The Price of Popularity, Part 8 (Technicolor)

I spent the entire weekend immersed in Lisa's diary. I even skipped out on a huge party, which was okay because I knew it would just be a bunch of idiots getting drunk and acting stupid anyway. How lame.

The diary started out pretty much as I had expected. "There's a boy at school, he's so cute…" blah blah blah. But even though it was like totally pitiful and lame, I still enjoyed it. There's something exciting about reading anyone's diary, even a loser like Lisa's.

By Sunday, I was halfway through the diary, and it FINALLY started to get good. "Dear Diary, I've been invited to my first real party. It's Saturday night and C.B. will be there. The party is at Mike Johnson's house. Just about everyone is going. Our football team is in the running for state, and Mike's having a party to celebrate. His sister invited me. Even though I'm not very popular, I'm still very excited. As you know, I usually don't care much about what I wear, but I really want to look good. Even though I know C.B. won't even look at me. He's so good looking, I'm sure he'll have girls all over him. Sigh."

Aww, I thought. Her first party. I rolled my eyes. C.B., I had learned, stood for Cute Boy. I still hadn't figured out who exactly he was, but I did remember the party she was writing about. Mike Johnson had been a junior when Lisa and I were sophomores. I had been invited, of course, but I didn't remember seeing Lisa there. Then again, there had been tons of people there, and I wasn't exactly the type to be looking for every little geek who had managed to sneak in.

I sat up, and pulled my hair into a ponytail. I was wearing the perfect relaxing-on-Sunday outfit. It was a J.Lo-type velvet sweat suit, and the cutest little white t-shirt from American Eagle. I sat and thought about how great I looked, and then decided to get back to the diary.

The next entry blew my mind, and put a gleeful smile on my perfect face. Jackpot!!

"I'm so upset. I don't know what to do. I'm scared. I feel like I should tell someone what happened, but I don't know anyone who I can trust. I need to get this off my chest. I can't tell my mom. She'll never understand. The party started out good. I looked okay, not that it matters in retrospect. I've never been drunk before, or really even drank at all, so I thought I'd try. Just one beer. But it tasted nasty, so someone handed me another drink. I’m not exactly sure what it was, but it tasted like licorice. It was pretty good, so I had a couple more. I was actually having fun, talking to people. And that's when I saw C.B. He was drinking a beer and talking to some of his friends. I couldn't help but stare at him. He looked so good. But I know better now. He's evil and awful. To my amazement, he came over and started talking to me. It was like a dream come true. He asked me about school, and what I was interested in. He kept bringing me drinks, and pretty soon, I couldn't really understand what he was saying, and I certainly couldn't make my own words come out right. He took my hand and asked me something about going somewhere quiet to talk. Of course I said yes. This was the boy that I had had a crush on for about three years. I could barely walk, so he had to help me to one of the bedrooms. I kept laughing because I couldn't walk straight. C.B. got me another drink, and continued talking to me. I must have been really drunk because I don't remember anything he was talking about. And then he started kissing me. It wasn't like I thought it would be. Nothing like it at all. He wasn't sweet, or gentle, but rough and demanding. I tried to get up and leave the room, but I couldn't seem to get off the bed. He wouldn't let me go. I was scared, but I couldn't seem to express it. All I wanted to do was get out of there and go home and go to bed. Instead, he pushed me down on the bed, and took off his pants. A lot of what happened after that, I don't remember. It was painful, and I can hardly walk today. I passed out shortly after it started. I woke up in that bedroom, in the dark, but I don't know how much later it was. I found my clothes, and stumbled out of the house. I have no idea how I found my way home, because I must have blacked out again. I can't believe this happened to me. I'm so sick, and tired, and I feel so dirty. I've taken three showers this morning. I hate him. I hate him so much."

I couldn't believe what I was reading. I quickly turned the page to the next entry. It was more of the same old, blah blah, "what should I do?". The next few entries were like that, so I skimmed them carefully, and moved on. It seemed like Lisa was starting to get over what had happened to her when I came upon an entry for about a month later.

"Dear Diary, I am in a lot of trouble. I haven't gotten my period. I think I'm pregnant, but I'm too scared to go and buy a pregnancy test. I went on the internet to find out about it. I don't know if I should have an abortion or not. I just don't know. I really can't tell my mom about all of this now. She’d kill me if she found out I was pregnant. I'm so angry at C.B. I don't know what to do. I want to kill him. I can’t talk to him. I’ve seen him in school a few times since that night, and I can't even look at him. There's no way I could tell him I was pregnant with his baby. This all seems so ridiculous, like it isn't really happening to me. What did I do to deserve this?"

I couldn't help but think that she deserved everything she got. That sounds cruel, but if she was stupid enough to think that someone who was popular would actually like her for more than sex, then she deserved it. I kept reading the diary. There were more entries about what she should do. It was getting a little sickening, to tell the truth. Like, who cares, ya know? But finally, I found what I was looking for.

"Dear Diary, I have decided to have an abortion. I can't raise a child. Not now. This is the hardest decision I've ever had to make. Thank God that I've been saving money for a car. I'm going in next Tuesday to Planned Parenthood. All I can do now is hope that I'm doing the right thing."

"Dear Diary, Yesterday was the day. I still can't believe that I actually had an abortion. I felt so awful, and the doctor and nurses treated me like I was some kind of bad person. I couldn't explain to them. They also tested me for any sexually transmitted diseases. I never even thought about that. I had always planned on saving myself for marriage. Now look at where I am. I feel so empty. Lying there on that table while they sucked the baby out was the absolutely worst feeling ever. Am I going to Hell now? I don't know. I don't think anyone knows."

I read through the rest of the diary, and most of it was fairly boring. Just her whining about the abortion and her baby, and her immortal soul. Completely pitiful. And then I got to the entry about Brand. There had been other entries about him, about how cute he was, and how she wondered if she would ever be able to trust another guy again. And how she thought he would be different because of the poems he had written when they had shared an English class. According to Lisa, Brand had the heart of a true poet. Since when had Brand written poetry? Anyway, she seemed pretty happy about him asking her out, especially in light of what had happened to her. You think she would learn her lesson. No cute, popular guy wants a nerdy loser.

I ripped the important pages out of the diary, and took them to the photocopier in my dad's office. I also made photocopies of the front page of the diary that said "From the Diary of: Lisa Fry." I planned to pass them out at school the next day. I wasn't worried that people wouldn't believe me. Once word started to get around, the look on Lisa's face would be enough to convince anyone that it was all true. I was just going to sit back and watch as all hell broke lose.

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