Page 25 of Cruel Riches

5

Alexis

My first weekat college was mostly uneventful. No more run-ins with Nate Lockwood. Just classes and studying.

I was taking Introduction to Contemporary Writing, Journalism and Strategic Communication, Media Studies, and Introduction to Critical Thinking. I was already learning a lot from the classes, and not just in an academic sense.

On my second day here, some loudmouthed asshole asked the journalism professor if he ever knew ‘that crazy guy who used to teach here before he sliced and diced all those people’. The professor confirmed that he knew my father when he worked here. He looked uncomfortable and irritated at the question too, which made me think he might’ve been one of my father’s friends.

Now that I knew they knew each other ten years ago, I would make an extra effort to get in the professor’s good books. Hopefully, that would prove to be helpful at some point in the future.

On top of the education I was receiving in the lecture theaters, I was also learning that Blackthorne’s reputation for snobbery was well-deserved. It was like being in high school all over again.

At least a third of the students here came directly from Arcadia Bay, and another third came from the most exclusive prep schools on the mainland. They were used to occupying the top rungs of society in every single aspect, and it showed.

By the end of the first day of classes, the vast majority of students seemed to have formed their own cliques, mostly sticking to people they already knew. Anyone who didn’t come from an elite school, super-wealthy town, or pedigreed family name was left out in the cold.

A few times, I’d tried smiling and saying ‘hey’ to people in my classes when I walked in, but my attempts at friendliness were usually met with blank stares. Sometimes sneers.

Even the students who weren’t in cliques were standoffish. Two days ago, in my Contemporary Writing class, a girl in front of me dropped a bunch of things from her bag. It all rolled over to my feet, so I leaned down, picked it up and handed it back to her. I didn’t expect a gold medal for basic human decency, but a simple acknowledgment would’ve been nice. Instead the girl snatched her stuff and turned away as if I’d annoyed her by helping.

It would be easier to get through the long days if Claire was around, but I hadn’t seen her since that night when I accidentally caught her hooking up with a Tinder date in her dorm. She was never there when I knocked to see if she wanted to have lunch or dinner with me, and she hadn’t responded to any of my texts either.

Yesterday, I asked a few people on the same floor if they’d seen her, and they all had different answers. One guy told me that she’d left the campus and wasn’t coming back anytime soon, but I was fairly certain that he was getting her confused with another girl called Clara, who’d tripped on the stairs on the second day, broken her leg in three places, and been forced to defer her studies for a few months.

Another girl told me that she’d heard Claire dropped out, but that didn’t make sense to me. Why would she drop out before attending a single class? I knew she was stressed about not knowing many people here, but she knew she had me to back her up if she ever felt anxious or lonely.

The most obvious answer was that she hadn’t left campus at all, and she simply didn’t want to hang out with me, so she ignored my texts and avoided me whenever I knocked on her door. Perhaps I freaked her out when I went to check on her at two in the morning last weekend, and she thought I was going to be clingy and weird, so she decided to nip the friendship in the bud.

Oh well.I’d make other friends eventually. At least I hoped I would.

With a yawn, I exited my Friday afternoon Critical Thinking lecture and started trudging in the direction of the residence hall. I had the rest of the day off from classes, and I planned to use the time to study in my room.

In the marble hallway around me, the sounds of lively conversation and the drumming of footsteps could be heard. When I arrived at the exit, I thought I heard Claire’s voice behind me, and I whipped my head over my shoulder to look. It was some other girl.

Before I could turn around again, a giant of a guy bumped right into me, sending my books flying from my arms.

“Oops. My bad!” he called back to me as he hurried away. Asshole.

“Shit,” I muttered as I knelt to pick up my stuff. One of the textbooks had flown all the way through the open door and into a puddle on the edge of the lawn that stretched like a green blanket from the side of this building to the one opposite.

I picked the book up and groaned as I realized it was ruined. Half the pages were soaked through with muddy water.

“That’s too bad,” a feminine voice said from somewhere near me. “I got the last copy from the bookstore a few days ago.”

I looked up to see the standoffish girl from my writing class standing a few feet away. Her dark hair was up in a messy bun, and her hands were deep in her oversized khaki coat pockets.

“Sorry, what did you say?” I asked.

“I bought the last copy of that textbook a few days ago,” she said, nodding toward my ruined copy. “I heard someone ask for it after me, and the clerk told him he’d have to order it online.”

“But we have to read two of the chapters and write a ton of notes on them by Monday,” I said. “If I order it online, it won’t arrive before then, will it?”

Avalon Island was notorious for its slow postage, especially when it came to stuff from the mainland.

The girl shrugged. “There are copies in the library. Just go and borrow one of them, if they’re still available.”

“That’s a good idea. Thanks.”

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