Unbeknownst to the dryad and the djinn, while they were talking in the bathroom, a certain blonde dragoness was crying in a stall one hall over. Sarah felt like a thrice dammned fool as she fruitlessly tried to keep her mascara from running. If she wanted to avoid damaging her reputation any further than it already would be, she couldn't show weakness when she went back out there. You didn't even really like the bastard, why are you so upset, she chided herself. While she and Biff had never had the closest relationship, she had tried to be a good partner to him. So what if their relationship was borne out of mutual benefit, rather than affection? Hadn't she always been the perfect girlfriend, keeping his dad off his back, propping up his dominance over the social order at school, and cheering him on at every game? Maybe that's why it had still hurt so much to discover him making out with Lily Vanderfield under the bleachers, when she went to find him after he didn't show up at their lunch table.
It wasn't that she was heartbroken or anything, but she was terribly embarrassed. How could he do that to her!? Tiffany had been following her when she went to look, so of course it would be all over school by next period. Sarah had spent three years fighting to the top of the social hierarchy and establishing her dominance, only for Biff to screw everything up. Eggshells! She'd only dated the dumb brute in the first place to maintain her spot at the top of the heap. Fighting for dominance, both socially and at times physically was a deeply ingrained instinct in young Dragonewts; it was part of why it was so rare for more than one family to live in the same territory. That instinct could be curbed with age, calming down immensely once they'd found their mate or mates, but for Sa'rah it was in fullswing and manifested as a searing need to be the most popular kid in school. That coupled with a fading desire to make Karyn jealous had driven her to where she was today.
So no, she wasn't crying over losing Biff as a boyfriend, if anything she was mostly just furious at the insult he'd given by cheating on her; she was crying because it brought home how much of a sham her life seemed to be. She knew, she knew half the squad and her so-called friends would be gossiping like crazy, ready to pounce on this gap in her scales. Some would stick by her, but she was in for a battle to maintain her status as queen of this domain. Which was almost certainly what Lily, who fancied herself Sa'rah's rival wanted in the first place. The girl must fancy herself some sort of Anne Boleyn, looking to become queen by seducing the king. However, she'd made an error in her judgment, for Biff was no Henry the VIII; he was only the top dog of the school, because Sarah made sure it was so, and now that he'd made an enemy of her, he could expect fire to rain down upon him.
That was the thing though. She could weather this, fight back, destroy Lily and Biff and secure her kingdom, but she was just so tired. She was tired of fighting to rule over a mound of ants. As much as a deep seated part of her was roaring for vengeance, and to reassert her control, it was for once being drowned out by how unhappy she felt with her situation. That was why she was crying. I don't want to be the girl who find's her partner cheating on her, and her first thought is how this is going to affect her chances of winning prom queen. I want to actually be in love, she realized.
Wiping her tears away, she stepped out to find the mirror and try and salvage her makeup. Lunch was almost over, so she'd have to bottle up these emotions for now, and try to process them when she got home. Her parents might threaten to burn the Meadows' house down when she told them, but maybe they could give her some comfort and advice too. She managed to get herself mostly back looking put together, with only a little red puffiness indicating that she'd been crying. That probably wasn't the worst thing, didn't want people thinking she was a total ice queen. Even if they misinterpreted the reason she'd been crying, a little sympathy was probably going to be useful in riding out the waves of this scandal. She liked to think most people would be on her side anyway, since she was the one who got cheated on, but she couldn't count on it. There'd be a fair amount of Schadenfreude and people liable to side with Biff in the breakup anyway.
She stared at herself in the mirror, her mind still racing in a thousand different directions, some of them contradictory. How should she play this for social advantage? Was she happy? Did she even care? How best to destroy Lily and Biff? Did any of it even matter? What would her parents say? Why was she so awkward with Jasmine that morning? How kind the Mediterranean girl seemed. How much she wanted a friend like that. How much she wished she had someone to talk to. How much she wanted to talk to Karyn.
And it was at that moment, as if by some cosmic sense of timing, that a tiny tendril of magic, snaked its way down the hallway, and gave her brain a little nudge.
