Page 26 of Come As You Are

Judging by the glances they exchange, it feels like that was the right answer, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why.

“He lives with Matt, too, right?” Priya asks. “Have you riddenthattrain yet?”

I have to steel my jaw in place to stop it from dropping at the idea, only to realize Matt still would’ve been better than the station stop I actuallydidmake the first week of school. Even a train that stops at every station is more appealing than one that… Okay, I’m losing this metaphor, but the point is, Matt’s cool and Lucas sucks.

“Don’t be embarrassed if you have,” Ashleigh adds knowingly. “Everyone’s gone through a Matt phase. Well, except me.”

“That’s Ash’s way of segueing into the fact that she’s been with Landon since the dawn of time.” Only when I hear Jenna’s wry voice does it strike me it’s the first time that I’ve ever heard her speak; she’s usually a quiet, somewhat unsettlingice-blue-eyed force. “We know, Ash. We all have our wisteria bridesmaid dresses picked out.”

“Periwinkle!” Ashleigh corrects her with a note of panic, as if these dresses have already been designed and ordered. Then she catches herself. “I mean, they’re not the same.”

Next to me, I sense a movement in Isabel’s hands, and realize she’s digging her nails into her palms. A quick glance at her face confirms she’s trying not to laugh.

“Of course, Izzy here insists she’s never had a Matt phase either.” Priya’s voice and smile are both sugar-sweet, a lovely pairing with her candy-floss sweater and matching dagger-sharp nails, but the waggling of her enviably thick eyebrows suggests she doesn’t believe it. To me, Matt and Isabel give off a brother-sister vibe, but then, what I don’t know about sex could fill the Beast, so.

“So?” Ashleigh asks. “Are you into Matt?”

Talking to these girls is dizzying, and I’m having trouble keeping track of the impressions I’m trying to be giving. If I want to be a cool girl, a hot girl, a badass girl—these are the girls I need to impress, which means my answers need to be right.

“I’m still scouting my options,” I say in a breezy voice I don’t think I’ve ever used in my entire life.

I’m convinced they’ll be able to see right through me, but thankfully, Priya claps. “My kind of girl. Now let me think who’s got potential…”

“Ooh, what about Nick?” Ashleigh offers.

“Ontiveros or Brenner?” Isabel asks.

“Ontiveros, obviously,” Jenna says, at exactly the same time Priya says, “Brenner, definitely.”

I glance back and forth between them, and get the feeling I’m being caught in a very weird standoff. “Two options sounds good to me,” I say cheerfully, hoping to defuse some of the tension I still don’t really understand.

“Like I said.” Priya smiles smugly. “My kind of girl.”

“And what are you up to today, Evie?” Jenna asks, swirling a spoon through a bowl of berry-studded yogurt.

They all turn their eyes on me, and I have no idea what exciting things I could possibly pretend I have lined up. “Not sure yet,” I say slowly, trying to remember the suggested options for Saturday afternoons. Most of them are nature-y—rafting and hiking and climbing—the kinds of things my parents would drag me and Sierra to on weekends in the Before Times that I’m not ready to revisit. The rest are sort of blurring at the moment.

“Good,” says Isabel, booping my nose like I’m a child. “You’re coming shopping with us.”

Shopping? With the four most perfect-looking humans to grace the entirety of the Camden campus? I am so, so out of my league here.

And yet, there’s only one possible response, despite the fact that I definitely cannot afford to shop wherever these girls do: “When do we leave?”

It’s hard to say what’s the most surreal about what follows from there.

It could be getting into the back seat of Ashleigh Cartwright’sLand Rover, where I squeeze between Priya and Isabel for a ride to the mall and pray I’m wearing a sufficient amount of deodorant and my legs aren’t stubbly.

It could be the way a single question about my hair somehow leads to a whirlwind makeover, complete with hair straightening and a makeup tutorial.

It’s very potentially the fact that the four coolest girls in school are giving me fashion advice and picking out clothing for me like I’m some sort of project, which sounds terrible except that I was badly in need of both advice and fashion sense and now I have new stuff that looks amazing.

But mostly, it’s just surreal how interested they are inme.

“So what’s it like, living in a boys’ dorm?” Priya asks as she pokes at her skin in a magnifying mirror.

“Anyone look surprisingly hot in a towel?” Ashleigh wants to know.

“Most importantly, who’s dropping by your room after hours?” Isabel wonders aloud, her eyes twinkling as she lifts one scent after another to her nose.

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