AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If it wasn’t for Anya, I’d likely be sitting alone in the dining hall. That wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest when I first came to St. Bart’s. But now the unfriendly stares and morbid interest of the other students makes me feel like I’m a freak on display at the circus. Whatever confidence I used to feel is almost impossible to access right now.
A slight form catches my eye. “Felicia, over here.”
With a look of relief on her face, Felicia rushes over to our table and drops her tray with a clatter. “Thank God. Four different tables told me that their empty chairs were being saved for someone.”
My plummeting social status must also be affecting her. “Take a seat. We were just talking about how nice everyone here is.”
Anya shakes her head, a rueful smile on her lips. “Traitorous bitches.”
A crowd has gathered around Olivia. She sits on the top of the table with her foot in the chair. One leg is crossed over the other, so a Gucci boot bobs in the air. My sister looks entirely at ease with practically every eye in the room on her.
Anya abruptly stands, her tray in her hands. The look she shoots me is apologetic as she backs away. “I’m sorry, but I have to know what’s going on over there. I promise that I’ll come back.”
Olivia somehow figured out how to create a gravitational pull that draws everyone around her into her orbit. This is the girl that no one ever noticed when she was here before. I don’t understand how she made it happen. She has managed to shuffle every piece on the board until I don’t even recognize what game we’re playing anymore.
I only know enough to recognize that I’m losing.
“How was your break?” I ask Felicia to distract myself.
“Mostly good, although things got weird when I was on the way back. They wouldn’t let me through customs at JFK.”
“Really?”
“It was so weird. I’ve never had an issue with border control before, not that I’ve flown all that much. They made this big deal about something being wrong with my visa. I had to sit in an interview room for almost an entire day. I thought I was going to be arrested by INS, or something.”
The chance of this being a coincidence is so minuscule as to basically be nonexistent. “How did you get out of there?”
“Some official came in and said there’d been a case of mistaken identity. I guess I have the same name as someone on the no-fly list.” Her words come out in an annoyed huff. “They just let me go after that without even apologizing.”
The next words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “I’m surprised you didn’t call your brother for help.”
I’d been resisting the urge to ask her about Drake. As far as she knows, the two of us still hate each other. Until we figure out what the next step is going to be, it’s probably best to maintain the status quo.
“I spent most of the break giving him the silent treatment, though I’m sure he assumed it was the time difference that made it hard to connect. It takes work to get through to that hardheaded idiot. The custom officials took my phone so I couldn’t have called him at that point, even if I wanted to. When I tried him yesterday, the call just went straight to voicemail.”
Suspicion niggles at me, but I decide to let it go. I don’t actually have any proof that Felicia getting detained at the airport is anything more than a coincidence.
Except nothing around here has ever turned out to just be a coincidence.
“I’m glad you made it back in one piece.”
Felicia leans closer to me, her voice barely loud enough for me to hear it. “I’m really sorry about what happened to you before break. I told Drake off about it, which hopefully made him feel a little bad, but you know how he is.”
She doesn’t know that Drake and I have reconciled. Or that we’ve been working together to do justice for a girl who clearly didn’t need our help. Given that, it’s hard not to feel a spurt of genuine affection at her loyalty to someone she barely knows over her own brother.
“Thank you. I appreciate the effort.”
“Drake hasn’t lived with us since we were kids. His dad made him go to boarding schools, but I would see him in the summers or for school breaks, sometimes. I swear he never used to be like this. Places like this changed him into someone different.”
He isn’t the only one, but I probably don’t need to tell her that. “You still seem like a human being.”
“I’ve only been here for one semester,” she muses with a small smile. “I’m sure I’ll be a true sociopath by graduation.”
“That long? Sounds like you’re behind the curve.” I can’t stop myself from glancing over at Olivia’s table. My gaze immediately lands on her laughing face as she tosses a heavy mass of curls over her shoulder. Serena and Maisie are also sitting on top of the table now, like the total lemmings they are. Anya stands at the periphery of the group with her tray still in her hands, but I can’t help but notice they haven’t invited her to sit down.
A new pecking order has clearly been established at St. Bart’s. It doesn’t take an idiot to figure out who will end up at the top of it.
Felicia has followed my gaze when I turn back to face her. “I heard the rumors, but I didn’t believe them until now. She looks just like you.”
