by Amy Sparling
I throw my hands up in the air. “Tell that to my parents. They’re sending me away tomorrow because they want me to get good grades at an actual school instead of from my private tutors.”
“That’s harsh,” he says. “Where are you going?”
“Shelfbrooke.”
He grimaces. “That’s far away.”
I lean my head on his shoulder. “I know,” I say with a heavy sigh.
He pats my back but it does nothing to comfort me. “Let’s swim. Take your mind off it.”
I know I should suck it up and go swim with him. He’s Henry Sharp after all. But my stomach hurts and I’m feeling dizzy from the realization that I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning. I shake my head. “You swim. I just need to sit down.”
“I’ll swim with you!” Viv says, eagerly stripping off her sheer coverup and revealing the hot pink bikini she wears underneath.
“Cool,” Henry says with that gorgeous smile of his. He reaches out his hand and my best friend takes it, knowing full well that I have claimed Henry as my own crush, and together they jump into my pool.
I guess I should have seen this coming. Tomorrow I’ll be gone. Out of the picture. Shipped off to the stupid east coast. But my best friend and Henry will still be here, living it up in Malibu.
I watch the sun glistening off Viv’s gorgeous wet hair. I hear the sound of her laughter as Henry splashes her. Then the sound of his laughter as she splashes him back. And just like that, my future First Lady plans are ripped out from under me.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Chapter Three
My hand wraps around the handles of my Prada suitcases. Three more suitcases are being overnighted to the boarding school, filled with my clothing and belongings. This one is my carry on. It didn’t feel real when I was packing last night, but it feels real now. It feels real like a sucker punch to the gut.
I didn’t even say goodbye to my parents this morning because they were already gone, headed off to Bali for some “marriage counseling” which we all know is just a fancy way to say you’re spending a lot of money getting pampered at a resort. They couldn’t be bothered to tell me goodbye when their plane left last night, and I won’t be bothered to text them goodbye now, as I stand at my front door, watching the driver pull up and get out, opening the back door for me.
I take a deep breath. I walk down the front steps of my Malibu house, knowing I will count every single day until I get to come back here where I belong.
“Good morning, Miss Brass,” the driver says. I don’t know his name. I give him a slight nod, which is all I can muster right now. It’s really freaking early in the morning and I am being relocated against my will. I can’t bother to smile right now.
The drive to the airport is short. We go to a private air strip just a few minutes away, where the chartered jet is waiting for us. My parents own a third of the jet and share it with two other prominent families. Today I get to use it.
The private jet is fun, but now when you’re being flown to a stuffy pathetic boarding school. Ugh.
I can’t believe my parents are doing this to me!
I normally try to sleep on planes because I get nervous from the turbulence, but today I am wide awake. My stomach is in knots, and I can’t even drink the orange juice that comes with my in-flight breakfast, and that’s saying something because I love orange juice. In just a few hours I’ll be deposited at Shelfbrooke Academy and I don’t even know what to do once I get there. Charlie’s notes in my email say my Aunt Kate will pick me up. But I’m not sure I can remember what she looks like. It’s been a long time.
I can’t believe my parents are doing this to me. I keep hoping this is some kind of cruel joke, a prank my very well-mannered parents decided to do just to get a laugh. Even though that’s not like them at all, I still hold onto the hope. I keep expecting them to pop out from the back cabin in the plane and yell “Got you!” and laugh and laugh and say it was all just a joke.
But, of course, that doesn’t happen.
Viv told me I should make a big deal about my moving away on Snapchat, but I decided against it. I made her swear not to tell anyone that I’m leaving. Maybe I can just disappear mysteriously for a few months and people will wonder where I am. It can be an interesting secret and it’ll make my California friends eager to see me again. Maybe I’ll get even more popular from this. So long as Viv keeps her promise. Now that she has Henry in her sights, she probably won’t be thinking about me at all.
