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a short messy unfinished benrietta uhhh thing that i wrote at night idk if there are many enjoyers. cw underage smoking!!
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Bebe takes a deep drag on a cigarette, coughing and blinking away the tears in her eyes. Despite what she had said to Goth kids, she wasn’t actually really used to smoking, and now, with a bit of a shame, a delusional thought flashes in her head – Henrietta is probably laughing internally at Bebe's attempts to mimic their lifestyle. Nevertheless, Stevens quickly gets rid of it, angrily shaking her head.
She feels disgusted to realize that the desire to please and satisfy everyone around her is put so deeply into the subcortex of her brain that she can’t let herself relax even now, in the passenger seat of Mrs. Biggle's old car, in the very suburbs of South Park — in the place where no one could even see her. Except Henrietta, of course. But Bebe mercilessly cuts off this thought, because she wouldn’t try so hard to look good just for Henrietta – she is almost sure of that.
She takes a drag on a bitter menthol cigarette, holding the smoke in her lungs for a couple of seconds. Then she blows the smoke, imagining all of her obsessive thoughts and troubles coming out of her body as well. Her head feels pleasantly empty, and she giggles, leaning back in the seat and lazily looking around the neighborhood through the mud-stained broken car window.
Shithole. South Park was just a one huge shithole, a cage in which she lived all her life, and from which she desperately wanted to be free. What exactly she meant by "freedom", Bebe wasn’t really able to explain, so she usually stuck to safe "Denver" — that’s where she wanted to move after finishing high school.
Bebe chuckles and shares out loud her ideas about moving out of their town. To her surprise, Henrietta's hoarse voice sounds completely uninspired, even bored:
“Denver is just the same dump. I don't want to move, it's conformist”.
Bebe frowns, raises herself on her elbows and carefully examines the serene expression of her friend's face. She is leaning back in the driver's seat, with her eyes closed and a lit cigarette between her fingers.
Bebe squints, noticing the mascara that has carelessly smeared in the corners of Henrietta's eyes, and suppresses the desire to move closer and fix her makeup. Instead, she follows Henrietta’s example and closes her eyes, accidentally poking a cigarette into her cheek and squealing shortly in surprise.
"You shouldn't move either, by the way. You'll go wild as soon as you get out of of your parents’ control, and then you'll just hate yourself. That’s how it happens to girls like you," Henrietta says disinterestedly.
Bebe listens to her voice, monotonous, hoarse from smoking, and does not know if she even should be offended by the harsh words if they are said in such an incredibly beautiful voice. For some reason, her heart is speeding up its pace, and she can only hope that it's out of anger.
“Well, maybe I need to go wild? It's not easy to always be perfect, you know!” Bebe replies, wrinkling her nose capriciously.
“And who told you you’re perfect?” Henrietta asks, raising her eyebrows slightly in surprise, as if she did not expect such words from herself.
Bebe gasps with indignation, and makes an attempt to defend herself:
“Well, everyone knows that”.
And indeed. A constant. A strange hierarchy among the girls in the second grade put Bebe to the other "popular" girls – Bebe doesn’t remember exactly why, though. Maybe because she had the most beautiful pink bows in the whole class, or maybe because she was pretty confident while talking to the boys, or some similar stupid childish reason. Back then, in elementary school, everything was much simpler, and Bebe didn't even have to try to be liked by people – everything was already decided for her by her cute blonde curls, which all the boys in the class were crazy about.
Now she wastes hours of her life on skin care, good (but not perfect, so as not to become a “nerd”) grades and shopping with girlfriends.
She didn't know what would happen if she did go down the social ladder at school, but she preferred not to think about it too much. Several times she was already close to it, but quickly redeemed her reputation every time.
Now she felt like she was walking on the edge, looking into the abyss at the very bottom of the hierarchy they had invented, balancing dangerously. For example, because now, instead of having fun at Wendy's birthday party, she is sitting with Henrietta in an ancient car in the poorest neighbourhood of their town and smoking the third cigarette.
Bebe thinks for a second where Henrietta would be on this so called social ladder, and then realises that she probably doesn't fit into this system at all, standing somewhere aside alone and muttering something about pathetic conformists. She feels a sharp pang of envy in her heart. She wished she could just not care about her social status too.
Henrietta's voice pulls her out of the abyss of her thoughts – Bebe has clearly been thinking too much lately – and Stevens is surprised to notice in it emotions that she could not read yet. So far, she couldn't read Henrietta at all.
“Well, I don't argue with the fact that you are beautiful and convenient, but perfect?” Henrietta winces expressively, and Bebe suddenly feels as if she's been punched in the gut.
“If you’re just gonna insult me for no reason, I’m leaving,” Bebe warns, frowning. She can’t help but feel offended, even though she has no idea why she wants to be liked by Henrietta so bad.
“Those are not insults, they’re facts. Grass is green, sky is blue, and you are deeply unhappy because you try to fit into society’s standards”. Henrietta shrugs casually, as if she didn’t just destroy Bebe’s understanding of her own life.
“At least I’m accepted into society and people don’t call me a fucking freak and weirdo!” Bebe murmurs angrily.
“Was that supposed to be offensive?” Henrietta chuckles, inhaling smoke again.