Page 12 of Until the Ribbon Breaks

“Low.”

Across the lobby, I find Emily turning from Brent and walking my way.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

I hold up my camera. “I had to take pictures for the school paper.”

I’m surprised that she’s even talking to me. From over her shoulder, I see Kassi with her tongue halfway down Sebastian’s throat, and I cringe.

Emily turns and follows my line of vision. She shakes her head and shrugs before saying, “A few of us are heading up to the rooftop pool. You should come.”

“Fun,” Annie says, appearing out of nowhere.

I don’t share her enthusiasm, which is clear in my expression, so Emily adds, “It’ll just be us girls.”

“I don’t know ...”

“Oh, come on, it’s not like we have anything else to do,” Annie encourages.

“I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”

“So, dip your feet in,” she says, and when I look at Emily, she’s nodding in agreement.

I’d rather hide out in the room, but I reluctantly give in. “Okay, sure.”

As Annie and I head up to our room, she keeps oh-my-goshing about hanging out with the girls I try to avoid. Emily and that whole crowd are super popular, something Annie is clearly impressed by even though she’s a senior.

“How do you know Emily?” she asks as she changes in the bathroom.

“We used to be friends in middle school.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I wait nervously as I contemplate different excuses to get out of having to go hang out with my old friends. But when Annie emerges with a huge smile on her face, I bail on any potential escape plan and head up to the pool with her.

Anxiety piles as we take the elevator to the roof. It’s all I can do not to think about how badly this evening could go.

What if this is some mean girl’s setup?

It’s the age-old story of the cool kids pretending to like the loser in order to humiliate them. Like inCarrie. That poor girl seriously thought that she was elected prom queen. For a moment, she felt as if she were finally being accepted by the popular kids, only to end up on stage covered in pig’s blood.

Okay, maybe they won’t throw blood on me, but they could do a lot of other things that would be equally mortifying.

The elevator doors open, and we make our way down the long corridor that leads out to the pool where the girls are already in the water. It’s clear by Kassi’s ick face that she wasn’t in on Emily’s idea to invite me.

“You made it!” Emily exclaims. She looks genuinely happy to see me, but in the back of my mind, I’m still questioning the intent behind this invite.

Annie tosses her towel over a chair and quickly slips into the heated pool that’s expelling a cloud of steam into the chilly night. Tugging off my shoes and socks, I push my pants up and over my knees before sitting on the edge of the pool and sinking my feet into the water. Somehow, the warmth soothes my insecurities as I lazily swirl my legs around.

“I ran into your mom the other day at her flower shop,” Emily tells me.

“Yeah, she mentioned that.”

“Are you going to spring formal this year?”

I have to stifle my laugh. “No.”

She swims closer to me and farther from the other girls, who are yapping about their boyfriends.

“Remember when we were younger and we couldn’t wait to be in high school so that we could go to all the dances?”

---