The plane lands way sooner than I want it to. Touching down on the New England runway means I’m here. It means my Malibu life is halted, put on hold for several months. It means everything is going to change, and not in a good way like when you get a nose job.
These changes suck.
I grab my suitcase and shuffle down the fold out stairs and onto the tarmac. Inside the small private airport, a few people mull around. None of them look like my aunt. I chew on the inside of my lip, checking my phone, hoping someone has sent me some kind of instructions on what to do. But Charlie has left me on my own, it seems.
About ten minutes go by, with me standing here feeling out of place for the first time in my life, and finally I see a tall guy wearing skinny jeans and a plaid jacket, walking around like he’s looking for someone. We make eye contact.
“Sophia Brass?”
“Yes,” I say, relief flooding over me. “Are you my ride?”
“Yes ma’am,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him. “My car is right out here.”
I quickly discover that when he said car, he meant car. Like a regular car.
I frown as he puts my suitcase into the trunk and I climb into the backseat, noticing the rideshare logo stuck to the window. This is a ride share car. Not a private car. I’ve never been in a rideshare car in my life. That’s something people without trust funds do. Ugh.
The guy is polite, but he likes to talk, and it’s annoying. The drive takes forever, but soon he’s pulling into the driveway of some kind of old apartment complex. The red bricks match all the other houses we’ve driven by, and there’s a large gate around the parking lot, all covered with vines. But this is clearly an apartment complex, not a school. At least –gosh—I hope this isn’t the school.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Umm, your destination?” he says, checking his phone. “Kate’s home?”
I laugh. “Ah. Okay. Cool.”
This isn’t my new school.
I waiver for a minute, wondering if I’m supposed to tip him. I mean, probably, right? I reach in my purse and take out a hundred-dollar bill and hand it over. “Thank you for driving me.”
His eyes bug out, then he holds up his hand. “I can’t accept that.”
“Why not?” I hold it out to him again. “I’m tipping you. That’s what people do with rideshares, right?”
He grins, and little wrinkles form in the crease of his eyes. He dresses like he’s twenty, but he’s probably closer to forty. “Ms. Kate has already tipped me through the app.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling my cheeks flush. I shrug. “Well, take it anyway, please. It’s my parents’ money if it makes you feel any better.”
He stares at the hundred-dollar bill for a long moment and then he finally takes it. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
I get out of the car and stare up at the large building in front of me. There are five front doors, five sidewalks going up to them, and five numbers on each door. I have no idea which one belongs to my Aunt Kate. I turn around to ask the driver if he knows, but he’s already pulling out of the parking lot. Great. Just great.
Charlie’s one and only email just told me some information about my new school. I’d ignored it because I was angry, but maybe it has my aunt’s address on it.
I pull out my phone and scroll through the email. Sure enough, it does. It even says I should look for an Uber driver at the airport. Oops. Maybe I should have read this.
Aunt Kate’s condo is the thi
rd one. My heart pounds in my chest as I walk up to it. Why do I feel so sick? Why do I feel like the sky is falling and my life is ending? It’s only a few months, I remind myself. This will be okay. I’ll survive.
I knock on the door.
A woman who looks a lot like my mom appears on the other side. “Sophia! Look at you!” she says, holding out her arms for a hug. “Absolutely stunning!”
I lean into her, hugging my aunt for the first time in years. Her resemblance to my mom is uncanny, but it’s like they were raised on different planets. Mom is thin, toned, tanned, and always wearing a perfect face of makeup. She gets weekly Botox injections, and bi-weekly hair appointments. My aunt is, well, not that. She’s wrinkly, with gray hairs poking out from her brown locks. She has a little pudge on her stomach, and her nails are unpainted. Her ears devoid of jewelry. But even I have to admit, she looks a lot nicer than my mom. She looks friendly. Caring. Motherly.
“How was your trip?” she asks.
