Under normal circumstances, I’d rather be sitting in an empty parking lot or a doctor’s office waiting room all day than here. In fact, I’d rather sit and hear the old nuns at Sisters of Virtue drone on for hours instead of subject myself to this willingly.
But this is more than a chance to get my foot in the door with Bridget’s friends.
It’s a chance to humiliate her.
So long as her friends don’t manage to humiliate me beyond repair first.
Annabelle is one of the only girls here who’s name I bothered to learn before today. She’s plain compared to Bridget, but would otherwise be considered pretty—if it wasn’t for the pinched-up way that she keeps her nose at any given moment. It’s a look not resigned to her, unfortunately.
In fact, most of the girls here—all from Ridgecrest—share a similar expression. But maybe that’s only when they’re looking at, or having to interact with, me.
“Ew,” says Annabelle, who’s already two flutes in, as she looks over my outfit. Obviously, the champagne has gotten rid of any polite filter that she might have had to begin with, however forced it may have been. “Why are you wearing those clothes?”
She looks me over for a second time, as if seeing me for the first time.
I just bat my lashes at her and tilt my head to one side, playing dumb. “What are you talking about?” I look down at myself, at the open blouse tucked into my school skirt. “This is just the Ridgecrest uniform. They do allow plain button-ups.”
Not that they’re meant to be worn quite this way.
“No, I mean, why are you wearing those particular clothes,” she says, her words already slurring.
These girls must have gotten used to a lot more alcohol before they got tucked away at Ridgecrest. They’re all drinking like fish, but not one of them has made it to their third glass yet, and already I can see glassy eyes and flushed faces all around.
Annabelle, meanwhile, somehow manages to screw up her face even more before continuing, “I get it that the whole open-legged tramp thing is your style, but even that aesthetic can surely have some higher-end pieces to it? You look like you just walked out of a thrift shop, or maybe an animal shelter. Either way, it looks like you’re wearing something that other people discarded as trash. It’s gross.”
“Right?” This time, it’s another one of the girls that leans in. I don’t catch her name over the words that come tumbling out of her mouth next. “Is this going to be your date to the gala, Bridget … or did you finally manage to snag that boyfriend of yours?”
If my ears could perk up, they would now. “Gala? What gala?”
The other girls must not notice the look on Bridget’s face, but I do—and it’s enough to make me lean in even closer to the circle of girls, despite their sour champagne breath. “This is the first I’ve heard of a gala on campus.”
Annabelle leans back, her hand waving dismissively in my direction. “It would be, for you.”
“Only students that matter get invited,” the other girl replies, still ignoring Bridget’s silent plea to keep quiet. “Otherwise, the Ridgecrest review board would have to re-review all the cases.”
Review board?
I freeze for a second, remembering something Bridget told me on my very first day at Ridgecrest.
I thought she was delusional then … but maybe I was wrong. If there really is a way to get out of Ridgecrest a term early, then I need to know about it.
“Shut up,” Bridget hisses, making a cutthroat gesture with one of her hands.
She’s ignored, however, in favor of a drop of attention. Even if it’s mine, the same girl they were just making fun of not that long ago, it seems these girls are all starving for whatever attention they can get.
So, I just bat my eyelashes even more as I ask, “And this gala … how did you all get into it?”
“You have to be invited, of course,” Annabelle says, cutting off the other girl before she can speak. “But don’t worry about it. You won’t be.”
Bridget is starting to look more and more like a desperate mime, but I press further.
“How are you sure? Isn’t there some way—”
It’s the other girl that laughs, this time cutting Annabelle off. “Not in a million years,” she says, “because we’re the ones who would have to invite you. So, I’ll just save you the trouble by letting you know now. Don’t bother trying.”
Bridget stills, a small breath of relief whispering out between her lips. I, meanwhile, can’t bring myself to look at her. I can’t bring myself to look at any of them.
Of all the things I expected to embarrass me, this is not it.
But still, somehow, her words sting.
Pull it together, Aubrey.
I thought that there wasn’t anything these girls could say to me that would embarrass me, but I guess I was wrong because that comment does. This is not what I wanted to happen while I mingled with all these mean girls.
I’m supposed to be infiltrating their side of the cool-kids table, not be the charity case that they adopt in exchange for doing their homework. I need to fit in with them, and I need them to view me as an equal and not an outsider.
Or if not an equal, at least … at least not the very bottom of the food chain.
The very bottom that can’t even get an invitation to the review to get away from Ridgecrest for a stupid gala.
I set my own barely touched glass to the side and excuse myself for a moment. It takes me so long to find the nearest bathroom—a massive room with marble countertops and busts of roman generals lined up along the wall—that I’ve nearly forgotten the whole incident by the time
