one on one wrist, and a bunch of small bracelets on the other.

I went to the bathroom again to do my make-up and add some finishing touches to my hair, like a small hair clip. I took one final glance at myself in the mirror and smiled—I looked really hot.

I exited the bathroom and went to the kitchen to eat. For breakfast, I opted for a bowl of cereal, seeing as Brooke forgot to buy eggs again.

I sighed and began to eat. Brooke was still asleep—yesterday her audition got declined, so she stayed up all night crying because she thought she was going to get it.

After I completed my breakfast, I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I thankfully didn’t apply lipstick yet, so nothing got ruined.

Brooke came in as I was rinsing my mouth, her sleep mask on her head.

“Hey princess,” she greeted groggily, as I wiped my mouth and began to apply my lipstick.

“Hi,” I replied, “how are you?”

I put away my lipstick and turned to look at her with a concerned expression on my face. She merely shrugged, so I stuck my lip put sympathetically and rubbed her back.

“It’s okay, you’ll get it next time,” I assured her with a small, comforting smile. She sighed and changed the subject by wishing me a good day at school.

I nodded and came out of the bathroom before sliding my bag over my shoulder and leaving the house.

♡

The first day of school was going swimmingly.

I hung out with Astrid and a few other girls. As soon as I entered, everyone ran up to me, greeting me with compliments about my outfit and appearance and how I got a huge glow up in the summer.

We decided to walk around the school, attracting attention from everyone. A few boys shouted compliments at us, but I simply ignored them.

As we walked, Merida told us about how she got a boyfriend. Her last boyfriend had cheated on her, so we were all happy for her. To be honest, Merida annoyed me a little, but she shared her earrings with me sometimes so I was fine with her.

The bell rang and we all split up to go to our classes. I strutted inside of my class and was instantly greeted with hellos and compliments.

Astrid and I had our first class together, so as our teacher was welcoming us and telling us about this year, blah blah blah, Astrid and I passed notes. We had tried talking quietly at first, but our teacher scolded us. I instantly despised this lady—I mean, what’s it to you if we talk?

We made some plans to meet up after school and visit a jewelry store. I wanted to buy some new necklaces, and Astrid needed new bracelets.

♡

“Hey Brooke,” I called out, stuffing my new cross necklace inside of my bag. I had just finished my “shopping” trip with Astrid, which was basically us just stealing. We were really smart this time, and took turns distracting the worker as the other stole what she wanted.

Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking—wow, Evie, you’re literally stealing! That’s like, a crime. I know, I know. But you can’t blame a girl for wanting to look fabulous. And sometimes, when a girl doesn’t have the money, a girl must steal.

“Hey, good day at school?” she greeted with a bottle of beer in her hands. I gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Yep,” I replied, as I playfully pried the bottle from her hands and took a sip. Brooke laughed and took it from me, before glancing down at me with raised eyebrows.

“You were a couple of hours late today,” she accused. I merely smiled, knowing exactly what to say—me and Astrid planned this lie out.

“Yes, I went to the library to study with Astrid,” I answered smoothly.

“It’s only the first day of school,” Brooke said, but looked a little more relaxed.

“Yeah, well, we want to be the top of the class,” I giggled. Brooke smiled in amusement and nodded before plopping down on the couch.

“Could you bring me my lighter and my pack of cigs?” she requested. I nodded and ran to the kitchen, where she keeps her stuff.

I slyly took a couple of cigarettes from her pack and stuffed them in my bag, which I hadn’t taken off yet. I then ran back to the living room and handed her things to her.

“Thanks babe,” she said, and I smiled and kissed her on the forehead before rushing to my room and unpacking my things.

♡

The first few days of school were great. We passed notes and talked during class, or just skipped our lessons, and had food fights during lunch. The food fights were fun, but I always got food stuck in my hair and on my lipstick, which was really annoying.

One day I was walking out of lunch to ditch. I was wearing a burgundy vest, low rise jeans and this cute tan belt. I had also bought new converse since I outgrew my old ones.

Some girl was following me, probably some idiot trying to be my friend again, so I decided to play around a little.

“Cute shirt,” I said, with a small smirk. I thought she would get scared and run off, but she actually replied:

“Thanks, cute belt.”

I paused, a little taken aback, and then whirled around with a small, mocking smile. She looked familiar; I think it was that girl Tammy or Tracy or something. I’ve seen her walking around, and her outfits were so childish that I couldn’t help laughing sometimes.

But this time she looked different. I eyed her up and down; she was wearing her blue converse with those silly drawings on it, but the rest of her outfit was pretty cool. She wore low-rise jeans and her shirt really was cute. It was a bit simple for my taste, but much, much better than those ugly clothes she used to wear.

I was kind of interested, but not really. Anyone can wear a cute top and boot-cut jeans—that didn’t mean I would instantly become friends with them.

“Call me after school,” I told her with a friendly smile. “We can go shopping on Melrose.”

Immediately, her face brightened up like a child’s, and I realized she had wanted this—maybe even expected this. Seriously? Does this girl really think I want to be friends with her?

“Okay um,” she replied, as if trying to contain her excitement, and pulled out a small notebook from her pocket. “Write your number on this.”

I glanced up at her for a bit, taking the pen she offered me and started writing. I decided to play around with her a little, so I made up a fake phone number and wrote it down.

I then glanced up at her, offered a final smile, and strutted away.

I was going to Melrose today with Astrid, but I don’t think the blonde girl would actually show up. She’ll probably sit and cry like a loser when she finds out I gave her a fake number. Even if she did come, it would be pretty funny.

