Still, I pause to take a couple careful, measured breaths.
I need to pull myself together in more ways than one. I need to remember why I’m here and what I’m doing this for.
Ever since I arrived at Ridgecrest—no, before—I’ve felt like I’ve been losing grip of who I am.
But maybe that’s not it. Maybe I’m only now finding out who I truly am.
And who I am does not need validation from the likes of Bridget and her friends. Who I am needs revenge.
But who I am also apparently needs an invitation to this gala. So, as much as I’d like to storm out of here and find some pigs to slaughter to pull a Carrie, I can’t do that.
I take one quick look in the mirror, make some slight adjustments to my hair and wipe away the shadow of a smudge beneath my eye, before heading back out, head held high.
I don’t really need to get close with Bridget’s friends. I just need them to trust me enough that when the time comes, I can get the hell out of Ridgecrest once and for all.
One of them is going to have to give me the invitation, because Bridget would skin herself alive before finding a way to get one for me.
When I return, Bridget is the only one to glance up at me—and only for a second. The moment her eyes flit away, another glass of champagne lifted to her lips, I see the slightest hint of a smug smile tug at the corner of her mouth.
Bridget won this one, I’ll give her that.
But we’ll see how long that smile of hers lasts.
Chapter Five
It isn’t long.
After the stupid party, in which I wouldn’t have purchased anything even if I did have money to spare, I hit Bridget up for some clothes as soon as we get back to our room. I may not want the approval of her friends for myself, but I have a feeling they won’t take me seriously until I have a name brand tag on my shirt.
Even if it looks exactly the same as the school issued one.
And, of course, it doesn’t hurt that I know the pain it will cause Bridget to have to share.
She’s not exactly the generous type, after all.
“What do you mean my clothes?” she asks, balking even more than I expected. “I have to wear my clothes. I draw the line at walking around campus naked for you for god’s sake.”
She is so overly dramatic. She knows I’m not asking her to walk around naked.
This is just another part of her game. Act dumb, get what she wants.
Well not anymore.
I cut to the chase.
“You had a whole different wardrobe pre-baby, I’m sure,” I say. Knowing her, she’s had ten different wardrobes since then.
“Hush!” she scolds as she looks around our room in case anyone heard me say pre-baby.
There’s no one here but the two of us, but I’m glad that she’s still worried about it enough to know that she has no choice but to do what I ask. For a moment there, she was almost starting to fool me that she really didn’t care.
That’s when a girl gets truly dangerous. I would know.
“I want you to donate all your old clothes to me,” I say, tilting up my chin slightly.
“Donate? God, my friends are right—you really are like a walking thrift shop. Fine, I’ll pick them up the next time I go home to visit.”
Now I cock my head. Bridget never would have allowed me to wait it out like this back when she was blackmailing me. In fact, I’m pretty sure the very first time I failed to do exactly as she asked, exactly when she asked, she went and spilled my secret to the entire school.
“No, I need them now.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” she says in exasperation. “I just got back here practically! And I have a coffee date with Sterling tonight. It will take me all weekend to get home and back just to get those clothes for you.”
She bites her tongue, as if trying to keep herself from lashing out further, then snaps out, “You really couldn’t have asked me this earlier? We were practically up the road from my house.”
“A date with Sterling?” I ask, suddenly. Something inside me seizes up. “I didn’t know you two were …”
She sucks on her teeth for a moment, realizing her mistake.
I, meanwhile, feel the strange sensation of jealousy wash over me. I wish it wasn’t that. I shouldn’t feel jealous of this. Of them.
But something about the two of them together sickens me, banishing any hope for Bridget that I might relent on my most recent demand.
“Then I guess you’d better leave now,” I say with a smile that I’m not even trying to make seem real, since she wouldn’t bother trying to believe it anyway.
She’s really starting to hate me. I can see it in her eyes. Bridget grabs her purse and heads toward the door of our dorm—head held high.
That simply won’t do.
I’m trying to break Bridget after all, and she’s not an easy one to break.
“Oh wait,” I say calling after her. “Give me the clothes you have on now before you leave.”
“What? No!”
“You have plenty of other outfits to put on,” I say as I motion to her overflowing dresser.
“Then pick something from there,” she says. “I’m not giving you the ones I’m wearing.”
“I don’t want any of the ones from your dresser,” I say. “I want the ones you have on.”
Bridget looks horrified. She also looks like she wants to tell me to fuck off. But instead, she marches back into the room and grabs a new outfit to wear, before taking off the one she had on and tossing it to me as hard as she can.
“There, happy?”
“Yep,” I grin, knowing I’ll never wear it. “Safe trip.”
I think I’m starting to understand
