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“I could have sworn I had the softest little cat called Pixel,” I laughed. “It must have been a coma dream.”
“I think that’s the best thing to call all these fleeting ideas,” she said, looking over at me sharply. “Coma dreams. And it’s best to keep them to yourself, really. You don’t want to make Alexander uncomfortable. It’s bad enough that he blames himself for the accident.”
“That’s true,” I said, pretending to defer to her wisdom. I carried the nugget of my new self close to my chest. This self craved a cigarette and a raucous laugh with a friend like Harlow before a breakfast of avocado toast and thick, black coffee.
Alexander was waiting for me at the entrance, ever the attentive fiancé, and Rome was at his side. I’d never call him Roman. I couldn’t get used to it.
“Ladies,” Alexander said, draping his arm across my shoulder. Immediately it felt wrong, and I glanced toward Rome, who had his eyes filled with me just then. The look he threw my way was pure longing. My lips parted in surprise, and his eyes landed on them. Then he looked away as if he was afraid he would betray his desire to kiss them if he looked at me for too long.
“Gentlemen,” I said with a sunny, fake smile. Being an Upper was all about faking it, I was finding out. Faking happiness, faking contentment, faking desires. We had everything we could ever want, so what was the point of wanting anything at all? So we faked every last thing we did.
“I can’t wait for classes to begin,” Victoria said, linking her arm through Rome’s. “I’m sure I will be elevated in swordplay this year.”
“Swordplay?” I asked, and a smile crept across my face. “Now that I could get used to.”
“You’re already elevated,” Victoria said with an unkind sort of scowl. “I’m going to catch up with you, though.”
I wondered what sort of college offered swordplay but then decided I didn’t care as long as I got to stab things.
“Gross, he’s staring at you again,” Victoria hissed and leaned towards me as we walked. Then, in a much quieter voice, she added, “If Alexander catches him mooning over you, he’s a dead man. You might want to give him a head’s up.”
I knit my brows together in confusion but followed the direction she indicated and found Luke Lancaster watching me with a wolfish grin like he wanted to eat me whole. Luke Lancaster, the tousled blond god from last night.
I kept my eyes on him and shook my head in warning, but his gaze was unwavering. I had to admire his balls. Standing up to the man who everyone was terrified of everywhere we went on campus. The man whose father controlled more than just this college, but much of the outside world from what I understood.
One of his friends said something to him and elbowed him to get his attention when Luke didn’t respond. Luke finally broke away and began to laugh with the people at his table, but not without glancing at me from time to time.
All the while, Alexander didn’t seem to care. He was deep in whispered conversation with Victoria, and the two of them would look over at me furtively from time to time. I had a distinct feeling they were plotting something, but didn’t care. As long as neither of them bothered me, they could do whatever they wanted together. It was also interesting that Alexander accused me of plotting with Rome when he was the one speaking in whispers.
We took our seats, and breakfast was again meat-centered with a large slab of ham, sausages, and bacon with two eggs and toast.
I tore the toast in half and dipped it in the yolks of the eggs but ignored the rest. That’s when Alexander paid attention to me when I wasn’t falling into line.
“Why aren’t you eating the rest of it?” he asked, looking at the remains of my meal.
“It must be the meds,” I replied with a wan smile. “I love bacon but can’t stomach the taste of it now.”
“Yeah, it must be the meds,” Victoria said. “Don’t worry about her. She’ll get enough to eat. Besides, she really does look better with some weight off her bones.”
That was enough for them. As long as Victoria got some insult about my weight included in her comments and Alexander felt fawned over by her, they left me alone. I did manage to find some black coffee and guzzled a couple mugs of it before the warning bell rang, and we were sent off to our first classes of the year.
My stomach reacted strongly when I looked at my schedule, and I didn’t recognize half the classes. I didn’t know how I’d manage to navigate my way through the year with most of my mind a dark slate of unwritten history.
* * *
“And that iswhy you’ll be expected to have perfect attendance,” Matron Baker said from the front of the classroom. “Without perfect attendance, I cannot guarantee your station in our society. And if we cannot guarantee your station, how do you expect to find suitable husbands?”
I fought back the urge to choke when she spoke, and my life at Crimson Academy wasn’t looking great, considering this was the first moment in the first class of the day.
They separated us from the male students, just as they separated our living situation. It appeared that we were only allowed to be near them when we were in the dining hall.
I had been excited at first, expecting a discourse on the history of feminism in our current world based on the name of the course, “Societal Expectations for Contemporary Women.”
Unfortunately, it was literally a course on how we were expected to behave. That was it. Just an elevated program on etiquette, keeping our mouths shut so we didn’t offend the men and making ourselves enjoyable so we could talk to them about anything other than our boring lives as wealthy housewives.
I wanted to scream. I felt sweaty when I thought about being trapped in a marriage with a man. I felt enraged when I thought about all the things women had done to escape such fates and how these women were willing lambs to slaughter just so they didn’t have to worry about working or expanding their worldviews.
Matron Baker droned on and on, going over the multiple rules and regulations we were expected to follow while in the classroom and on the ground.
