“Um, yeah,” I said, struggling to speak past the throat bubble.
“It’s so pretty. Why didn’t you show it to me at Starbucks?” Ivy asked, lifting the strap of her book bag over her head and turning to hang it on the back of her chair.
“Yeah and why did you just tell that Diana person it was a gift?” Portia asked, arching one eyebrow.
I swallowed hard as my heart clenched. Rose, Tiffany, Portia, and Ivy all stared at me, clearly intrigued. They knew. Of course they knew. My friends were intimately aware of the shortcomings of my bank account. We all knew I couldn’t have afforded such a thing. Maybe I should just admit it. Tell them I’d gone over to the dark side—that I’d shoplifted. They all knew that Kiran had done it a few times. It wasn’t so scandalous. But the fact that I was poor would probably make the act seem pathetic rather than daring. And the very idea of seeming pathetic to them made my stomach coil.
Which meant it was time to start spewing more lies.
“I … yeah … I didn’t want to tell her where I got it,” I said, trying as hard as I could to sound casual. I reached for my Sprite and took a sip. “You know. ’Cause then she would go buy one and then someone else would want one. …”
“God, don’t you hate that?” Portia said, spearing a cucumber with her fork. “When you get something you like and then suddenly everyone has one?”
“Yeah. Totally,” I said, my heart unclenching slightly.
“I think I saw those. Up on the counter, right?” Ivy said, narrowing her eyes. “They were, like, three hundred dollars.”
“Whoa. That’s some major coin for fake jewels,” Tiffany said.
“Since when does scholarship girl have cash like that lying around?” Portia asked.
“I … I just … had some Christmas money, still,” I said. The beads suddenly felt sharp around my neck, and my skin started to itch. I pushed my chair back from the table. “I gotta go. I’ll … be right back.”
I turned around and fled the room, my vision blurred by hot tears of mortification. I could feel everyone in the dining hall staring at me, talking about me, whispering and laughing. This wasn’t a new sensation for me, of course, but there was no getting used to it. No matter how many times I was the subject of gossip or the butt of jokes, it never got any easier. Out in the marble-floored foyer, I shoved my way into the bathroom and leaned over the first porcelain sink, heaving for breath.
I couldn’t stand lying in general. Lying about the fact that I’d stolen something was even worse. My skin burned and I pressed my palms against the counter, leaning farther over the sink.
“It’s for Noelle,” I whispered to myself. “Just chill the freak out before someone starts suspecting something.”
Taking a deep breath, I turned on the cold water and splashed my face a few times. When I looked up at my reflection, dark mascara ran down my cheeks. I grabbed a paper towel and dabbed off the mess. The delicate skin under my eyes screamed in protest against the harsh paper, and when I looked at myself again, the area was red and raw. I took a few more deep breaths for good measure and waited for my skin to cool off.
It’s going to be fine, I thought. It’s all going to be fine.
The problem was, I didn’t believe it. But I had to at least pretend that I did. I rolled my shoulders back, turned, and yanked open the door. In the foyer I nearly ran right into Sawyer Hathaway.
“Whoa! Hey!” he said, grabbing on to my shoulders in an attempt to steady us both. “Oh,” he said, his face falling when he saw it was me.
“Sorry,” I said, ducking my head and trying to get around him.
“Wait. Reed.”
I stopped and turned to face him, but found myself unable to look him in the eye.
“I don’t want to do this,” he said. He had his hands in the pockets of his wool coat, as if he’d just come in from the outside. He gestured with them as he spoke, opening the sides to reveal the striped lining.
“Do what?” I asked.
“That thing, you know, where I don’t talk to you because of … you know … what happened with … us. Not that we were even an ‘us’ …,” he said. Then he bit off an embarrassed laugh. “Whatever. I don’t want to be that guy.”
I looked up at him then, hope tickling my insides. His blond hair was pushed back from his face, and his blue eyes somehow looked bluer, darker, than usual.
“Why be a cliche?” I joked.
He cracked a smile. “Exactly.”
I smiled back. Then we both looked at the floor.
“I’m not saying it doesn’t suck,” he told me. “Seeing you with Upton and now Josh. I mean, I’ve heard you’ve got a history with that guy, but after what he did to Jen—”