(Imagine this is your high school valedictorian, at 2 am on a Wednesday night*)
Alexandria is a girl that no one will forget.
It doesn't matter if you only heard the rumors about her, or if you first heard her name when she was giving her valedictorian speech at graduation.
People will always have something to say about her.
For years, I had been intrigued by her.
It started in 7th grade when I heard she lost her virginity. Then she went by the name of Alex. The news was spread mainly in the handicapped stall in the girl's bathroom. Throughout the day, all the girls would synchronize their visits to the bathroom to congregate in that stall. I've gotten math test answers in that stall, had mini dance parties in that stall, and I also got the latest gossip in that stall.
"His name was Flame," said one girl, who was fixing her hair in front of the small mirror above the handicapped railings.
"You've got to be kidding me," said another girl leaning against the wall.
"That's actually his name. I think his parents are weird."
I stood against the locked door, and listened ardently. Flame. The name rolled around in my head. I imagined him as a disco-dancing gigolo in a white polyester suit.
"They did it at a party," said the girl in front of the mirror. A disco party, I thought.
"Well, she's masturbated with a toothbrush," said the other girl.
The bell rang and we filed out of the bathroom.
For the rest of middle school, Alex only got a worse reputation. She embodied the twisted queen bee of middle school. Just the way people would say "Alex" it translated to bitch. She walked in a pack of girls who only wore Abercrombie, Uggs, and glares on their faces.
One time I ended up at their lunch table. I was lazily drawing circles on a sheet of paper, when Alex said, "You know what is also the shape of a circle?"
She laughed. "Your vagina."
Then everyone else laughed. I felt like I was on the outside of the joke. Was I the only virgin? I thought.
As with all queen bees, gossip was always buzzing about her. One time I heard she got paid to give blowjobs, another time I heard she had sex on a front lawn of a random house in the middle of the night. I heard all of these rumors so many times, that I took them as truth.
When she walked down the hallway I couldn't help but stare.
When Alex started high school, she insisted her name was "Alexandria." Everyone scoffed.
"A new name won't change what she is," said everyone I knew.
The name "Alex" embodied what she was known for--being a slut and a bitch--and no one wanted that power wrested from them.
But Alexandria was reinventing herself. She would correct anyone who called her "Alex" without fail, and soon enough people began calling her Alexandria.
I never hated her, and I never smeared her. Rather, I was mystified and intimidated by her reputation. One day during my freshman year, when I was doodling in a sketchbook, she leaned over and looked at what I was doing.
"Wow you are amazing at drawing," she said.
"Thanks," I said, and kept drawing.
"What's that?" she pointed at a string of words at the top of the page.
"It's a quote from a book."
She studied the words. "That's beautiful," she said, "what book?"
"A Million Little Pieces by James Frey."
"Can I borrow it?"
In three days she was finished with the book and asked me for another. After she had gone through three books of mine in a week, she asked me for my sketchbook.
"I want to write you a note," she said. She found the page, where she first saw my drawing, and in the corner she wrote the words, with an arrow pointing to my drawing, "this is super fucking crunk. if you draw anything else on the front or back of this page that doesn't touch greatness, I will take it upon myself to hunt you down and slit your throat."
She was harsh, as always, but it touched me.
But not everyone changed their thoughts about Alexandria. At the end of freshman year, the class rankings were released. And guess who was number one in the class? Alexandria.
For days, the goody-goody kids stewed over the news.
"She doesn't even deserve it! I actually stay home and study," bemoaned one girl who still wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies.
"All she does is party,"said the resentful number two in class.
"Did you know she has done cocaine?" chimed in a kid, who most likely didn't know the difference between crack and blow.
I only respected her more, and from then on I was her lone defender.
When everyone else bombarded the conversation with words of dissension I would say something like "Isn't it remarkable that she can come to school hungover on a Wednesday and still have better grades than you?" or "So you've snorted cocaine with her before?... No? Never? Then you can't really say anything."