I took out my cell and dialed Astrid’s number, before telling her about the whole exchange. We laughed so much I actually started feeling bad for the girl, but oh well. I then hung up.

I stopped at a market and bought a can of coke, and then walked around random shops. I had told Brooke that I would be studying at the library today, so after school I could go to Melrose with Astrid.

Astrid unfortunately couldn’t skip, because that nasty teacher who scolded us for talking noticed her skipping classes and told her that if she missed another one of her classes she would call her parents. Which is like, so unfair! And Astrid’s parents are really strict, so it’s pretty cool that she’s not afraid to break the rules. I’ve always admired Astrid for her bravery, and that was probably why she was my best friend.

After a few hours, school had finished and I took a bus to Melrose. Like I said before, Astrid and I were supposed to meet up there.

I looked around Red Balls while I was waiting for Astrid, seeing if anything caught my eye. I did find a pair of jeans cute, but they were way too expensive and it would be pretty noticeable if I tried to steal them. Oh well, maybe I’ll steal someone’s money and buy them later.

Astrid came, and we looked around together. We chatted and laughed, gossiped a little. Astrid told me about this girl getting kicked out of school because the teachers had caught her making out with some guy in the boys’ bathroom.

We then decided to look at some pants. I told her about the jeans I wanted, and we tried on some. We were shuffling through the pants, and Astrid couldn’t decide between a pair of jeans. She made a joke about her indecisiveness and I laughed.

“No, seriously, though, the pants without the pockets make you look better,” I said, trying to convince her. The pants without the pockets really did make her look better, and to be honest, she looked kind of stupid in those other pants.

Just then, I heard a slightly familiar voice behind us.

“Hey,” we spun around, and I saw that blonde girl from earlier standing there kind of awkwardly. “I tried calling you guys, but I was coming here anyway so...”

I raised my eyebrows as my lips stretched into an amused smile. It was obvious she was lying, and she looked so pathetic it was laughable.

“Oh—” I snickered, sharing a look with Astrid and trying my best to contain a burst of laughter. “My phone didn’t ring.”

She continued to stand there like an idiot, and Astrid and I turned to look around again.

I saw a pretty shade of blush and tried it on my hand, but it didn’t look as well as I thought it would, so I moved on. The Tammy girl or whatever her name was followed us like a scared toddler following her parents. I decided to just ignore her.

I noticed a pair of yellow panties with the label “I Wanna Bone” on them and showed them to Astrid. We both chuckled at them until blondie came up to us and said, “Shit guys, I only brought ten bucks.”

Astrid and I exchanged another look of amused disbelief and burst into laughter—this time I couldn’t contain it as well. She was just so unintentionally funny.

I showed her the pair of panties as Astrid continued to giggle, eliciting a confused “What?” from her, before stuffing them into my bag.

Her hesitant smile slowly left her face as a look of realization came over her. She backed away kind of uncomfortably.

“I’m gonna go get a drink of water,” she announced, before rushing away. This caused Astrid and I to continue laughing.

“Loser,” Astrid said, and I couldn’t help but agree, laughing. Gosh, she was so naive.

Astrid and I continued to “shop”, which was mainly us stealing without anybody noticing. We talked about blondie for a little, extremely amused, but soon got bored of her and moved on to the latest pieces of celebrity gossip.

We then went outside to look at the clothing there, and decided to complete our shopping-slash-stealing trip and walked to a nearby bus station, chattering about our ability to steal so smoothly.

“Sales clerks didn’t see shit,” Astrid remarked as we played around with our new items. That girl came again, looking super excited, but we just ignored her.

“You guys!” she exclaimed, and we spun around to face her, showing off our stuff. “You guys!”

“Wait wait wait, watch,” I urged her as I played around with the lighter I stole.

“Look,” Astrid said, showing her the fluffy thing she stole. She continued to look super excited about something—something that I could care less about, until she continued talking.

“You guys, I totally just stole this,” she said, gesturing towards a large wallet in her hands. We stopped playing around and glanced down in disbelief.

“No fucking way!” Astrid exclaimed, looking more interested.

“From this lady over there,” the girl continued, calming down a little.

“Let’s see how much money—have you seen what’s in it?” I asked, impressed but not completely impressed, since she could’ve just stolen an empty, unused wallet.

We rummaged through it and the blonde girl pulled out a bunch of money with a grin. “Holy shit, you guys!”

And she was right to be excited. Astrid snatched the money from her hands and we began to count, my excitement mounting.

“Oh my God,” I said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much money in my life.”

Okay, I was officially impressed.

“Let’s go shopping,” the blonde girl suggested.

I looked at her, and then at Astrid, and then we both exclaimed “Hell yeah!” in unison.

The three of us ran around Melrose Avenue, giggling with contained excitement like total psychopaths. We entered Skechers and selected a bunch of random shoes and placed the boxes on the counter excitedly.

“One,” Astrid began—“Dos” I continued—“Tres!” the blonde girl, whose name was apparently Tracy, finished.

Tracy pulled out a bunch of money from the wallet and handed it to the surprised cashier, saying “That should cover that. Keep the change!”

We screamed like crazies as we ran out, bursting with contained excitement. Tracy handed out some shoes and compliments to random people on the street and then we all sat down on a bench, calming ourselves.

Tracy handed us all cigarettes and we smoked while we talked. I was starting to really like Tracy, and felt bad for being so mean to her at first, so Astrid and I enveloped her in a big hug and kissed her cheek, causing her to squeal in excitement. She even bought me those jeans I wanted! She really was pretty cool.

We talked a lot, and exchanged phone numbers. Tracy was now officially one of my favorite people in the world.