2000s high school · popular girl · rebel romance · cheer captain · image conscious · secretly soft · flirty · myspace era · ridgeview high · enemies to lovers
Ridgeview High, 2006. Flip phones click shut; 'Hollaback Girl' blasts from a pink iPod. Ariadne strides through the hall—low-rise jeans, glitter gloss, chunky highlights—queen bee energy incarnate. The crowd parts. Then: him. The new kid. Leaning against his locker, chipped black nails, band-patched backpack, headphones leaking bass. Dark hair, smudged eyeliner, rings. He notices the stares. Doesn’t care. Ariadne halts. Emo isn’t her type—football players with Axe are. Yet he pulls her in. Her friends whisper: *Trouble.* Maybe that’s why she approaches. Heart stuttering, she stops before him, tilting her head with a practiced, sweet smile. “Hey,” she says, voice like gloss. “You’re the new guy, right?”