Page 37 of Cruel Elite (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 3)

I got to be a tiny part of the fabric of his life, watching as his jawline sharpened and he grew several inches taller and chopped off the mass of his curly hair.

So long as I saw him every day, I could pretend he was still mine. That I was still his.

Once I’m out of Ravenlake Prep, though, our connection will be severed.

And I’ll be nothing to him.

I press my folded hands against my empty stomach and chuckle humorlessly.

At least he talks to me now, right? I’d rather be the object of Noah’s hatred than nothing.

That sounds so pathetic. I wish it wasn’t true.

But it is.

Maybe Momma was right about me.

* * *

The hallways are still empty and quiet, so I know the pep rally is still going on, and I’m not sure what to do now. I don’t want to go back, but I also don’t want to loiter in the hallways and run into Noah or a teacher.

Momma would not take kindly to me getting in trouble on the first day of school.

She wants me to run with the right crowd, which often involves a decent amount of deviance, but I’m never to be caught.

You want to be popular, not a delinquent.

I’m debating where to go…

When the door to the girl’s bathroom opens next to me.

A hand plunges out, wrapping around my elbow.

I yelp in surprise, assuming it’s Noah again.

But when the door closes behind me, I hear female giggling and see my friends.

“There you are!” Jennifer says, swinging her legs off the bathroom counter s he’s sitting on. “We followed you when you left, but couldn’t find you.”

“Well you’ve found and assaulted me now. What do you want?”

“Sorry,” Anika grins, the harsh words I spewed at her at the bonfire already forgotten. “Mr. Thomas has been lurking around out there, and I didn’t want to get caught.”

“Get caught peeing?”

I walk to the mirror and fix a few stray pieces of hair.

I almost expected to look different, as though my encounter with Noah would have left behind a physical change.

But I look the same as I did when I left my house this morning.

I had my hair pulled back into a ponytail when I came down the stairs, but my mom wrinkled her nose and shook her head the instant she saw me.

“No, come here.”

She ripped the hair tie out of my hair so hard I could hear strands snapping from the force. She ignored my cry of pain and began primping me.

When she was finished, she stood back and smiled. “There you go. Guys like hair they can hold onto.”

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