It’s my chance to talk to the board members of Brown and to convince them that I’m ready to attend their elite school and that they would be stupid not to re-accept me early.
Plus, it’s a gala. Enough said.
It’ll be a welcome break from the monotony of this place.
Of course, my main focus will be on talking to the Brown review board members, but I’m pretty sure that I’ll have time to squeeze in a bit of vengeful mischief on the sly too.
My favorite pastime as of late.
But the gala isn’t for a while still, and right now I need to get back to focusing for real on my volunteer work and my classes for a while. I still have to make sure that I’m performing well and meeting all of my requirements if I want to get out of this place and make it to Brown without having to finish up a third semester of penitence here.
Over the next few days, everything seems to be going pretty normal. Warren is showing up to volunteer and for the most part we both just go about our tasks. Now that I’ve gotten my invitation, I see no point in forcing myself through the ordeal of sitting with Bridget and her friends. It’s a welcome relief to be myself—my true self—around Alaska and Clark for more than a few minutes at a time, and I soon find my grasp on Bridget slipping.
But I don’t mind.
Maybe it’ll be good for me. My friends might have been right, after all. Maybe I was getting just a little too intense. It could be good for me to take a breather and focus on something else for a change.
Just for a while.
The end of Ridgecrest is in sight, after all.
Nothing too remarkable happens, until, of course, it does.
“Um, why are they walking over here?” Alaska asks as she looks over my shoulder one afternoon at lunch.
I turn around to see who she’s talking about, and my mouth hangs open so wide that a piece of my salad falls out. Two of Bridget’s friends are walking toward our table. I stare at them until they reach us, waiting to see what they could possibly want.
Of course, my first thought goes right back to the invitation, and I swear my heart stops for a second.
But there’s no malice on their faces as they approach—not even the kind usually concealed behind faked smiles.
“Hey,” Tammy says simply as she pulls out a chair at the table and sits herself down in it without waiting to be asked if she’d like to join us—which, of course, no one would have asked her to do.
The other girl surprises me even more.
It’s Annabelle, the same one who made fun of me at the little “party” I had the misfortune of attending at the start of term. But there are no snide remarks from her either. She just sheepishly follows Tammy’s lead and sits down as well.
I glance between Alaska and Clark and am relieved to see they both look equally as shocked. At least I know I didn’t somehow wake up in an alternate universe.
The two girls start to pick at their neat, vegan, lunches and then randomly start talking about ideas for an upcoming Halloween party as if it’s completely normal that they have decided to come sit over here at our table for the first time like ever. I look back over to their table and can see that Bridget isn’t here today, at least not at lunch.
The fact that I didn’t notice that before makes me wonder if maybe I’ve been a little too comfortable lately.
Though that still doesn’t explain why Tammy and Annabelle are sitting across from me now, acting as if it’s perfectly normal for them to be here.
Maybe they just decided that they didn’t want to sit alone and would prefer to have company … even if that company was us. As odd as it is, I decide not think too much of it, even when they come and do the same thing the next day. But on the third day, when Bridget is actually at lunch and sitting at her table, not only do the same two girls come to sit with us, but so do all of the other girls at the table with the exception of one who seems to have her nose in her burner phone and isn’t paying attention to anyone anyway.
The table that used to just have me, Alaska, and Clark, now has an entire gaggle of girls—popular girls. Girls that left Bridget to sit almost entirely by herself.
“Okay, what gives?” I finally ask them after just having looked over at Bridget who’s sitting and looking miserable at her table without her friends there to listen to her mean-girl exploits.
“What do you mean?” Tammy asks, as if she’s oblivious to the fact that anything has changed.
“You’re all sitting here,” I say, laying out the obvious. “At the table that the three of us sit at.”
I motion to Alaska and Clark, who are both anxiously waiting to see how the situation is going to unfold.
“We’ve been sitting her for days now,” the girl sitting next to Tammy says. “Haven’t you noticed?”
God these girls are either really good at playing dumb, or they really are dumb.
“Yes, of course I’ve noticed,” I say, trying my best to keep annoyance out of my voice. “But I just figured you were sitting with us because Bridget wasn’t at lunch. But now she’s here, so why are you still sitting with us instead of back at your normal table with her?”
Tammy looks over at Bridget, who’s trying desperately to ignore all of us. It’s not really working for her though because I can see her glancing over this way. When Tammy looks back at me, she just shrugs.
“We’d just rather sit here,” she says.
Is it possible that I’ve stolen Bridget’s friends? I wanted to get ‘in’ with them, but could
