A Gorgeous Villain (St. Mary's Rebels 2)

Such a prison-like feel.

Who wouldn’t love that?

Who wouldn’t love the bench that I’m sitting on, all hard and of course made of concrete, out in the courtyard, which is also made of concrete I might add.

From here I can see the whole school: the buildings, the pathways and the iron gates keeping us caged and safe. The soccer fields. The woods in the back, just beyond the brick fence.

It’s a perfect spot to sit in, on a dreary, gray fall afternoon, to remind me this is my life now.

My life that I love.

Love.

Love, love, love.

So. Much. Love.

This is not working, Callie.

This is so totally not working.

Okay, no. Wait. This can work. This can totally work.

Um, what else do I love about this place? What else, what else?

What…

“Oh my God, are you listening?”

A high voice pierces my fog and I blink.

A face comes into focus. It’s pale and pretty with blue eyes and thick bangs. And glasses.

Poe Austen Blyton, or just Poe, my friend. One of my best friends at St. Mary’s, who makes living here, at this stupid reform school, bearable.

See?

Here’s a thing I love!

“I love you,” I tell her.

She draws back. “What?”

I grin. “I do, Poe. I love you. Don’t ever think otherwise.”

Then I turn to another girl who’s sitting right to opposite me, Bronwyn Littleton, my roommate and also one of my best friends.

I motion with my chin and declare, “And you. I love you, Wyn. You’re my favorite.”

Wyn is an artist so she usually — by that I mean all the time — carries a sketchpad. She is the calmest person I’ve ever encountered in my life. Looking at her, her light-colored eyes, her long, brown braid and perfectly innocent face, you’d be so surprised that she is at a reform school.

Her sketchpad is the reason she’s here, actually, or rather the fact that she loves to draw.

Her parents are rich, high-class types who don’t want their daughter to waste her life on something like art and have always been on her case to give it up. So one day she’d had enough and in retaliation, she painted graffiti on her dad’s car. And well, her dad sent her here as a punishment.

She looks up from her sketchpad and stares at me. “Uh, thank you. I appreciate that. I think.”

“You’re welcome,” I say before turning to the third and final member of our group, Salem Salinger.

She’s new at the school; she just started when we all came back from the summer for our senior year. She has huge curls and golden-brown eyes and she’s here because she stole some money and was running away but got caught.

By whom, you might ask?

By her guardian, who also happens to be the very scary principal of this reform school.

Yeah, poor Salem.

She chose to mess with the wrong person and well, now she’s here and I think I love her too. Even though I only met her for the first time when school started a week ago.

So I tell her, “And you. Don’t think I forgot you, Salem. I love you too.”

Her nose scrunches slightly. “I wasn’t thinking that. Although I was thinking that this is a little weird.”

Poe throws her arms at her. “Thank you. Yes. This is weird.” She turns to me. “What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing.” I smile and sigh, trying to ignore the fact that this is our lunch hour and we specifically finished our very dismal-tasting lunch early so we could come out here and catch the sun, which was all bright and shining when we were inside.

The sun that suddenly disappeared the moment we stepped out of the cafeteria building, and by the time we got to this very hard and uncomfortable bench — as uncomfortable as our classroom desks — it was like there was never any sunshine whatsoever.

Wyn leans forward slightly. “Is it the First Week Blues?”

Okay, so we all have a term: First Week Blues.

It’s a term coined by Poe back in our sophomore year, when it was just the two of us. Wyn came later, in our junior year, and as I said, Salem was sent here for her senior year.

Anyway, it basically means that we all go through a short period of feeling low and blue when we’ve just come back from our summer vacation.

Because we go from months of being free to being caged and restricted.

“No, these aren’t First Week Blues,” I reply to Wyn. “Because A, this isn’t the first week anymore. This is the second. And B, why would I be sad when there’s so much to be happy about?”

“Like what?” Poe asks.

“Like…” I look around.

After a deluge of them pouring out of the cafeteria, only a few girls remain outside. They all went back once they saw there was no sun to be had.

But then, inside is even more depressing, with beige lockers and walls.