Bonnie was sitting in her math class, not paying attention…again. It was a bad habit of hers, not just in math classes, but also in general and it had been since junior high. She had always assumed that she would grow out of it since it seemed like such a childish thing to do, but she was now in eleventh grade and it was still with her just as strong as it was in junior high. Maybe she was stuck with it, she thought.
Worse than the fact that she did not pay attention, which probably explained the rather average grades that she brought home for the class, was the reason why she zoned out. She hated admitting it, even to herself, but she drifted out of the real world because of Kim Possible. It helped add to why she hated that self-righteous, pompous, self-serving redhead and she did HATE her. She would destroy anyone that suggested otherwise, not that it was common for anyone to suggest otherwise.
She detested Kim with every fiber of her being. The little goodie-goodie that swore to the heavens she could do everything, except maybe be there for every cheerleading practice that they had or accept that Bonnie was the better cheerleader of the two of them or at least accept that Bonnie was more popular. Kim should just accept that Bonnie was better than she was, the turquoise-eyed teen believed.
For someone that had so much hatred in her heart, and it was there, Bonnie seemed to ignore what she was doing at the moment when she should have been taking notes. She was sketching a picture in her margin of her binder and the picture was of Kim. She was actually a bit talented in sketch work, having been praised by several art teachers, but she never showed much enthusiasm about the praise. It was not that she did not like the acknowledgement, but because she would never show anyone that counted what she could do with a pen or pencil and a sheet of paper. There was the underlining fear of being criticized, which she intensely disliked; it was actually a given that she would be criticized by the two people that counted most in her life. After all, they never failed to do such a thing.
Still, she continued on with her sketch while reminding herself that she hated Kim. Her little self-rant was based on something actually that she should deny to her death, but she could not even bring herself to defend herself when she heard it. She had started her morning off by getting on Kim’s case a little over a new shirt that the redhead was wearing. It was essentially very tacky in her opinion and she thought that Kim could have done better; not that she had said that latter part out loud. Sometimes, she actually thought, “if only Kim would let me take her shopping instead of relying on Monique’s lame advice,” but for something like that to happen, she would need to be friends with Kim and she could never do that. Anyway, she called had Kim on the horror that was her top and got in a few good hits before she had to be on her way.
But, while Bonnie was on her way, Monique had to get a line in and that was what was bothering her at the moment. Well, she was trying to tell herself that it was not bothering her because she knew that she hated Kim, but, of course there was the obvious point of if it was not bothering her, then she would not be thinking about. She was pondering it so much that she had no clue what was happening in math class. It was seriously plaguing her and she tried telling herself that she did not know why. It was not like it was true or something like that, she pointed out mentally.
Well, what did Monique say that was driving Bonnie to distraction? The brief conversation went a little something like Kim wondering aloud why Bonnie was such a bitch toward her and Monique did not miss a beat. “Girl’s probably crushing on you,” Monique remarked casually with a small laugh to top it off. Ron’s reaction was a look of sheer, unabashed of horror and Kim laughed at the sheer implausibility of it all. Bonnie rushed off without defending herself to such a false statement. And it was very false, she emphasized in her mind.
And then that evil little voice in the back of her mind came to life. It seemed like every time she swore that she had buried that thing in a deep grave, it came back to haunt her days, weeks, or months later; it always returned, especially at an unwanted time. No hole was deep enough and there was no amount of mental dirt to cover it up to keep it from mocking her in her own head. The voice begged the question: if you hate her so much, why do you always think of her? She dared not answer such questions, knowing the answer deep in her heart, but refusing to acknowledge such a thing. That damn stupid voice thought it knew everything, Bonnie mentally huffed.
Every time Bonnie was so sure that she plainly and simply hated Kim and nothing more, that damned voice had to butt in. It chimed in whenever she got on Kim’s clothing, reminding her how she would like nothing more than to take Kim shopping, so the redhead could get some clothing that best complemented her. If she complained about Kim’s lateness, the voice would just counter with how much she wished that she could be close to Kim to keep her focused and on task to keep her from being late or waylaid by certain, less important things. And heaven forbid that Bonnie get lost in a moment of quiet loathing and staring venom into Kim’s entire being with sharp blue-green eyes because then the voice wanted to point out how cute Kim was and on occasion, it would contradict whatever thing Bonnie was silently griping over. The voice tried to make it seem that not only did she like Kim, but that she liked Kim.
