“You. You and Quinn and all of your little asshole friends are my problem. What the hell, Alice? Shit in my room? That’s low, even for someone like you.” Before she can respond or shut the door in my face, I shove the tank top in at her.
The smell hits her in the face and she steps back. “Oh, God, that’s terrible.”
“Yeah, it is.” When she looks like she’s going to try to shut the door, I kick my foot out, blocking her. There’s no way that I’m going to let her get away right now. I need her to see that I mean business and that I’m not going to let her get away with anything.
She tries to slam her door but it bounces off of my foot. “Move your shoe, asshole,” she hisses, but I lean against the door, forcing it open. She steps back and I burst into her room, looking around.
For what? I don’t know. Red paint, perhaps. Excess shit? The boots that someone wore when they walked through my room and ruined all of my clothes?
“This needs to stop.” Waving the shirt at her, I make her back up. She drops to the edge of her bed and sits, but is still looking at me defiantly. I know that there’s no way I can intimidate her. If I want her and the rest of the students to really back off then I need to do more than just threaten her with my dirty shirt.
“You can make it stop. You want to know how? Leave. Fucking leave, whore. Nobody wants you here. We were all perfectly happy without you here, but then you had to come and cause a scene.”
“A scene? All I did was come here so that I could get training from the best of the best, same as you. What the hell are you talking about?”
She sneers at me and stands back up, coming to stand chest-to-chest with me. “What I mean is that we all knew our places, Abigail, and you walked in like you don’t know yours. You’re not top of the class. You’re not the best painter. We all have our roles planned out for us, and why you can’t seem to wrap your thick head around that, I have no idea.”
“All of you have your roles planned out for you? What the hell does that mean?” I’m not going to tell her that I know about Quinn and Mr. Stanfield, but I’m suddenly wondering if there are more arrangements like that at Trinity Prep.
She scoffs and crosses her arms. “Yeah, let me just spill all of our secrets for you. Stupid whore. Now get out of my room before I call for help and say that you were trying to rape me.”
“What?” Without meaning to, I take a step back. “Why the hell would you say that?”
Alice shakes her head like I’m too stupid to understand what’s going on. “Because you’re obsessed with me. Now get out.” The anger in her voice makes me snap back to attention.
Did I go too far?
Without giving it much thought, I toss my ruined tank top on her bed. “With pleasure.”
She shrieks and yells my name, but I turn and keep walking. Although she didn’t fess up to being in the group who ruined my room, she told me a lot more than she meant to, I’m sure of it.
Now I just have to figure out how many people here already have their internships planned out for them. I know one of them, but what Quinn doesn’t know is that I’m taking the internship for myself.
Chapter Thirteen
The rest of the week is quiet. Madeline had helped me clean up and throw away my clothes and bedding, but no amount of scrubbing took the red letters off of my wall. Thanks to her and Natalie, I had clean clothes to wear to class, but I still felt out of place.
Pretty much everyone in the senior class knows that I had been attacked, but the only people who really care were my three friends. Everyone else is siding with Quinn.
Even the teachers.
“Abigail, I need to talk to you.” Mr. Stanfield doesn’t look up from his papers when he talks to me. The rest of the class leaves after a long afternoon of painting, and I hover near his desk, unsure of what he wants and if I should sit down.
After the shit incident, the rest of the week has flown by. I was so glad this morning that it was Friday, but now I’m beginning to wonder what exactly he wants from me and how I can make it to the weekend.
“Is something wrong, sir?” All I want to do is go grab something to eat and then come back for a few hours to work on my piece. That’s what everyone in the class is going to do, and making sure that I get the same amount of time to work on my art is important if I’m going to have a fighting chance against Quinn.
“Actually, yes.” He drops his papers to his desk and walks around it, leaning on it near me so that we can talk. His fingers are long and lean and his dark mop of hair has a little paint in it from when he was demonstrating a new technique earlier in class today. “I think that we need to talk honestly about your ability to survive at Trinity Prep.”
“Survive? That sounds ominous.” I’m uncomfortable, and I shift my feet a little, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes are locked on mine like he’ll be able to tell exactly what I’m thinking.
“Listen, Abigail, I’m going to be honest with you. Trinity Prep expects a high level of work from students in all areas, not just in their chosen creative studies. I think that you have picked up on this, am I right?” He waits until I nod and
