Page 2 of Virgin Sacrifice

The second step of the ritual was always makeup, which for me was a well-practiced routine of tasteful minimalism. Whenever I tried to go for a bold winged liner and crimson lip, it always felt like I was wearing a cheap mask, one that drew attention to me rather than diffused it. The red was too bright, or one eye was wonky looking. Most days, I preferred rosy cheeks, softly shadowed, lined eyes, and my full natural lips with just a hint of stain and gloss. The whole look was quite subtle, demure even.

Of course, sometimes the sharpest edges hid in the softest places.

Next was the clothes.

Mami hadn’t necessarily harped on what I wore as much. She’d always encouraged me to embrace my own style, no matter what phase I had been going through at the time. Still, I’d watched her getting ready often enough to see how she put the same care into her outfits as she did everything else . . .

For a moment, my eyes burned as I fought some of the tears that I’d been choking back for the last couple of days. All morning she had been on my mind, but the pain of her absence still managed to sneak up on me. Forcing myself to take a deep breath, I channeled my thoughts forward—more than anything, Mami would want me to put on a brave face and keep going. Hollow Oak was my fresh start. Succeeding here was the best way to honor all her sacrifices for me.

Shaking off my melancholy, I turned my eyes to the outfit I’d laid out the night before. I’d decided on an homage to classic East Coast prep style, choosing a simple, silk-and-wool blend, pleated skirt in a dark shade of camel combined with a crisp white cotton blouse. We might not have had oodles of money to spend on fancy clothes, but Mami had taught me how to sew and fix up vintage clothes. The woman would never accept less than looking perfect. While I wasn’t going to be whipping up couture dresses anytime soon, I was decent enough at sewing and had learned from a young age how a well-tailored outfit elevated any look.

Paying attention to the details helped as well and I rolled up a pair of creamy white stockings that came to just below my knees. My skirt hung tastefully a couple of inches above, and when I walked, the pleats swung back and forth, carefully exposing several generous inches of my brown skin. I left the top two buttons on my blouse undone, showing off only the slightest swell of my small breasts below. I wasn’t so much one for modesty as I was for a touch of mystery. The people we forget, the ones hiding in plain sight, were the ones who held the most secrets.

Accessories were the final step, and I hung a plain crucifix on a delicate chain around my neck. The gold necklace glowed warmly against my skin, matching the stack of small gold hoops I wore in both ears. Mami wasn’t religious, except about her beauty routine, but the necklace had been hers before it became mine, and I cherished it.

Finally, I slipped my feet into a pair of crisp, white Reebok Club Cs—I had a slight obsession with white sneakers—before giving myself one last assessing gaze in the flimsy mirror secured against the door of my room.

Looking at myself, I felt satisfied, perhaps even a bit pleased, with what I saw. My nails were painted a soft sheer pink that made them look natural yet polished, complimenting my makeup. The white sneakers and clean gold jewelry gave the classic look a slightly European edge to it. I reminded myself of a schoolgirl or postsecondary student in France. Timelessly feminine but without pretense. Attractive without appearing threatening or ambitious.

A sense of safety and security settled into me.

Hollow Oak University may not have been Yale or Harvard, but the small private school still held plenty of East Coast elite cachet.

And having survived my father’s family as a child, I was no stranger to the social politics that seemed to consume the lives of those with money. The games these people played weren’t meant for someone like me to win. The best I could hope for was to be a pawn. In my opinion, I was better off not playing at all.

The surest path to my success at Hollow Oak was to remain hidden away in plain sight. A polite stranger. And it wasn’t so much that makeup or clothes would help me fit in as what they would say to others. That I wasn’t trying to pretend that I had the money to blend in with my socioeconomic superiors. Nor was I deliberately trying to stick out because I resented that I didn’t.

And the truth was that scholarship students like me had been propping up the GPA at institutions like Hollow Oak for decades. We might be a small minority here and never afforded the same privileges and opportunities as our classmates, but if we could keep our heads up and stay focused, we could graduate with the same piece of paper.

Study hard and get a degree that would take me places. That was the plan. Simple, yet ambitious.

Despite my assurances, I felt the soft fluttering of butterflies in my stomach. I knew better than most that the best-laid plans remained vulnerable to calamity. Still, I forced myself to push them down, smoothing out the pleats of my skirt one last time.

If I played my cards right, I would survive here, even thrive, making Mami proud.

Hollow Oak, here I come.

Someone has given these children far too much money.

It was all I could think as I made my way across the sprawling quad, complete with cobblestone pathways, breathtaking stonework, and Gothic Revival buildings. It was warm for early September and the university’s well-maintained gardens were still in bloom. Beds full of hydrangeas and daylilies lined the walkways, while the reddish leaves of baneberry peeked out over stone hedges. Beneath the large shady trees popped the bright green leaves of lilies of the valley, and I could imagine what a gorgeous sight they would be in the spring.

Still, it was hard to appreciate the natural beauty of Hollow Oak University when I felt so lost in the sea of ostentatious, youthful wealth.

Legally speaking, we were all adults here. But there were still so many awkward, lanky boys hovering around and so many shiny-eyed girls traveling in packs that, in some ways, it shouldn’t have felt that far removed from my high school experience.

Most of the high schools I’d attended had been pretty privileged. They were in good neighborhoods, the kind that was full of your average entitled teenagers and their safely upper-middle-class parents who wanted “the best” for their kids and could afford the taxes to make it happen.

Some, but not all, of my classmates had a car. I certainly didn’t. Of those who did, about half had saved up and bought a used one on their own, while the other half were lucky enough to be gifted one by their parents.

Privileged? Absolutely. Wealthy? Compared to the average American, yeah, incontrovertibly so.

Compared to the students around me now, however? My high school classmates may as well have been from the trailer park.

The most significant difference was that while some of the students may not have entirely shed the trappings of their youth, there were still more attractive people here than I had ever seen gathered in one place before. Not that everyone was drop-dead gorgeous or immaculately put together, but it was undoubtedly a better-looking crowd than you would find hanging out on the average college campus.

Looking at the girls, their lips were fuller, their noses straighter, and their highlights ever so much subtler. Their nails weren’t just done, they were covered with intricate nail art or tasteful French manicures. Every single detail about them cost just a bit more, and it all added up to looking like a million dollars.

The boys, well, I stood by my initial observations regarding their awkwardness. But even then, their T-shirts hung on their growing frames better, and it was clear that at least some of them were hitting the gym in an attempt to fill out.

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