6. Good girl do not pay.

LARA.

I was born beautiful, African goddess kind of beautiful, people dotted on me. My mom especially loved my huge puffy afro that stood out in the crowd and my mahogany skin tone that seemed to shine no matter the weather. As a kid, she would style my hair into puff, braids and other cute styles that always gave me a new look each week.

As at the age of five, I already knew what prowess I possessed and how looks were prioritized in the society. I would watch as adults complimented me and ignored the average looking one in the room. As I grew up, kids my age would share their toys with me and desperately want to play with me. Anything at all to be my friend, at the tender age of five, I already knew that beauty came with perks and power. It gave me an edge over other girls my age, it made things that were hard for them very easy for me, making friends, gaining popularity and having connections.

My parents weren't rich in any way, neither were they all that poor, but they dotted on me as much as they both could. Although, my mom was known to always go too far at times. She never cared about my brains or anything like smartness, she cared about my physical appearance and prioritized it way above all that, she would always say that my looks will be able to carry me to where smarts couldn't so I never focused on studies as a student.

I was fourteen when I met my bestfriend, my parents had just moved to a new state and it was my first day at my new high school. The hallways seemed busier, the students seemed less friendly and, the teachers didn't seem to care that I didn't know my way around. Finally, the lunch bell rang and I was freed from the history class I was unable to understand. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and picked up my map, determined to find the cafeteria without help. Big football players raced past me in an effort to get their lunch first and cliques of cheerleaders clotted the stairs. As I walked into the lunchroom alone, looking desperately for an empty table, a girl tapped my shoulder. "You look lonely," she smiled at me, a bright smile that made my day a thousand times better. "Would you like to eat with me?"

That girl was Elizabeth. She dragged me to the center of the cafeteria and we sat to eat while she started to ask me so many questions about myself. Weeks after, I had gained popularity due to my fashion sense and beauty. We had a lot of girls who followed us around claiming to be our friends and soon enough, I was the queen bee and yes, the kind of queen that was quite mean, sassy, proud and egoistic.

I dated boys easily and got done just as easy too, although Beth belonged on the other side of the world I built for myself, our friendship didn't suffer it. She was the smart one with average looks while I was the beautiful one with average grades.

The first time time Beth got angry at me about my mean girl lifestyle was the day I had poured a scrawny looking girl's lunch all over her clothes. My minions had dared me to do it and I didn't want to appear weak so I did it to proof my status in the school. Beth saw this, stomped up to me and said, "You continue like this just because you think you're all that and one day you'll wake up and discover that everything you think you have is all fake and isn't worth it!"

I thought about that statement over and over after that day and I apologized to her, promising to stop bullying other kids or being mean to them, we hugged it out and forgot about it, not until the second time when she had caught me cheating on a math exam and had posed another judgmental question, "you know that there's something called karma, right? Going through short cuts and all will do you no good at the end of the day." She had said.

Back then and even now, I never understood why people like Beth thought hardwork, honesty and what not was the only way to go through in life. I didn't get why she thought I wouldn't have whatever I want in the future if I kept playing boys, cheating and doing whatever I wanted because at the end of the day, even after not following all that way to success, I had become a good makeup artist, got a crowd of amazing friends and even managed to get the most handsome and richest men in my life. I was gorgeous and lucky in love, as soon as I left one, another was waiting to snatch me up, they dotted on me, begged me even when I was wrong, spent whatever they had on me and life was good.

Meanwhile, Beth who had decided to take the hard and difficult route, kept her virginity for long, followed all the rules and lived her life the way the society said she should was there getting dumped over and over, while having sleepless nights over mummy issues.

She came home one faithful evening crying her eyes out about how she felt like she wasted her youth following all the rules and how she regretted following all the right paths when it seemed like doing so made no difference for her and i had simply smirked at her.

"When I told you to get those goodie two shoes and throw them out in the bin while you still can, you kept advising me in the risks I kept taking and how it might backfire on me. So who's having karma issues now, dear friend?" I had said to her.

I might have sounded mean and shallow but that was what she needed to hear and that was what I told her. Looking at her life day in, day out and comparing it to mine concerning how we both ended, I have concluded that good girls do not gain a lot at the end of the day.

So being a bad girl is the way to go.