And, apparently, easy to slack off on it, too.
I look over at Warren, who is surprisingly not only doing his volunteer work, but he looks as if he’s trying to get it done quickly. That’s new. I never exactly saw him as the hardworking type—not when it came to, you know, actual work.
I’m starting to get the feeling that he’s not bailing on his volunteer shifts simply to bail, but that maybe there’s something else that he uses that volunteer time to go and do. I have no idea what it could be, but I’m suddenly determined to find out. If he is up to something, I’m sure it’s nothing good. It might even be something that I can get him into bigger trouble over—maybe even end up having leverage against both him and his sister.
Who knows … Bridget once mentioned there were ways to get out of Ridgecrest early. Maybe if I get enough leverage, I’ll find out if that’s actually true.
“So,” I say as I walk over to help him finish his work once I’ve already finished mine. I guess one of the good things about not growing up with a maid is that you learn to actually clean efficiently—something that I can see he still hasn’t mastered.
“What are you doing?” Warren asks when I pick up the broom and start to sweep his area.
“Helping.”
“I don’t need your help,” he says abrasively.
I ignore him and keep sweeping. “Where do you go during your volunteer shifts if you’re not here?” I ask.
Warren’s head snaps up to look at me, a curious expression flitting across his face.
“None of your business.”
I can see him struggling with the mop handle.
“Haven’t you ever used a mop before?” I ask.
Warren sets the mop up against the wall and stares at me, offended. I’m not sure why a rich kid like him would take offense to that. Didn’t they love the fact that they got other people to do their work for them?
“Of course I have,” he says with a scowl.
He clearly hasn’t.
“Let me just—”
I start reaching for the mop, but he bats my hand away. Hard.
Hard enough to make the top of my hand sting.
“Leave,” he says.
“But I’m trying to—”
“Leave!” he shouts at me.
Fine with me. I was only trying to get information out of him anyway.
Chapter Four
In my classes, there’s still some snickering and note-passing, but instead of letting it bother me, I make a point to completely lean into it.
The more that I see the other students staring at me and talking behind their hands, the more I play it up. After a few more days of it, I’m showing up to class wearing makeup that would rival a goth queen, and my blouse, unbuttoned far enough that you could definitely see all the way down to the bottom of my cleavage. It turns out it’s hard for people to try and insult me by calling me a slut if I actually am one.
Especially when I seem to be enjoying myself.
Which I admittedly am.
It’s like playing dress up in my own skin all the time. A strange kind of armor that involves, well, showing more skin instead of covering it up.
After a while, just as I predicted, the whispering dies down since no one is getting the reaction out of me that they were hoping for.
Now for the next step.
It isn’t enough to quell the whispers forever. To do that, I have to get to the source of them.
The event that Bridget invited me to is a private gathering that under any other circumstances I would rather waterboard myself than attend. Apparently one of the girls’ moms started one of those private lingerie sales businesses, the pyramid-scheme type ones where you only really end up making money off your friends who don’t have the gall to tell you “no”. Since it involved overly priced lingerie and a bottomless champagne fountain, all of Bridget’s friends seem to be genuinely excited about.
That is, if I’m to believe anything of the increasingly loud squealing coming from their table at lunch as the weekend draws near.
In fact, Bridget seems to be the only one who isn’t excited about it. It wouldn’t take someone plotting her demise to see the way that sparkle of hers has started to dim over the last couple weeks.
This must truly be the first time someone’s given her a taste of her own medicine, at least in a way that counts.
I almost feel guilty.
Almost.
My guilt lasts all of five seconds once I step foot onto the grounds of the so called “party.”
As soon as Bridget and I step out of her car, and for the first time in nearly three weeks now, she turns into her former bitchy self. Her eyes take on that haughty look, her lips parting as if she’s about to spill a secret, and the tilt of her chin seeks to remind me just how far beneath her I exist.
“Let’s just see how long it takes you to stop gloating over your invitation,” she says to me, without actually looking at me. “I think you might be in for a little surprise.”
She leaves me by the car with her driver—the same one I assumed disappeared last term when Warren’s car seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Ridgecrest, for all their high-and-mighty talk, must have a place for students’ staff to wait while they’re taking out their cars for “family weekends.”
Like everything else at Ridgecrest, of course, it’s all just for show.
The woman that is hosting the party doesn’t seem to care in the least that all the girls start to get tipsy within the first fifteen minutes of arriving, as long as they’re spending their parents’ money buying all her
