Page 543 of Filthy Elites

No answer. She might have gone to work already.

Inside, her bed’s made. I don’t think she’s slept in it for a while. Shaking my head, I make my way to her dressing table and open drawer after drawer.

Unimaginative as usual, she keeps her weed stash between the blushers and the eyeshadows. I roll my eyes, taking one of the plastic bags to teach her a lesson.

I find what I’m after underneath: a dozen different lipsticks. My mom’s not married to any color, so I try them one after the next. Pink, purple, brown.

I apply a shade of purple so dark it’s almost black, and I like the reflection staring back at me. It’s perhaps a little less sensual than my usual red, but far more badass.

That girl looks like she can take on anything—even high school bullies.

I claim the lipstick and head back to my room to get dressed in my uniform, leggings, and heeled black Timberland boots.

As I trek all the way to school, I reconsider my stance on cars. I’m not a particularly good driver, and I can’t really afford the expense, but I frequently dream about owning one on the daily two-mile walk up and down the hill leading to the falls.

I drop my books in my locker and make it just in time for Spanish—a class I share with Jade Montgomery, Chase’s not-girlfriend. I don’t know if I believe him. They’re always together. Plus, she’s the cheer team captain to his football quarterback. They’re basically peanut butter and jelly.

If Chase is member number one of my hate club, she’s a close second.

Jade isn’t the stereotypical high school queen bee. She’s a little emo around the edges—black nails, a bad dye job, and a worse attitude. Amusingly, the rest of the in crowd copied her. They look like the cast ofThe Craftoutside of school.

She shoots me a glare. “I suppose the sheep can’t help but follow.”

I don’t even understand what she’s talking about until her friend Lara says, “Black lipstick is totally your thing—everyone knows that.”

Oh, god, are they twelve?

I’m spared any more nonsense when the teacher starts the class.

Spanish isn’t my best subject. In fact, the majority of the classes I’m taking this year aren’t my best. Most people get the annoying requirements out of the way freshman and sophomore year, but I stupidly procrastinated on them.

Unless I can logic or calculate my way out of it, I suck at it. Languages, history…I avoided them as long as I could, hence why my schedule’s packed with stuff I don’t want to study but am required to take if I want to graduate.

In my dreams, I’d make it into MIT. My science grades are good, verging on great. But I know that my attendance and my extracurricular activities aren’t where they need to be. I’ve never had the time to do track, swimming, or, god forbid, cheerleading, because I had to work to help out with the bills. Now I suppose Icould, but no team would want me, courtesy of Chase.

I can’t afford to go anywhere without a killer scholarship in any case.

Any school will do. Any place that’s not in Thorn Falls.

We have an exclusive, expensive, state-of-the-art college here—Rothford U—but I wouldn’t attend even if they rolled out the red carpet for me. Which they won’t.

We get a surprise test and I do as well as I can, which means I can’t decide where to shove most of the accents. I think until it feels like my skull splits open, and I end up marking them arbitrarily until the bell rings, releasing me.

I eat lunch at random tables, wherever there’s room away from everyone. Today, that’s close to the windows, because it’s raining now so no one’s interested in the view.

The food here is considerably superior to what it was at my old school, but breakfast was only a couple of hours ago, thanks to my late start, so I just pick at my curry, doing my best to ignore the boisterous A-list table behind my back.

The jocks and their princesses don’t do anything quietly. I don’t want to look. I’ll have to deal with most of them in PE—thanks to my stupidass decision not to take it sophomore or freshman year. That’s soon enough.

I jerk when a tray slams on the table, right in front of me.

A girl I can’t place sits, her face determined. “We gotta talk.”

ChapterSeven

The girlwho disrupts my solitude has thick golden blonde ringlets and glasses. If I researched “wholesome,” I’m fairly certain her picture would be right under the definition. She might just have been the only girl wearing the uniform’s skirt as it was designed, knee-length.

Another girl joins her, a short, long-haired pretty thing with dark eyes and bronze skin.

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