Bonnie did not like Kim, especially not like in that way. She could not like Kim in that way. She hated Kim, always had and always would. Well, except for that first day anyway. She would give anything to be able to relive that first day with Kim over and over again before her sisters said anything. Now, she knew, as if it was a stone cold fact, that she could not like Kim in that way or really in any other way because of how her sister would react.
What would people say if she liked Kim in that way anyway? What would her sisters say if she liked Kim in that way? At that point in her life, what good would it do anyway? She did hate Kim and Kim returned the feelings just as intensely from what Bonnie could tell. The main point of it all was that she hated Kim, which she did. That was the way things were and how they should be.
Without the little voice trying to chime in, Bonnie mentally went through why she hated Kim. The redhead was self-righteous and self-important; obviously, Bonnie always saw those flaws in others and let them whiz right by her whenever she did any self-reflection. She silently acknowledged that Kim often did things better than she did, which robbed her of any recognition for almost any feat she could do, which was just plain annoying. Sometimes the thought of Kim doing things better than she did got to her enough to where she could not bother with things and sometimes it hyped her up enough to work extra-hard; it all depended on her mindset of the day.
The aqua-eyed cheerleader mostly detested the idea that she felt was the stone cold truth, which was that Kim was smarter than she was. She had been trying to do better in school ever since she got in school way back in first grade and there always seemed to be someone better than she was. Now, she had to put up with Kim being that person for the past five years. Plus, Kim rivaled her in two things that she truly excelled in, which were cheerleading and, well, being popular. She liked to believe that she was the better cheerleader of the two and more popular because if she did not believe that there would be little excuse for her to go on. She would feel completely inferior all around and never leave her room again.
Bonnie’s fear of inferiority was a subconscious one that she never realized. All she knew was that she wanted recognition and for her sisters to see that she was equal to them; it had been that way since she was born. She wanted her sisters’ respect and she knew that would never happen with Kim around being, well, Kim. Not to mention it was the main reason that she could not allow herself to do anything other than hate Kim and bury that disgusting voice in the back of her head. Hating Kim drove her on, pushed her to do her best for the most part and gave her someone to overcome to hopefully achieve her lifelong goal of having her sisters see that she had some worth.
As usual, Bonnie got to no real resolution with her thoughts as the bell rang, signaling that her daydream was over until she could get to her next class. She settled on the fact that she hated Kim as she put her books away and that was the end of it. It was easier that way anyway and she told herself that she should not invest a lot of energy thinking about Kim, not that that ever worked. Most of her energy seemed to go into thinking about Kim in some way no matter how hard she attempted to change that.
On her way to her next class, Bonnie spied Kim talking to Josh Mankey. It was hardly a secret, except maybe to Mankey, that Kim was crushing hard on the bleached blonde. She acted so goofy around him, Bonnie thought, and she really did not like it. Someone like Kim should not act so ridiculous around a boy that hardly noticed her, in Bonnie’s opinion anyway. In fact, Kim’s behavior downright pissed her off when Mankey was around because Bonnie would never act so ridiculous around a boy and someone that she saw as a rival needed to have the same dignity, especially since Kim was better than Josh. So, it was time to get Josh away from Kim, so she could stop acting so incredibly stupid and embarrassing herself.
“Hey, Possible, I’m sure you won’t mind if I borrow Josh,” Bonnie said while hooking her arm around the aforementioned young man and tugging him away before Kim or Josh could object.
Bonnie glanced behind her to see Kim fuming over the fact that she had just stolen Josh away. Bonnie nearly rolled her eyes; he was not all that, so Kim should thank her for getting the loser away from her. Bonnie actually thought Josh was a bit of a jerk considering how he often acted as if he was too cool for the room. Now, she had tried to get him to go out with her a couple of times and she figured that she did it because he was cute, even if he was a bit of a jerk.
Truth be told, Bonnie chased Josh to keep him away from Kim. Now, whether she was doing it to spite Kim for no other reason than the extreme dislike she felt for the teen hero or because she just hated guys that Kim was interested being near the redhead, would have to depend on if Bonnie was in charge of her own head or if the little voice was running things. Maybe it was a little bit of both, conscious and subconscious. Either way, Bonnie was getting Josh away from the teen hero.
