I press the green button to accept the call. Dr. Kendall appears on my screen, her snow-white smile prominent.
"Lana!" she exclaims merrily. "How are you getting along? Have you settled in?"
"Uh, I guess," I reply, disturbed by her exuberance.
"I can see here that you're in your room," her eyes shift to look at something off-screen, "which is good. We'll expect you to stay in for the rest of the night. Usually the curfew is midnight on weekends, but with there being so few of you, we're asking everyone to be in their rooms now."
"Okay." It's not like I had plans or anything.
"Have a good night's rest. You'll be starting your work assignment tomorrow morning."
The screen goes black. I sigh, vaguely remembering Niall saying something about being required to work off my fines and court fees. Apparently, I start tomorrow. Fan-fucking-tastic.
I turn and almost scream.
Ashton is leaning against the door frame. I guess I didn't close it when I came back in to answer the phone.
"Holy shit. You scared me." My heart has barely recovered from the phantom knock earlier. This place is going to give me a heart attack before the weekend's over.
Ashton saunters past me without being invited in. In addition to her leather pants, she now has on a long sleeved top and thick heeled boots. Her make up is freshly done up and hair styled. It's like she's ready to go out. But where? Especially since we're supposed to be in our rooms for the rest of the night ... except she's not.
"Wow, you're room is so ... white."
"Yeah," I reply with a disgruntled sigh. "It was like this when I got here. It's not really ... me."
"You've got to be kidding me." She clicks a switch on a cord suspended along the wall. I cringe when my name appears lit up in white letters above her. How did I miss that?
"Holy shit. That's obnoxious," I say, my mouth agape.
Ashton slowly circles the room, trailing a finger over every surface. There's something about the way she's casually invading my space, picking up and examining everything, that reminds me of Nina. I'm either going to hate this girl or she's about to become one of my best friends.
Ashton flops down on the fur covered beanbag. "So, what do you really want to know?"
I hesitate. "About what? The school?"
"Anything. I'll tell you. You might as well know what you're getting yourself into since they just abandoned you on the doorstep with a note attached to you."
I shrug, because that's pretty much what happened. "And what do you want in return?" Honesty always has a price, and that's assuming she'll tell me the entire truth.
Ashton lets out a small laugh like she thinks I'm funny. "Nothing."
"Really?" I don't believe her. She tilts her head innocently. I decide to ask only what I can afford to offer in return. "Where are you from?"
"New York. Manhattan. You?"
"A shitty town in central Massachusetts." Naming it won't mean anything to her. I choose a question that I doubt she'll answer, just to see if she will. "Why don't you like your parents?"
"You like yours?" she scoffs.
"It's just my mother. And I can't fault her for me being who I am."
"That's big of you. I can't say the same. My father's a musician in a rock band, and my mother's a supermodel. I am absolutely who I am because of them." She hesitates, silently contemplating. "You should probably know that almost everyone here is a spawn of a celebrity, politician, musician, well, basically anyone who's anyone. We're their embarrassments. They shipped us off to the middle of nowhere so we don't disgrace them further, even though most of them do so much worse."
"That's why everyone keeps talking about security and privacy?" I conclude.
"You won't find any cameras beyond the main gate. Our parents don't want to be concerned about us making headlines at school like we do in the real world. Which is one of the reasons they chose Blackwood with its military security and high-tech tracking devices. But that doesn't mean they can keep the drugs out of the addicts, the food in the anorexics, or secrets from being exploited."
"So everyone's fucked up?" Now I understand why I was sent here, except that I'm not newsworthy, and neither is my mother. I guess every private school has to have their token scholarship kids.