“It was okay.” I glance around the living room. The furniture is old. The couches are floral print. There are tons of knickknacks and plants everywhere. My aunt’s living room looks like something you’d see in an old grandma’s house on television. It’s not horrible or messy or anything, just not what I’m used to. The air smells like chocolate chip cookies though, and I can get behind that.
“Where’s Belle?”
“Oh, she’s at school,” she says. “I had to pull some strings, but I got you in her dorm! Isn’t that great? You won’t have to share with a stranger.”
“The dorms are shared?” I say, curling my lip.
My aunt laughs. “For the most part, yes. Some people are lucky enough to have a private room. Belle’s roommate left in her freshman year and she got moved to a new room. She’s had the room all to herself since then.”
“I don’t want to impose,” I say. “Maybe they could find another empty room for me?”
She laughs again. “Honey, if that were possible, don’t you think your mom would have paid for one by now?”
I roll my eyes at the mention of my mom. “I don’t know what she would do. She clearly hates me for sending me here.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” Aunt Kate says. “You’ll get a great education. You want some cookies? I have a fresh batch in the kitchen. You can take the rest with you to Belle.”
My brain feels overworked. Like it’s thinking way too hard, like when I’m trying to work out a complicated calculus problem. And it’s all because I just realized I’ll be living in a dorm. I guess I knew that, deep down, that boarding schools mean dorms, but it hadn’t sunk in until now. Rooming with my cousin should be better in theory, but she isn’t even my friend. Hopefully she’s cool. Maybe if I sweet-talk some people in charge, I’ll be able to get my own room. Or, maybe I can just rent an apartment off campus. That would be perfect. When I mention this last idea to my aunt, she bursts out laughing.
“Honey, they don’t allow students to live off-campus. You have to live in a dorm.”
“Great. Just great.”
“You’ll be fine,” Aunt Kate says. “Here, have a cookie.”
I eat two of the chocolate chip cookies, which are still delightfully warm from the oven, and then my aunt packs the rest up in a plastic container. We get in her car, which is an old Ford SUV thing that has seen better days. I try not to look disgusted. I don’t know why my aunt didn’t take the family money, but she should have. She could be living a much better life than this one with a crappy car and old, small condo. I have no idea how she even affords the tuition for Belle’s schooling.
My aunt chatters away on the drive to the school. It takes exactly two minutes. I didn’t realize she lived so close. Now my nerves are on overdrive. I’m practically on fire with how freaked out I am as we drive up to Shelfbrooke Academy. The campus grounds are huge, over five hundred acres my aunt says, and they’re all contained behind an ancient stone wall. At the entrance, the wall becomes an old stone gate, which we drive through. It looks a lot like the New England ivy league schools, with ancient campus buildings and beautiful old trees, and worn stone pathways connecting them all.
The only difference is that all the students on campus are wearing a uniform.
My aunt drives right up to a building and puts the car in park. “So it’s just down that hallway, to the right. Belle’s dorm is number sixty-two. She’s expecting you. I have to get to work or I’d walk you inside,” she says, looking over at me. Then she frowns. “You okay? You know what, I’ll go inside if you want.”
I shake my head and swallow down my nerves. The last thing I want to do is be brought inside with a parent like I’m some kind of pathetic little kid.
“It’s fine,” I say, offering her the best smile I can muster. “I’ll be fine.”
Aunt Kate smiles and squeezes my hand. She seems to believe me. I really wish I believed myself.
Chapter Four
It’s just after eleven in the morning, and I don’t see any other students as I walk toward the dorm, rolling my suitcases behind me. There were students walking around when we drove in, but this part of the campus is deserted. You would think that dorm rooms would be filled with people bustling around, but maybe I’m just projecting my love of Gilmore Girls onto reality. Maybe in reality, everyone is in class right now.