The tanned cheerleader quickly and easily made up some excuse to talk to Josh for a moment and then feigned like she was worried that she would be late for class as an excuse to walk off. Josh did not seem to notice that Bonnie was not very interested in talking with him; the feeling was actually mutual. He did, however, like getting attention from Bonnie, but not for any reason beyond the fact that he liked talking to people. If she knew that he liked the attention though, she would just think he was more of a jerk for that since it was like he was stringing Kim along…not that she cared about Kim, according to her anyway.
She went to her next class and went back to her daydreaming again. It was only English class, which was one of her stronger subjects, so she could afford to zone out. She often did drift because she did not find it as interesting as her other good subjects, which were Spanish and physics at the moment. She actually did her best work in science classes and things had been that way since she was in school, which was why she never minded when she got partnered up with Brick Flagg for projects. Never had a person been more aptly name, she thought because he was about as smart as brick. At least he was not digging on Kim anymore.
By Bonnie’s thinking, she was not sure why she was thankful that Brick was not digging on Kim anymore, but the little voice in the back of her head swore it knew the reason. Bonnie liked to tell herself that she was glad Brick ignored Kim now and liked her because he was good-looking and he was the star quarterback on the football team. He was the ideal boyfriend and it shut Lonnie about her looking “awkward” and never getting a boyfriend, which her blonde sister did try to continue stating until recently when Bonnie started dating Brick.
The little voice would disagree with that assessment to a degree. Shutting Lonnie up was always a good thing; shutting her sisters up point blank was always a good thing because it stopped the burning criticism. It showed that she was not as useless or worthless or pathetic as they tried to make her seem. She figured that the more she shut them up, the more they were going to have to respect her sometime soon, not that that seemed to be happening.
Other than shutting her sister up though, the voice had other reasons for why Bonnie was glad that Brick was not paying attention to Kim anymore. It had to do once again with Bonnie not wanting guys that were interested in Kim around the redhead. It sometimes dared suggest that she was jealous of those boys. She refused to accept or even acknowledge such a thing.
(New day)
Bonnie frowned as she walked the hallway of Middleton High and saw just about the worst sight that she could, not that she realized it until she saw it. Kim was holding hands with Josh. She had an odd reaction, in her opinion, because her heart seemed to skip a beat out of anxiety. She calmed herself down by telling herself that it was not what it looked like.
Kim and Josh were just holding hands. It was a friendly thing to do, Bonnie assured herself. They were just being friendly holding hands like that and when Josh walked Kim to class, it was as a friend; Bonnie followed the pair since they walked away holding hands. And when Kim kissed Josh on the cheek, it was just a friendly kiss…right? Oh god, Bonnie hoped so, but that anxious feeling returned ten fold.
The feeling was so overwhelming that she could not even rationalize it to herself for the moment. She just allowed her body to react while she trotted off away from the terrible sight. She retreated to an empty stairway and leaned against the wall, hyperventilating over what she had witnessed.
She felt angry, but also like she wanted to cry. She tried to tell herself that she did not know why she felt that way; after all, she hated Kim and did not like Josh as much as she pretended to. So, she should not feel so strongly and negatively over what she had seen. And then that evil voice in her mind decided to speak up. You know why you feel so strongly and negatively, so stop kidding yourself.
Bonnie shook her head, both to disagree and hopefully to shut the voice up. She did not care about Kim. She hated Kim, she silently insisted. She did. No, you don’t.
Bonnie refused to admit anything to herself other than that she hated Kim. She took a deep breath to get herself together, which took a few minutes, and then she went to class. She was late, of course, but she did not care. She then made it her mission to find out what was going on between Mankey and Possible.
A few people, like Tara, were reluctant to tell Bonnie what was happening between Kim and Josh. They were that way because they assumed that Bonnie liked Josh. Wrong one, the voice in the back of her mind whispered. It almost sounded as if it was laughing at her in her opinion.
Bonnie felt even worse than before when she found that Kim and Josh were now a couple. She sucked it as best she could to make it through school, but everyone noticed that she was not her usual self. She skipped cheer practice altogether, knowing instinctively that she would not be able to face Kim without causing an embarrassing scene. And you know why, the voice seemed to taunt her and she cracked due to emotional stress that she was currently under thanks to the news.
Okay, she knew why! Lord, she knew why. She did not admit to herself until she was safe in her bedroom, though. Once she was in there, she sighed in despair while throwing herself onto her bed as if it would impale her and take all the pain of the day away.
