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“It’s not safe for girls to wear skirts in this school,” Arabella mutters, her eyes darting to the side. “I… I did it forus, okay? You have the option to dress modestly and preserve yourself or to drag the school into disrepute and look like a slut.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry for what you’re going through,” Arabella continues quietly, as though I hadn’t spoken. “Being manhandled by the chiefs the way you are — they’ve warped your mind, Jessa, and I feel sorry for you. It’s as if you’re in a cult. But I understand why you’re doing it. Boys are fickle and I know you want their attention.”
The scary thing is, she sounds utterly sober.
“I had a bit of a wobble last semester,” she divulges in a shifty tone, swinging her long plait behind her shoulder. “I thought I could be like Li and think nothing of wearing tiny skirts, but I’m not. And the only male attention I want, I have. So.” She shrugs. “Pretending to devalue yourself by becoming a sex object before the boys do it… you’re fooling yourself, Jessa, if you think you retain a modicum of power.”
“Are we still talking about skirts?” I ask blandly, and I’m bemused because my skirt is the precise length designated by the uniform code in the handbook. “Because myvaluedoesn’t come from the clothes I wear. And nor am I a sex object.”
“I hear you come up to the girls’ tower at all times of night,” Arabella hisses. “You’re with all manner of boys in this school — or so the rumors go. And you have f—” Her lips tighten into a sharp line, as though cut by a blade, as she purses them. “You havemessed upmy sleeping pattern to astronomical proportions by your ridiculous gallivanting around this castle. Have you no shame? Three in the morning I got to sleep last night — you’re going to affect my grades, you inconsiderate…hussy!”
I reel back, unsure where this tide of venom has come from. “Since when have I ever asked you to stay up waiting for me late at night? And can youstopcalling me names?”
“I am Head Girl. TheinauguralHead Girl. Possibly, knowing this school, theonlyHead Girl there will ever be. I need to make my voice heard and bring standards up to scratch. And so I look after the girls in my cohort, and that includes you, Jessa, whether you want it or not. But…” She shakes her head and releases an impossible sigh. “Every time I try to bring you into line with the rest of the school, you resist. You’re too wild to respect our standards, Jessa.”
The more Arabella speaks, the more I believe the Head Girl badge really has distorted her thinking. “Why don’t you go after the chiefs with the same energy? You seem quite blind about their existence. It’s all me, yeah? You’ll pull me for a private lecture but never consider pulling them up. And when I give you my time you choose to call me a slut, a hussy, and a sex object.” I shrug, nonplussed. “Maybe you should look into your own misogyny.”
“Permitting yourself to be conquered by the patriarchy doesn’t give you any protection, you know. It just makes you their fool.” Arabella shakes her head, radiating an air of pompous superiority. “I’m looking out for you, Jessa. But you’ll never see it that way.”
“So leave me alone,” I mutter over my shoulder, and make my way back to the chiefs. It’s disturbing, but Arabella manages to sound like the mother I never had — and a mother I never, ever wanted.
“Whit was she wantin’?” Finlay asks as soon as I approach the table.
I wrestle with myself. For the swiftest moment, I want nothing more than to tell the chiefsexactlywhat Arabella had said. The names she’d called me, the judgments she’d made of me. The satisfaction would be both immense but also fleeting. The glint in Rory’s gray eyes remains deadly, and — despite Arabella’s words, they are, ultimately, just words.
Words don’t hurt me anymore. They just sap my energy and make me tired.
“Nothing.” I give them all a smile that I suspect the chiefs see right through. I’m a bigger person than Arabella. If she had the chiefs at her beck and call, I imagine I’d have been pulverized long ago. “Just talking about… skirts.”
“I like ye in a skirt,” Finlay says.
“I like you in whatever you wear,” Luke states, forever chivalrous, and I laugh slightly.
“Right now, the only thing that matters is the badge I wear,” I say, brushing the gold crown on my chest. “It’s the most important thing I’ve got.”