Still, my heart pounds and my palms feel sweaty. I’ve never been so horribly out of place in my life. I pull open the door to the building where my aunt had told me to go. Inside, the floors are made of gray marble that looks as ancient as the rest of the building. The left side of the hallway is just a wall with no windows. Framed portraits of important old people line the walls, as well as a bulletin board, and some other plaques. On the right side of the hallway are a bunch of doors. The numbers start at forty. I stand straight, tell myself I’m Sophia Brass, I’m extremely wealthy and popular, and well liked. I can handle this. I walk forward, counting off the doors as the numbers slowly increase, until finally, I’m at number sixty-two. It’s a little frightening how short the distance is between each door. I’m imagining a room the size of a closet when I knock on the ancient wooden door in front of me, the numbers 62 on it in gold embossed numbers.
Several seconds go by and nothing happens. I knock again, louder this time. Maybe the old wooden door is so thick she can’t hear me knocking. Again, nothing.
“Belle?” I call out, pressing my face close to the door. “Are you in there? It’s Sophia.”
The sound of a deadbolt clicks, and then the door slowly opens. A girl’s face appears in the slight open width of the door. It’s Belle. At least I think it is.
“Belle?”
Her dark eyes are wide. She looks frightened, or at the very least, freaked out.
“It’s me,” I say, smiling. “Sophia? Your cousin?”
“I know,” she says, her voice whisper-soft. She pulls open the door further, and steps back to let me inside. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah. Aunt Kate had to go to work so she dropped me off.”
The second I’m inside the dorm room, Belle closes the door and twists the deadbolt back into place. Then she turns to face me. My cousin is a little taller than I am, willowy, and pale. Her long dark hair goes all the way to her waist, falling in unkept soft waves down her shoulders. She’s wearing black leggings and a red sweater, with black and red plaid house shoes on her feet.
“How are you?” she asks, a soft smile tipping up on her lips.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think my frail-looking cousin was suffering some disease. She’s so tiny and fragile. Wait…
Maybe she is. I don’t know anything about her.
“I’m fine,” I say, smiling again. “How are you? Are you okay?”
She nods quickly, her hand tugging at the sleeve of her other arm. “I’m good.” She holds her hands out. “Welcome to the dorm.”
I take this opportunity to look around. The room is narrow, but it’s not quite the size of a closet, to m
y relief. This part of the dorm is a living area, with two small loveseats, a coffee table, and a low bookshelf that’s filled with books, both of the textbook variety and of the fun, fictional variety. Then further down the narrow room, two beds are up against each corner. There are identical bookshelves next to each bed, but one is empty. Between the beds against the far wall, is a very tall window that stretches from a few feet above the floor and goes all the way up to the high ceilings. I look up, taking in the sight of the tall ceilings, which seems to make the room feel bigger. The bed on the right is clearly Belle’s because it’s made up with purple sheets and tons of pillows. Posters of classic literary novels line the walls. The bookshelf next to her bed is filled with more books and storage boxes.
My bed has a bare mattress, no pillows, and a stack of uniforms.
I roll my suitcases to the bed and run my fingers over the uniforms. “Are these mine?”
Belle nods. “The laundry crew drops them off each Tuesday, all fresh and clean.”
“These are hideous. But at least everyone has to wear them,” I say with a snort.
Belle’s smile fades away. “So obviously, this is your bed. You should get some new sheets as soon as you can. The stuff they supply here is awful and scratchy. I can let you borrow some of my sheets for now. That’s your closet,” she says pointing to a narrow door to the left of my bed. “And that’s the bathroom.”
I pull open the other door and peer inside what is the smallest bathroom I’ve ever seen. There’s just a shower, toilet, and small sink.
“This is totally not okay,” I say, closing the door and turning back to my cousin. “That bathroom is entirely too small! How are two people supposed to share it? This is a school, not prison!”
Belle chuckles. “You should be really grateful for that bathroom. The alternative is the shared bathrooms in Stratford Hall.”
My eyebrows rise. “The what now?”
She points to the window, where a large and imposing building is just across a small pathway. “That’s the student dorms. Each floor has a different grade, and the boys and girls are separated out on different hallways. They all share a common bathroom on each floor.”