It wasn't until junior year that we had another class together, American literature.
In the first week, when we were discussing Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway, Alexandria rose her hand and announced to the class, "If anyone is going to win a Nobel prize, it's Carmella."
We still understood each other perfectly.
She was the first to wear leggings as pants at our school. Along with sheer shirts, fur jackets, and nerd glasses. For months, every girl (and even most guys) would make fun of her clothes, but soon enough they would start wearing the style themselves. By that time, Alexandria was on to something else.
She also turned in assignments early. Essays would be stapled and on a teacher's desk a week in advance, study guides would be completed just in case, and she copied down every word the teacher spoke. She was still number one in the class, and still everyone hated her for it.
I guessed that she, amongst the rest of the top 5%, only ate, studied, and took tests. I was wrong.
One day my friend found her planner in the bathroom. We poured over it later that night. Not only did Alexandria hold top billing in the class, but she also managed a popular fashion website, woke up at 5 am to run every morning, and somehow she still found time to party and get drunk. Let me add, she made baked goodies for my class bi-weekly and she was still asking me for books to read.
She was the most fascinating person I had ever observed, and I dreamed of the chance of being a fly on the wall in her life.
And my senior year, I had exactly that chance.
We had the same government, economics, and literature class. There was no need to pay attention to the government class, so all we did was sit in a corner and talk for the next straight hour and a half. She was still the dynamic and brutal person I knew her to be, but in that semester I also learned she had a soul.
One day the topic of sex came up. I was ready to hear about her many partners and escapades, with a few words of regret.
"So, I slept over with this guy last weekend," she said.
"I didn't know you had a boyfriend," I said.
"We aren't technically a couple, but we will be soon. It's pretty funny. I was out-of-my-mind drunk downtown one night and I just walked up to him and told him he was hot. I think I actually yelled at him that he was hot."
"How's the sex?" I asked.
"Oh my god! I'm not having sex with him!" She looked shocked.
"But you said you slept over with him."
"I just slept in the same bed as him. I've only made out with him," she said, as if this was obvious.
"What?"
"I'm not going to have sex with him for a long time, maybe never. I have barriers, you could say."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I've only had sex once."
"What?" I couldn't believe her. "I mean, I thought, you had, well, I've heard rumors."
"I don't know what you've heard, people are always spreading shit about me, but I've only had sex once."
"But why?"
Her voice lowered. "Honestly, I was kind of taken advantage of. It was the summer before 8th grade, and I was dating this guy. We went to this party, and I got drunk and I passed out in a bedroom. When I woke up I knew I had lost my virginity."
"Do you remember any of it?"
"No. I don't even know if I was conscious."
"Oh my god. That's rape. You were raped."
"I actually changed for the good after that. My life was heading down a wrong path at that time--parties, drugs, bad people--but after that happened to me I started to focus on academics. I always knew I was smart, but only after that I started applying myself."
"So all of the rumors," I said, baffled.
"Aren't true."
It was hard to reverse her reputation, upturn all the rumors, and see her as the strong, but broken, girl she was.
When Alexandria began her valedictorian speech, on graduation day, I listened to her as one of her few lone defenders. "Some people think I socialized too much to deserve this," she said to our entire class and a stadium of parents. The kid sitting next to me tried to whisper something in my ear, but I swatted him away. "You should listen," I said.
And like she left me note in my sketchbook four years ago, she wrote this to me:
"I regret I didn't pull you in closer when I had the chance. You are going to conquer the world one day because nothing will get in your way or be good enough. You are going to be my inspiration forever. Until the day I die, maybe longer. "
This is coming from a person who outshines every celebrity and icon I have ever met.
We are each others life inspirations.
Love you, girl.
Carmella
*That picture is not of Alexandria, but it does capture her spirit. Actually Alexandria is not even her name. I choose to keep everyone anonymous on this blog :)
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