“Oh you poor thing. You don’t even know. At least Julian has a big dick. I was his girl last year until he got tired of me. Don’t think he won’t tire of you, too.”
The first tear prickles hot behind my eye. I blink fast, desperate to swallow it.
They smell blood.
The ringleader puts her hand on my shoulder, a fake gesture of comfort. Her nails dig in, just enough to sting. “Don’t worry, princess,” she says, voice syrupy and venomous all at once. “You’ll learn. We all do.”
Her friends tighten the circle. I can’t move without bumping into one of them.
My breath is a small, sharp thing, barely enough to keep me upright.
I’m going to cry, I know it. The knowledge is worse than the tears themselves. I am on the verge of humiliation, drowning in it, when a voice cuts through the corridor.
“Fascinating display of insecurity.”
The voice is crisp, unhurried. I look up, and there she is: Eve Allen, the girl I’ve seen only in pictures when my father explained the whose who of Westpoint. Somehow she feels more real than the rest of us combined. She is not pretty, not by Westpoint standards, but she moves with a kind of stubbornness that makes her impossible to ignore. Her hair is the color of old coffee, pulled into a lopsided bun, and her uniform is the only one I’ve seen with the cuffs worn at the edges. Her shoes are flat, practical, scuffed in ways that suggest she uses them for more than walking from class to class.
She stands at the end of the corridor, hands shoved in her pockets, looking at the girls like they’re a bug infestation she’s deciding whether to ignore or torch.
The ringleader’s hand drops from my shoulder. She schools her face into polite disdain.
“Excuse me?” she says, trying for regal but landing on petulant.
Eve shrugs. “I just think it’s fascinating, the way money makes some people so… brittle. You’d think with that many zeroes in your trust fund, you’d have enough self-esteem to leave the new girl alone.”
The girls glance at each other, waiting for someone to call Eve’s bluff. She doesn’t flinch, just keeps her eyes on them, as if daring them to say what they’re really thinking.
The blonde recovers first. “Nobody was talking to you, Allen.”
Eve grins, wide and unbothered. “You were talking to the entire east wing, actually. But I get it. It’s hard to modulate your volume when your head’s stuck that far up your own ass.”
A snort escapes me before I can stop it. The sound surprises everyone, myself included.
The brunette turns on Eve, her face sharp. “You think you’re special, just because they let you in on a scholarship and somehow landed an Ellis?”
Eve tilts her head, mock consideration. “No, but I do think it’s hilarious that you’re so obsessed with me. Maybe go find a hobby?”
The air in the corridor tightens. The girls’ posturing collapses in the face of Eve’s total indifference. There is no social capital in bullying someone who doesn’t play the game.
The brunette flicks her hair, disdain masking defeat. “Whatever. This isn’t over, Marcus.”
She pivots, and the others follow. Their retreat is less an escape than a regrouping, but for now, they’re gone.
The second they round the corner, my legs buckle. I sag against the wall, breathing so hard my ribs hurt.
Eve walks over, slow and unthreatening. She stops just out of reach, as if unsure how much space I need. “You okay?” she asks.
I can’t answer. The humiliation, the gratitude, it’s all tangled up and stuck somewhere behind my tongue.
She waits.
I nod. It’s all I can do.
Eve’s eyes soften, just a little. “They’re scared of what they don’t own. You know that, right?”
It takes me a minute to realize she means me.
She keeps talking. “You have every right to be here. You belong as much as they do, probably more.”
