Page 596 of Filthy Elites

Bad Blood – Faith Summers

ONE

Billie

As my motherpulls up in the school’s parking lot, I stare ahead at Raventhorn Academy’s gothic style design.

If I didn’t know any better, I could be staring at a mash-up of Notre-Dame in Paris, and Bran Castle in Romania, rumored to belong to Count Dracula.

It’s beautiful.

Beautiful and exactly the type of building the normal version of myself would appreciate because of my deep-rooted love for art.

But I’m not the normal me today. I haven’t been me in so long; I can’t remember who I am. Today is just the start of another piece of shit day in my life in a place I don’t want to be.

Another school. Another start. Another disaster waiting to happen.

Warm hands brush over my arm cutting into my thoughts. I turn to meet Mom’s worried eyes as she moves her Oakleys to sit on top of her mane of luscious dark locks Hollywood has christened her signature look.

I have the same long hair, her sea-green eyes, and her petite athletic frame. People are always telling me I’m the spitting image of her, and I hate it.

I don’t want to be anything like her.

“Don’t look so worried. It’ll be fine. Everyone gets nervous when they’re starting at a new school.” She taps my wrist, and the giant-sized diamond in her engagement ring sparkles in the bright morning sun. “I know you’ll settle in quickly.”

I give her a narrowed look. “I don’t want to be here. You know that. So, I can’t see how you think I’ll be fine orsettlein. I don’t want to go to this school, and I don’t want to live in New York.”

She presses her lips together and regards me with a hurt look in her eyes I don’t care for. I used to care about her until I realized what kind of person she is.

“We’ve been through this, and we’re not talking about it again.”

“Mom, we didn’t have to leave L.A.”

“Yes, we did. Moving here was for the best. I know you blame me but what happened wasn’t my fault.” That stern expression I hate fills her face.

It’s her resting bitch face, but Mom does it with as much style in her ordinary life as she does on the big screen.

“No, of course not. You did nothing whatsoever. It’s just like you to excuse yourself from blame.”

She helped put Dad behind bars. He did his wrongs, and they were terrible. But she was only eager to put her husband of over eighteen years in prison so she could hook up with her lover. That’s a whole other set of wrongs. She also gets the best actress Academy Award for playing the victim so the public would pity her.

“Billie, we’re done here. Go, and don’t mess things up. This is a good school.”

I grab my bag and get out just as she’s about to say something else. I have nothing more to say to her I haven’t already said.

The hum of her Porsche fills my ears as she drives away, and I look ahead to face the day.

I can’t imagine anything worse than starting my senior year of high school at a new school and in my situation.

I’m not concerned about being in a new city or the fact that everyone else will know each other.

My main concern is what they’ll already know about me.

I’ve always lived in the limelight because of my mother’s success, but recently our family garnered attention for other reasons.

So, people here are going to know who I am and what my father did.

I’ll suffer the same fate as I did at my last school, where everyone turned against me.

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