“I like her. I really like her…” Bonnie whispered to the safe, uncompromising air. She liked Kim Possible.
She had always liked Kim in a friendly manner at the least because she never forgot the day that they met, how nice Kim and Ron were to her and the fact that Kim had saved her. She grew to admire Kim and how the redhead was good at everything, even if it was slightly annoying and blocked her goal, in her opinion anyway. She liked being around Kim, even though she typically made fun of the redhead when they were near each other. There was just a comforting brightness to Kim that warmed Bonnie whenever she was in Kim’s presence, like knowing that no matter what she did to the redhead, if she did need help again in life, Kim probably would help her without much though, even though she was so mean to the hero. She did not have that with anyone else in life; she could not count on anyone like she could Kim. She could not describe how safe and comforting such a thing was.
And now the teen hero was dating and she was dating that jerk Josh. Kim should have known that she could do better, Bonnie thought with some attitude. There was nothing about Josh that made him deserving of the redhead, she believed.
Bonnie did not like the very notion of Josh dating her Kim. Yours, the voice in her head questioned. The turquoise-eyed had not realized that she thought of Kim possessively until that moment. The voice in her head had something though and it was going to run with it now. You wish she were yours, the voice continued.
“So what if I do?” Bonnie asked aloud. Yes, every now and then the voice that she knew was just a part of her that she wished would go away got to her enough to where she answered it out loud. She never carried on a conversation with the voice out loud, though. Responding aloud once was just an opening to start debating with herself to hopefully come to some conclusion, although she usually just came out more confused than when she went into the self-discovery.
So what if she wanted Kim? It was not like she was ever going to be able to have her or even openly acknowledge that she did want Kim, if that was the case. Her sisters would never let her live it down, that she was what they called her all along, namely a dyke. She could not imagine living through that. She wanted them to respect her, like they seemed to do each other. She was their sister too! So, she doubted that it would be possible for her to gain their respect and be accepted by them if she turned out to be homosexual, or bisexual, whichever. She had never really sat down and thought about her sexuality. She just had too much on her mind and assumed that she was straight because it was what her sisters seemed to think was right.
You do know that if you let them get to you, she won’t be yours, the voice pointed out the obvious, throwing Bonnie’s conscious words back at her. The teenager sighed; she hated it when the voice decided to make sense and try to reason with her. All she wanted out of life was for her sisters to respect her, to stop making fun of her as they had been doing all her life. It was not much to ask for, was it? Well, what makes you think they’ll ever stop and even if they did, what then? Bonnie thought on that one for long moment.
If she did something incredible her sisters would have to respect her, right? It just had to be that way; she had told herself that all her life. If she could just do something that was bloody brilliant, they would have to respect her. They would just have to.
Well, she ran down the list of things that she had done through out her life that had not gained her the respect that she coveted more than anything else on the planet. She followed them in ballet and was praised very heavily by their teacher for her talent and all her sisters did was seem to resent it. She had proven to be a bit of a mind when it came to science, having actually won a couple of science-fairs in grade school, but they did not seem to care. Hell, Connie made it seem like science was not a measure of intelligence whenever Bonnie won a science fair. She had a boyfriend now that kind of shut Lonnie up, but Connie just had to new opening with Brick being a bit educationally challenged.
Bonnie sighed; was it really a pipe dream that her sisters would one day like her in the way they seemed like to each other? If so, she had wasted so much time and effort and she just could not let that go. Why not? Only a fool would hold on to a dream that would never come true. There was always a possibility, Bonnie silently insisted. But, she quickly countered herself, mentally commenting how it was possible that pigs would fly some day, but not likely. It was probably less likely than that for her sisters to actually see her as one of them one day.
Bonnie did not know what to do as she came to the conclusion that the stupid, evil voice in the back of her head wanted her to; her life had been almost a waste. Her dream had been nothing but an illusion of a child that she never let go. Her sisters were never going to accept her like they did each other, for a reason that was totally beyond her, and she did not totally hate a certain redhead. Still, even if she did not hate Kim, how did that explain her feelings from seeing Kim with Josh and the sudden possessiveness that used when referring to Kim? It would seem that she had already buried her earlier conclusion because she was not completely ready to face that fact.
Next time: Bonnie writes a letter to Kim.