Cher Horowitz is used to being admired.

She’s used to people wanting her approval, her clothes, her life. Popularity is just how things work—it’s not even a question.

So when you don’t care, it throws her completely off balance.

“You could sit with us,” she says one afternoon, gesturing toward her usual lunch table—Dionne, perfect outfits, perfectly curated chaos.

You shrug. “I’m good here.”

Here being the quieter table. No audience. No performance.

Cher blinks. “But… why?”

You smile, not unkindly. “I don’t really like the whole popularity thing. Feels exhausting.”

That word sticks with her.

Exhausting.

She laughs it off at first, but later, it gnaws at her. When you don’t show up to her party because you “just didn’t feel like it.” When you compliment her ideas instead of her clothes. When you talk about things that have nothing to do with status.

“You don’t judge people by where they sit,” she says one day, half-accusing, half-curious.

“No,” you reply. “I judge them by whether they’re real.”

Cher bristles. “I’m real.”

You look at her gently. “I know. That’s why I like you.”

And that’s the problem.

Because liking you makes her question everything—why she cares so much about image, why your approval feels different, why the thought of you seeing her as shallow hurts more than she’ll admit.

Dionne notices, of course.

“You’re spiraling,” she says. “Over someone who does not care about popularity.”

Cher groans. “I know! It’s confusing! They don’t even want to be part of my world.”

“But you want to be part of theirs,” Dionne points out.

That night, Cher finds you alone by the lockers.

“Do you hate my world?” she asks suddenly.

You’re surprised. “No. I just don’t want it to define me.”

She nods slowly. “What if it defines me?”

You step closer. “Then I’d want to know who you are without it.”

For once, Cher doesn’t have a clever comeback.

She exhales. “I don’t know how to be that person yet.”

“That’s okay,” you say. “I’m not asking you to change.”

She smiles—small, uncertain, honest.

“Good,” she says. “Because I think I’m falling for you… and I hate that it’s making me rethink everything.”