"Why can't you just do what people tell you to do? Just for once in your life?" her best friend, Linda, screamed at her before storming off.
It certainly wasn't uncalled for. She'd always been one of those people for whom what they wanted and what people wanted of them, usually wasn't the same thing. It didn't matter what it was about this time. It was trivial, which made it so much harder to understand why it was so important to her, to get her will. And for Linda it obviously wasn't about this one thing, it just was the last straw, again. She wasn't too worried about it though. They've had similar arguments a lot lately. They would just make up tomorrow, as always.
She walked the last few steps to her house, went up to her room, threw her backpack into a corner and stayed there listening to music and browsing the internet until it was time for diner. Her parents, her younger brother, Kevin, and her always had dinner together. And, as had happened regularly lately, she had another fight with her parents. Kevin wasn't shy but he knew when it was better for him to shut up and so it was just her against them. When she finished eating and there was no end to the argument in sight, she just left to go back to her room. When she was almost out of hearing distance, one of them shouted "Why can't you just do as you're told?" after her.
She didn't stop until she was in her room. She had received the same basic question from two people that she cared about today and she didn't have a good answer for them. Obviously neither of them wanted her to be a robot who just takes orders but maybe she was being too confrontational lately. She wasn't even sure why she did it. It certainly didn't make her happy. And people who she cared for didn't seem too thrilled either. So was she just making everyone around her, and herself, miserable for some weird sense of pride? That's not the type of person she wanted to be.
Maybe she should just try to do what people wanted her to do. Just for a while, to see what it was like. She could always just go back to the old her again when it became unbearable or nothing about her situation actually changed. She actually kinda' liked this idea. She would just set her own interested back for a while and see how things worked out.
She kept thinking about this until she fell asleep listening to her favourite music.
When she woke up the next morning, the first thing she did was to reconsider the decision. She had learned a couple of years back that thoughts, that sounded smart in the evening, might be completely silly the next morning, but weirdly this one still somehow made sense. Well, it didn't really make that much sense but she didn't have anything to loose and this seemed plausible enough to be worth a try. With yesterday's resolution reaffirmed she decided to put her new attitude into practice immediately.
Even though she wasn't a long sleeper her parents had problems getting her out of bed every morning, but it was still early enough that, if she showered now, there would be no conflict between her and her brother as there usually was. So against her better nature she forced herself to stand up right now, before her resolve would dissolve again, and walked into the bathroom across the floor. Later, when her brother walked into the kitchen, where she already was eating breakfast, he seemed much more relaxed than after the usual shouting through the bathroom door one of them did every day. She was surprised, and glad, how fast her new behaviour was showing positive results.
Their mother was already at work at the office. Her father worked for a middle-sized software company that allowed him to work from home, so it was usually his responsibility to serve them breakfast. He placed a bowl of cereal in front of Kevin and went back to cleaning the dishes from the breakfast her parents usually had together before they had to get up for school. Yesterday's argument hadn't come up all morning. Fights from the evening before, usually weren't mentioned again by her parents, and this one was no exception.
When she was finished she brought her bowl to her father, at the sink, took her bag, said "Good Bye" and went off to school. Kevin and her went to the same school but they usually avoided going there together.
As soon as she passed through the school's entrance gate she saw Mark grinning mischievously. He was standing next to the main entrance of the school building, apparently just waiting for his friends. They weren't friends but there was was a certain mutual respect and appreciation between them. They both enjoyed their regular, let's call them, battles of wits. The moment he spotted her he greeted her with a "Good morning, Jennifer. How about a blowjob?" immediately exemplifying why they weren't friends. For every actually witty comeback, there was at least one of these.
She was already about to put all her disgust for that question into an annoyed look and just walk past him when she remembered her decision to do what people asked her to. Did it even apply here? Obviously the question was rhetorical and not meant to be taken seriously. She knew that as soon as she started making exceptions, she would find a loophole out of anything she didn't want to do, though. Also, Mark would surely like a blowjob, even though he was just joking, and wasn't the whole point of this to try to please people instead of getting her own way?
All these thoughts went through her head as she stopped in front of him and asked "Do you mean right now?" sounding way more sarcastic than she had been her intention.
"No, I meant later at my place" came his mocking response.
"OK. See you there." She said, again drenching the statement in sarcasm, and entered the building. She would have to make up her mind about this later.
She wouldn't meet Linda until second period. The first she spend being mostly quiet and paying attention instead of chatting with classmates and doodling on her notebook as usual, and she was surprised how the teacher seemed much less hostile.