Ugh.
That rat bastard hasn’t spoken more than a handful of words to me since yesterday; I should throat punch him. Then again, I did find my pan of cornbread carefully wrapped, buttered, and sitting outside my bedroom door last night—with a single piece missing. Who else would’ve done that but for Parrish?
Anyway, school is nice because at least I have a place to escape from Tess. Every day I spend in that house is a century too long.
“The only person I really like is my brother Ben,” I murmur, helping Danyella go through an old box of costumes that she found in the back of one of the theater department’s closets. There’s quality stuff in here for sure. Expensive stuff. At some point, it’s clear that Whitehall Prep did enjoy putting on a good show.
I mean, I guess they still do, they just like it in the hallways and during parties on the weekends.
“I thought you liked Amelia and Henry, too?” Danyella queries, shaking out a dress and taking mental stock of all the parts she can rip off and repurpose elsewhere. I’ve learned over the last several weeks that even if she seems distracted, Danyella is a good listener.
It’s nice to have her around, especially considering Nevaeh and Sally barely respond to me anymore.
“Amelia seemed okay at first, but the more I’m around her, it seems like she’s just a Kimber-in-the-making. And Henry’s too shy and introverted. I can’t break through his shell.”
“You mean he hasn’t let you in yet,” Danyella corrects, lifting up a single finger for emphasis. “Not yet. Give it time.”
I sigh and help her gather the costumes into a pile, dreading the idea of leaving the theater. Parrish is acting even colder than usual—didn’t think it was possible, but the guy’s a pro—and anyway, the only time we’ve had together is in the car on the way to school with Kimber present. There’s nothing I can say around her. Somehow, I know that if she finds out that her brother and I were making out, she’ll kick sibling convention out the window and go running to Tess to blab.
There’s that, and then there’s Chasm.
Chasm.
He was smiling and laughing with a group of friends in the hallway today—most of them girls. Parrish is that cold, rich, King Sloth dickhead that everyone secretly lusts after. Chasm is the smarty-pants sweetheart that everyone’s openly in love with. The longer I’m here, the more I see it. That slouchy bad boy thing is all an act. He’s like, aggressively good-natured.
And, I made out with Parrish and he saw. He saw his best friend touching my boob.
Danyella picks up the box with a sigh, and I reach out to fix her glasses for her. They fall off her nose about thirty times a day, and she just pops the lenses back in place. It drives me insane. I think she’s too in her head to care about smudged or broken glasses.
“You’re blushing again,” she says, and I look down at the few undone buttons at the top of my shirt. It’s quite clear that my boobs are red again. “Is this about the Parrish thing?”
“It just happened yesterday,” I murmur, just before Lumen breaks into the theatre like she’s in a teen movie from the early 2000s. The whole world should slow down and “Yoo Hoo” by Imperial Teen should be playing. I’m a Y2K expert, thanks to Saffron. The only mother-daughter things she really liked to do with me and Maxine—on the rare occasions she did anything with us—was watch old movies and shop.
Which, you know, is better than Tess even with minimal effort.
“What are you up to, my bitches?” Lumen asks, collapsing into one of the theater chairs and crossing her legs at the ankle. Her other friends look around the place like they’ve never seen it before—and that they think that’s a good thing. They seem to be as afraid of Lumen as Kimber is of Parrish, though, and keep their mouths shut.
“Using bitches as a companionable term doesn’t erases decades of its use as a misogynistic insult. I’m sorry, but I don’t support the repurposing of hate-filled words.” Danyella sets the box down on the table at the front of the room, but as usual, Lumen ignores her.
“Come to our Young Republicans meeting today,” she begs, and Danyella throws her a dark look. “Not you, obviously. I know you’re a left-wing nut.”
“And you’re a right-wing nut, what’s the difference?” Danyella retorts, labelling the box Useful Scraps with a Sharpie. I’m officially in the drama club now, with the title of ‘extra hand’. That is, someone with absolutely zero skills but who’s allowed to participate anyway. Thank god for that: this is the only activity Tess will allow me to do after school and only because she reluctantly agreed that extracurriculars look good on college apps. “And you know Dakota falls about dead center. She doesn’t want to come with you.”
