Fuck them, I thought lifting my head up high.Fuck all these Richies if they think they’re going to get the better of me.
But goddamn. This was day two.
“You’ve been through worse,” I muttered, remembering ten-year-old me trying to drag my drunk mother off the kitchen floor to put her to bed. Surely I could handle my best friend ghosting me with a side of bullying. I was a “tough cookie” after all.
“You’re a tough cookie, Harper,” Mom would say after a rough night. “That’s what I love about you.”
But that’s the thing. Being resilient is overrated. I don’t know anyone whowantsto be tough. I’d have liked to have been a soft little girl playing with her dolls, but you make the best with what you have.
In English, Ms. Alvarez had us analyze a poem by Sylvia Plath—“Mad Girl’s Love Song.” A poem about a boy who seems so perfect, the speaker must’ve made him up inside her head. One who didn’t seem real.
Don’t go there…I warned my brain, but it conjured up Orion Mercer. Because of course it did. This boy with a smile that turned my insides to mush and who slid into my thoughts like a burglar.
“A bandit,” I murmured.
Emery said something quite beautiful and profound about the poem. It nearly made me soften to her—she obviously had a lot going on inside she was keeping locked away.
The old me would have left her alone, but I was raw and bleedingand not going to keep taking any shit.
I was a tough cookie, after all.
I leaned over to Emery and whispered, “That was really good.”
“Thanks—”
“Too bad you’re a total fake.”
As soon as I said the words, I wanted to snatch them back. They didn’t make me feel any better about being mocked. I’d only spread more bad vibes, like a sickness.
If Dash had heard me…
Shame burned my cheeks. I could do better.Bebetter than that, and not let this school dig roots down into me and plant more rotten fruit.
***
The Academy had a ton of student-run clubs and extracurriculars that would all look good on a college application. At midmorning break, I went to one of the many patios and found the booth for the Math & Physics Club. It was manned by a handsome guy with dark hair and green eyes. Also a Bender, if I had to guess by his plain clothes and worn-out shoes.
“Dean Yearwood, secretary,” he said, introducing himself.
“Harper Bennett.”
“Pleased to meet you, Harper,” he said, handing me a clipboard. “Answer me these questions three.”
That rang a bell. Sure enough, the last question was the quote fromMonty Python and the Holy Grail. I answered the other two correctly.
“Congrats,” Dean said, shaking my hand. “Welcome to the Math and Physics Club.”
“Thanks,” I said, relief flooding me. As if I’d been shipwrecked, clinging to a piece of driftwood until Dean hauled me onto dry land.
“New here?” he asked. “How are you liking our humble school so far?”
“To be honest, it’s a lot.”
“I get it. It can feel overwhelming, especially for those of us notquite asprivilegedas our fellow students.”
Dean’s gaze went a group of Richies, Orion among them, gathered on the deck, talking and laughing. Orion had at least three girls hanging on his every word. His smile was as brilliant as ever, his laugh quick and easy, just as it had been with me.
Why wouldn’t it be? I wasn’t anything but a new recipient of his charm. With Orion was the big blond guy, the sinister-looking darker guy, and his girlfriend from the parking lot this morning.
