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“No, better.”

This would be the second time today that someone I don’t care about has decided to talk to me. It’s not the strangest thing, but weird that it’s happened twice.

“What do you want?” I ask, wishing I had just sat in my seat and fought my brain in class instead of here.

Rachel, behind Chloe but tall enough I see every inch of her flawlessly applied makeup, rolls her blue eyes. “You can at least try to be polite.”

Chloe throws Rachel a warning look before looking back at me. “I know we aren’t as close as we used to be,” she says, trying to play peacemaker. She could be nice sometimes, like when we met and she saw me eating lunch by myself and sat next to me the first week of school. Cold other times, like when my mother died and she never said so much as an I’m sorry. “We just really need to talk to you.”

I grab a handful of napkins from the automatic dispenser beside me and pat my face dry. “It’ll have to wait. I have to get back to class.”

“We’ll be fast.” She holds up her hands.

I’m not exactly antisocial, and I do have manners, but I’m just not in the mood right now. I like my school days to be routine and usual. I study, take notes, study more, take a fifteen-minute walk break to get Lexie off my back, take notes, study more. Already I tripped up on my test, had an unwelcome encounter with a spoiled golden boy, and didn’t get my best seat in class, and I can’t even have a moment in the bathroom to be annoyed in peace.

Wrong place and wrong time for them. “Hurry up. I’ll give you four minutes.”

Chloe looks wide-eyed at Rachel. Beside each other like this, they’re intimidatingly beautiful. Their waist-length hair—Chloe’s strawberry blond, Rachel’s bleached near white—straightened without a single flyaway, the dark lashes framing blue eyes, the perfectly made-up faces… They look like they have their own personal filters. Pretty but off-putting.

“Three minutes and forty seconds,” I count down.

Rachel shoves Chloe aside and strides right up to me. She’s without a standard blazer, and her white button-up is undone, revealing a diamond necklace that could pay for my house, and her skirt is five inches shorter than dress code. “We need you to take Theo’s case.”

I laugh. “What did he pay you?”

“Nothing.” She crosses her arms and looks down at me. I’m pretty tall myself, but Rachel is model height. “Last month, you placed below me in the trigonometry exam.”

“Congratulations, I hadn’t realized we were competing.” I blow out a breath. “What does that have to do with this?”

“Please.” Rachel breaches my space, her nose almost touching mine. “You want the Law Society recommendation to the Friedman Law Group office. So do I. Ever since Ms. Cortez let us know about it, you’ve thought of me as your biggest competition.”

“I don’t think of you at all.” I frown, and her eyes flash.

It’s not fully the truth, not fully a lie. I keep my head down and worry about my own work, but worrying about my own status means keeping up with anyone who gets ahead of me. So occasionally, yes, I’ve seen Rachel’s name above mine on a grading docket, along with several others.

I add, “And now you have three minutes of my time to waste.”

Chloe grabs her arm. “Rachel, please.”

Rachel shakes Chloe off her but gets out of my personal space. “Listen, if I got the case, I’d have done it myself. But I already have one, so it can’t go to me. Theo Hudson is a dick who manipulated my best friend, used her, then broke her heart like she was nothing. I want you to take his case and make sure he gets suspended for the rest of the season.”

Ah, Lexie did tell me a couple of weeks ago that she heard Chloe and Theo were dating, a fact worth mentioning because she thought it was strange that there was a label, given that Theo Hudson was known to flirt and date but stop right before anything became serious.

“Theo Hudson can be whatever adjective you google, but it has nothing to do with me.” My eyes narrow in on Rachel as she scowls. The chandelier light reflects the tiny silver highlight on her cheeks. “And I wouldn’t sabotage a case. You’re out of your mind.”

“Maybe we are,” Rachel says, holding out her phone so I can read the hundred dollars she typed into her app, my username above it. “I’ll send this right now if you agree.”

“One hundred dollars?”

She looks me up and down. “I know you’re not turning down anything more than ten dollars.”

Her jab lands like a fist drenched with lemon juice aimed at my eyes.

I need money—bad. Not just for Harvard, but for basic college necessities I’ll pretend to be able to afford with whatever part-time job I grab. I refuse to let my dad work more overtime to cover any more of my expenses on top of our too-expensive, still-not-paid-off house in Connecticut.

Dad hurt himself at work, and workers’ comp covered initial hospital costs, but the lingering effects of his fall, the weak spine and frequent back pain, more slipped discs, and doctor appointments I forced him to go to for steroid shots and anti-inflammatory medication mean that bills keep piling up.

But taking money from Rachel makes me want to shove my hand in a lake of piranhas.