Page 2 of Broken Princess

I ignored Kassidy’s calls and texts the first week I was home, lumping her in with all the other elitist assholes from Kingsley Hollow. Then I realized she didn’t deserve my anger. Kassidy may have convinced me to go to their parties, and to give Logan a chance, but she was just as pissed as I was when she found out he only pretended to care about me; so he could fuck me over, and win his bet.

When my hurt, anger andembarrassmentsettled, we called and texted each other every day. If someone forced me at gunpoint to find a silver lining in all this, I’d have to say my friendship with Kassidy is the one good thing to come out of the hell scape that punctuated last semester.

“What can I say? Three weeks with you and your family convinced me I shouldn’t let the beautiful people win. They meant to run me out of school, now they have to deal with failing at that.”

I know from the notifications I’m getting on Prospectus that most of the students moved back on campus in the middle of January. So by their standards, I’m late,andlame, for not showing up for any of their pre-semester social activities.

Kassidy pulls a lock of hair in front of her eyes, making a cutting motion with her fingers. “You know the parents train these kids not to take failure as an answer, right? They’ll probably try again.”

“Let them. I have nothing left to lose. And before you saymy pride, let me remind you, that I gave up my virginity to a guy who bet he could take it. A guy who instructed his friends to harass and bully me every chance they got. Someone who had no problem making a photo sculpture of me in the most intimate moments of my life. So nope. No pride left.”

Kassidy falls silent. What else can she say? We all know what happened and ignoring it won’t help. She told me they pulled Logan’s sculpture from display, because I didn’t sign a release to have my face shared with the world.

Not because of the very obvious curve of breasts, hips and ass molded in clay, or because the photos show snippets of my body from an angle that I know means he was between my legs. They didn’t pull the sculpture because it was indecent, but because the artist didn’t have a signed release. The elite are so insulated around here, they could probably get away with murder.

Kassidy leaves me to unpack. Afterwards, I settle onto my bed to read the first chapters for my history class until she suggests dinner. It doesn’t take much to get her to agree to order takeout and watch a movie instead of slogging down to the cafeteria.

I’m here, and I’m going to make the best of it, but I’m not ready to walk through the place where my humiliation began just yet.

Logan

My door slams shut, jolting me awake. Through swollen lids, I watch Bella walk towards my bed.

“Did you know?”

“Know what?” I mumble into my pillow.

“Your plaything is back on campus.”

It’s never good news when she comes to my room. Classes haven’t even started, and she’s here starting shit, already. “So.”

“So the plan was to humiliate her, so she’d go back to wherever she came from.”

I shift onto my side. Bella’s wearing a romper and heels as if she just came from a photoshoot, or a club. I’m sure neither is the case. She’s wearing this outfit because it’s an attention grabber and she’s all about attention.

“I think revealing my sculpture in front of members of Carryville’s scholarship committee might’ve ruined that option for her.”

“Still, no one else would’ve come back here after what we did. But she did, and it sounds like she’s staying. Have you seen her?”

I hear the challenge in her voice. “Bella, you just barged into my room and woke me up. As you can see, I’m alone. You and I were at a lot of the same places before and after your trip to Paris, and don’t think I don’t know you had people spying on me while you were away. So tell me, when would I have seen her?”

She purses her lips, thinking of how to respond. She thought I didn’t know about her having me tailed, because she was still looking for a way to claim the VP position even after I won the bet. Fucking amateur.

“Well, we need to come up with a new plan.”

Bella’s a heartless bitch. Her father’s connections are the only reason I keep her around. Unlike my friends, I had a week of relaxing at home and then I was in the trenches. I worked at Wilmington Kurt during the day, and attended mixers and dinners for McKay Media on the weekends and evenings, to appease my father who heard about the shit that went down at the auction.

I came back to campus yesterday and was up late dealing with back to school party details. Now she’s cut into the one bit of time when I’m finally getting some sleep.

“Bella, I’m fucking wrecked. If you insist on talking to me about this shit so early in the morning, take your fucking clothes off and ride me while you’re doing it.”

“Please. I know you probably haven’t washed the last skanks spit off of you.”

“Then get the hell out.” I pull my pillow over my head, listening for the sound of her leaving. I need to process this news alone.

Over the break I tried to find the name of the school Jordanna was transferring to. Even with my password, I couldn’t get an answer, because Dean Allen restricted that information to a file that only he could access.

What is she doing here? I know we destroyed any chance she had at going back to Carryville on the scholarship she was applying for, but with her grades, there should have been other more affordable options.

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