“You only think that because you don’t understand it yet.”
“That feels insulting.”
“It’s science,” she corrected absently, like that settled everything. She pulled off one glove with her teeth and reached for her notebook, her handwriting slanting sharply across the page while she talked.
“You should come to Bellamont next year.”
I blinked. “What?”
She glanced up at me impatiently, as if I were the one struggling to keep up.
“Public school must be boring. You should transfer.”
“To Bellamont?”
“Yes!”
I laughed immediately, not because it was funny but because the idea felt impossible. Bellamont Academy sat less than fifteen minutes away from the Montgomery estate, but it might as well have been on another planet. Even before we moved to Blackwater, I had heard people talk about it the way they talked about Ivy League schools or royal families. Politicians’ children went there. CEOs’ children. Girls who spent summers in Switzerland and boys who already knew which investment firms their fathers planned to hand them someday. Girls like me cleaned their houses.
“Katherine,” I said carefully, “your tuition probably costs more than my mother makes in two years.”
She waved one gloved hand dismissively. “That’s easily fixable.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.” She finally looked up from the frog, eyes bright now in the way they became whenever an idea caught hold of her completely.
“You hate your school.”
“That doesn’t mean I can magically attend yours.”
“You’re smarter than most people there.”
“That’s definitely not true.”
“It is socially true.”
I laughed again despite myself. “That’s not a real category.”
“It should be.” She pulled off the second glove and sat up straighter, completely abandoning the frog.
“You already know how to act as if you belong there.”
“I do not, that’s ridiculous.”
“You absolutely do.” Her voice grew more certain with every word. “Half the girls at Bellamont spend thousands of dollars trying to seem effortless. You already are.”
I stared at her. No one had ever described me that way before. Effortless. My entire life had been an effort. Katherine kept going before I could answer.
“You’d do better there than you think.”
“I can barely pass chemistry.”
“That’s because your chemistry teacher is incompetent.”
“You say that about everyone.”
“Because most people are.” She leaned forward, excitement overtaking whatever small hesitation had been there.
