Private (Private 1)

I paused. “Ariana? Did you want anything?” I asked, making

myself sound as pleasant as possible.

“No, thank you, Reed,” Ariana said, her tone blithe. Never once did she look up from those pages.

DRECK

So she was in on it. She didn’t actually ask me to sit here so she and her friends could get to know me. They just wanted some new girl they could order around. Well, fine. If that’s what it took, that’s what I would do.

I turned and walked toward the lunch line, feeling conspicuous

Later that week, I met with Ms. Naylor right before dinner. She and chagrined and humiliated as they all watched me do as they

wanted to see how my classes were going—if there was anything I said. But more than anything, I was hoping I wouldn’t mess it up. I felt was too “challenging” for me. All I could think about was the repeated the order over and over in my mind. Coffee, two donuts, fact that after my one meal with the Billings Girls, I hadn’t been apple.

invited to sit with them again. She wanted challenging? Try figuring Wait. Was Kiran’s apple red or yellow or green? I paused and out how to get back in there. But as important as I knew my social glanced over my shoulder to check. Green. Okay. Somehow I knew

life was, I had a feeling Naylor couldn’t care less. As she gazed at me that if I got it wrong I would never be invited back to their table.

expectantly, I wondered if Mr. Barber had told her about my first And I had to be invited back. I had to be. I’d get them breakfast day. I imagined them whispering in the faculty lounge or wherever every morning, I’d endure this lump of humiliation in my chest

it was adults hung out at a place like this, making wagers on how every day, if they would just invite me back.

long I might last. I gave her a tight-lipped smile, told her everything was fine, and resolved to hit the library right away to start in on that list of books he’d given me.

I was not going down without a fight.

It was a humid day with thick gray clouds crowding the sky, the air so heavy it felt as if the atmosphere was pressing in on me from all sides. As always, I walked with my head down and a rivulet of

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sweat wound its way along my neck and into the collar of my T-

“No!” I wrenched one eye open and caught a glimpse of Kiran’s

shirt. I realized then that I was rushing. Not the kind of weather mauler grabbing his book bag and fleeing around the building

conducive to rushing. I took a deep breath and slowed down as I toward Dreck’s front door. It was the tall, gawky kid I had seen her made my way around Drake House, a dorm for upperclassmen boys

wink at the other day. What was supermodel Kiran doing with a

that everyone called “Dreck” because apparently all the unsavory manga-reading loser like that? And I thought she had a boyfriend males at Easton lived there.

in Barcelona. “I was just taking a shortcut to the library,” I told her.

Everything was going to be fine. I just needed to chill. I just

“I didn’t see anything.”

needed to remember why I was here and what I was avoiding going Kiran’s hair was a rat’s nest in the back from where it had been back to. I just needed to—

pressed up against the rough brick. Her skirt was half turned