Thanks!
Francesca.
ps, the rating is just because of the 'fuck' in the beginning.
---
I knew exactly what she was thinking. Get the fuck off my back about it, she’d say if she knew.
I knew she was worried. Scared, even, about what was going to go down. Rhiannon Evans had all the power in the world now. If Blaire even laid a finger on her… Even I was a little worried.
Luke looked like he was about to puke. I smiled at him from across the table, but his big brown eyes just traveled further down, staring at the table.
David shuffled his papers. Alex looked up from her phone. “Reese is coming,” she said. It was what we had all been waiting to here. Luke, of course, could have just texted her himself, but I guess that would have made him feel too clingy.
“We can wait,” said David. “We should wait.”
I wondered if he knew.
---
As if on cue, Reese entered the room. Tall and lean, but slender and pretty, she looked smaller than usual. Her blonde hair cascaded down her back, waving into flattened looking curls, as if she’d been sleeping. Her glasses were perched on her nose; she had contacts, but she didn’t always wear them. Her glasses made her feel safer.
“Hi Reese,” Amelia chirped. Amelia considered herself too mature for high school conflicts such as these, and was doing her best to ignore the situation.
Rhiannon smiled at Amelia as she sat down next to Alex. Cole slid the basket of candy across the table to her; she smirked softly and pulled out a Reeses.
Cole was the dark child of the group: Private school after private school, abusive parents, tortured guitar music, the whole nine yards. No one was really sure why he had taken a liking to quirky, mildly awkward Reese, but they had gotten close over the past few months. She was the only one who knew exactly what to say during those awkward moments after Cole finished telling them that his dreams of being in the Marines had been crushed, or that his mom had made him rake leaves off the roof in the pouring rain.
“Reese!” David bellowed, in his goofy teacher-slash-I’m-really-just-a-big-looking-kid way. Reese smiled shyly. “Good to see you here!”
They all looked at her awkwardly. No one was really sure what to say.
“So,” David stood up from his seat and began passing out the papers that had been sitting in a pile in front of him. “You all want to get into good schools, am I right?”
No one said anything. Everyone assumed that someone else would say something, but no one made the first move. Amelia, of course, was the one who spoke up.
“Of course,” she said, whipping a hand through her short brown hair. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Right you are, Amelia Earhart.” David grinned at his own joke. They smiled dutifully.
“So,” continued David. “What I’m handing out right now is a list of websites that will be of great use to you. Today, we’ll go over the list, then do a short character building exercise, and then you’re free to go,” he paused for emphasis. “But remember, what we do here should continue outside this classroom. All of you want to get into the best schools in the country, and that’s not going to happen if all the preparation you do is done here.” He looked at them expectantly, and they nodded.
Luke looked across the table at Reese. Her head was bent, looking over the sheet. Her long hair fell around her face, the top layer curling softly at her shoulders. Luke had always been fascinated with her hair. It was primarily blonde, but if you looked closely, there were hundreds of different shades mixed in with the yellow. Chestnut, gold, copper, deep brown… the list went on and on. Luke had spent many hours lying with Reese, running his hands through her beautiful hair and watching sunlight bounce off the silky strands.
