#benrietta

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.

• they both think the other lives better until they finally talk – pretty passively aggressive at first, i must say – and slowly realise that both of their lives aren’t so good and easy after all. like, bebe can’t just think of herself as something more than just a pretty girl, and most boys she’s dated didn’t really care about her personality. she has to always be beautiful and smiling or else she’ll lose her value. at the same time henrietta is often called a freak, she hears gossips behind her back, she knows her family is disappointed in her – and it all hurts, no matter how hard she tries to hide it. hell, even being a goth requires fitting into special “norms”, so she can’t just express herself as much as she’d like to. and when they finally talk about it, it feels like they found a goddamn soulmate, because mo one else ever was so sympathetic with them.

• bebe has pretty strict parents who care a lot about their reputation, and one day she gets so sick of their endless nagging about her appearance and grades and college and other stuff, that she tells about it to henrietta. the goth girl shrugs and suggests her to run away, and bebe can’t believe it the first second. eventually she agrees, and they take henrietta’s mom’s car and just… drive away from south park for a day or too, and bebe for the first time in her life feels free.

• their first kiss was pretty random. it was in the car, bebe was watching henrietta smoking and then she casually said that she always wondered how it feels to kiss a boy who smokes. henrietta remains silent, letting out smoke, then looks at bebe in surprise and bends down, softly kissing her. when she finishes she says “Yeah, I’m not a boy, but I don’t think it matters so much. So how does it feel?” and bebe just sits there absolutely shocked and that’s the first time she realises she might have had feelings for henrietta this whole time.

• also now imagine black is not henrietta’s natural hair color, and bebe spends two hours, dyeing her hair. <3