Page 21 of The Debutantes
My hand had frozen around the PB&J I’d swiped from the dining room as Margot stared me down. I was both an underclassmanandpatently uncool, which, in the face of Margot’s junior clout, gave me about as much status as a worm. But somehow, before I could stop myself, I’d answered her question with another:
“What are you doing in here?”
Margot raised an eyebrow and sat down on the table. She pulled one leg up to her chest and let the other dangle, heavy Doc Marten bobbing. An amused smile stretched on her lips, revealing her slightly pointed canines. “She speaks.”
My first instinct was to back away and flee through the doors, after which I’d pretend that this entire interaction had never happened, but something made me hold my ground. Maybe it was the fact that this was my space, and she’d invaded it.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Just observing. I’ve literally never heard you talk before.”
“I’m a sophomore.”
“I’m a Gemini. And?”
“I mean we’ve never had a class together,” I said, face hot. “I talk. You just don’t know me that well.”
My argument was flawed. At Beaumont, it doesn’t matter how well you know someone. It’s hardnotto know everyone’s full name and life story, no matter how much or how little they talk. Which was pretty little, in my case. Margot was annoyingly right about that.
She pulled at one of the loose curls falling out of her messy bun, twisting it around her finger with an amused look. “What are you doing here?”
If my face was hot before, it could now be a literal fire hazard. I stared helplessly at my sandwich. “Sometimes I eat lunch in here.”
“Like, in a Lindsay Lohan inMean Girlsway?”
Kind of,I thought.
“No,” I said.
She smirked at theNO FOOD OR DRINKsign on the wall. “A rule breaker. I love it.”
“I don’t make a mess, or anything,” I told the floor. Feeling her eyes burning into me, I looked up at the loose tile. “Well, what about you? Do you spend your lunch periods doing sketchy stuff to ceilings, or something?”
She didn’t answer. Probably because that was less of a sick burn and more of a lukewarm cough. Finally, I gathered the courage to look at her, and there was a wary look on her face.
“What?” I asked.
“Just deciding if I can trust you. Before, I would’ve guessed you’re like a vault when it comes to secrets, but now that I know you can speak…”
For another second, it felt like she was staring through my skin and categorizing my internal organs. Then she hopped up to a crouch on the table and stuck out her little finger.
“Swear you won’t tell?”
I frowned, worried she was making fun of me. “A pinky swear?”
She laughed. It sounded genuine. “Would you prefer a blood oath?”
“Kind of.” I still wasn’t sure if she was just messing with the weird, friendless art girl, but in the end, curiosity won out. I linked my pinky to hers and shook. She grinned.
“I found this spot during class one day,” Margot explained as she stood, reaching up to the tile. As her arms stretched out above her, her oversized T-shirt rose to reveal the frayed edges of tiny denim shorts. Way too short, I noted, for winter, and also for the dress code’s archaic fingertip rule, but that didn’t matter when you were Margot Landry, heir to the biggest energy corporation in the city. Her CEO dad was both literally and figuratively keeping the lights on at this school. At that very moment, the rest of our classmates were eating lunch in the Landry Dining Room. In terms of disciplinary action, Margot was off-limits.
“Thought it was a good hiding place,” she continued, sliding the tile aside.
“For what?”
She shot me another wicked smile over her shoulder. “For fun things.”
Before I could ask again, she’d reached inside the tile hole and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
