“I’m not going to school today,” Ellie said. She had decided that last night. “There’s no way I can face everyone like this, Brin.”
“Like this? No,” Brinley agreed quickly, as she surveyed Ellie’s face and almost let out a chuckle. Ellie had a sudden intense desire for a mirror. How god-awful did she look? Then again, considering how she felt, that question was probably better left unanswered.
“But that’s why I’m here. To whip you back into shape.”
Brinley pulled open the doors to Ellie’s walk-in closet, masterfully sifting through the clothing she knew so well. After all, she had been the one to help pick out most of it.
“I don’t want to go, Brin.”
“The longer you wait to show your face, the more the rumors will snowball,” Brinley said authoritatively, pulling out various sweater options and placing them on the chair next to Ellie’s desk. Brinley’s father was a top political strategist in D.C. and Brinley considered herself his prized pupil. “By the end of the week, people will be claiming the reason you’re not at school is because you’re pregnant with Gabe’s love child.”
Ellie pulled her comforter up higher at the mention of Gabe’s name.
“And yes, no matter what, you’re going to have some fall-out here. We both know that,” Brinley said, talking a mile a minute. “But you need to take control. Like I did with Graham.” Brinley and her boyfriend, Graham Wells, the former vice president’s son, had broken up just a few days ago, and Brinley had immediately embarked on a massive P.R. campaign to ensure that the entire school knew she had dumped him. Ellie wondered where Brinley got the strength to do that instead of collapsing on her bed and crying for an entire weekend.
“The truth is, Elle, how you handle this now is going to affect how people see you for the rest of your life at Georgetown Academy.” Brinley whipped around to Ellie’s armoire, opening the drawers and selecting a pair of tights. “You play this wrong and you’re going to become the John Edwards of G.A.” She looked at Ellie, seriously letting it sink in. “There’s no way to come back from that. Do you know anyone who doesn’t hate that floppy-haired horny Ken doll?”
Ellie conceded she might have a point. Brinley was already at the bed, gently pulling down the comforter.
“Time for you to shower. I think you have a few dreadlocks going on back there.”
Ellie rinsed the conditioner out of her hair and let the hot water run over her for a long minute, before finally stepping out and regarding herself in the mirror. Her usual dewy complexion was now a blotchy red. Her eyes were so puffy, she could only keep them half-open. And her cheeks were drawn hollow. She was a disaster.
Moments later, Brinley went to work fixing it all, a massive stash of make-up spread out on the counter in front of her.
As she liberally brushed foundation over Ellie’s face, she said, “How did this whole thing with Gabe even happen?”
“Oh God, Brin. It was such a horrible mistake…” Tears sprung back to Ellie’s eyes.
Ellie’s history with Gabe was one of the very few things Brinley didn’t know about her, and Ellie was not in a mental state to take her through the whole complicated saga.
“It’s okay, we don’t need to talk about it if it’s going to make you cry,” Brinley said, soothingly. “Anyway, we all do stupid things when we’re drunk. Remember when I got so tipsy at the Kennedy Opera Ball that I actually took a taxi home? My leg touched the leather, Elle.” She shuddered at the memory.
The truth was that Ellie had made the decision to follow Gabe into that vodka room completely sober. But that was too humiliating to admit.
“I guess,” she said.
“Don’t drag yourself through a shame spiral about it. The bigger question is who leaked that photo.”
Ellie paused for a beat. Wasn’t it obvious? “I would assume it was Richard Mills,” she said, “trying to create another scandal for my mom to deal with.” She left out the part about Gabe’s possible involvement.
“Right,” Brinley agreed, as she dabbed some concealer under Ellie’s eyes. “He might have been the one to release it. But that still doesn’t answer the question of who actually took the photo and sent it to him.”
Ellie considered this for the first time. “It was someone at the party and everyone there went to G.A.” She closed her eyes so that Brinley could brush shadow over them and was immediately overwhelmed by dizziness. It was one thing to think about Gabe’s dad being involved, but who at G.A. would have it out for her so much to want to do something like that? Tears began to dot her eyelids, threatening to leak out.
“Don’t cry again, Elle. I’ll start looking into it. It shouldn’t take me long to find out,” Brinley said. “I’ll put out some feelers around town.” Ellie didn’t have a clue as to what that entailed, yet she had no doubt the ultra-connected Brinley would pull through. “And then we’ll make sure everyone knows what they did.”
Brinley clicked the eye shadow compact closed and began rummaging through the selection of creamy blush sticks. “Let’s move on to your entrance strategy for today.”
“Aren’t you going to walk in with me?” Ellie asked, panicky. Brinley paused for a half a second.
“I would, but I have something I need to pick up right before school,” she replied, evasively. “Anyway, it’s better if you avoid the whole arrival situation completely. You want to get to school super early and beat the rush. Instead of being forced to do the walk of shame through campus, you’ll already be situated in class, ready to go. Oh, and, Elle, I know you’re sensitive and this is hard and all, but no crying today.”
Ellie swallowed. That was going to be pretty damn near impossible.
The student lot was virtually empty as Ellie parked her Lexus SUV. Per Brinley’s plan, she had gotten to school almost forty-five minutes before first bell. Apparently she hadn’t gotten there quite early enough, though. As she stepped out of her car, a black Tahoe Ellie immediately recognized as Gabe’s pulled up next to her. Her stomach filled with nerves. There were a million things she wanted to say to him, but now that he was in front of her, she just wanted to run.
She opened her back door and grabbed her book bag, hoping to make a quick escape.
“Ellie, wait!” he called out, catching her before she even shut the door. “We need to talk.” He was standing right next to her, slightly disheveled from lack of sleep, his dark features somehow even more attractive. If Hunter had mastered the quintessential Georgetown Academy preppy look, Gabe had sexy and edgy right down to his personality.
“Oh, all of a sudden you think we need to talk?” Ellie asked, icily.
Gabe sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t call this weekend. But this wasn’t something I wanted to talk about over the phone. I’ve been waiting to see you.” He gave her an imploring look. “Please. Let me say what I want to say.”
No one else was around yet, but if anyone pulled into the lot, there’d be a chance at another amazing photo-op. It didn’t seem like Gabe cared about that, but Ellie certainly did.
“Get in,” she said quickly, unlocking her passenger door as she hopped back into her car. Thank God Jasmine had the foresight to install those tinted windows.
Once he shut the door, he turned to her.
“Look, Elle, I know this whole situation is really messed up, but—”
“Messed up?” Ellie said, aware of how shrill her voice was, but unable to stop herself. “It’s a little more than messed up, Gabe. My mother hates me, my boyfriend dumped me, and the whole world thinks I’m the Benedict Arnold of daughters.”
“Ellie…” he said, his ambivalent tone not completely masking his trepidation.
“Somehow you’re here for less than a week and you’ve managed to embarrass my family all over again!” she hissed.
“You’re going to act like it’s all my fault?”
“Are you sure it wasn’t?” Ellie raised an accusing eyebrow. He looked at her, puzzled, and then the realization sunk in.
&n
bsp; “Wait…you think I…?”
“Set me up? Yeah. Deliberately kissed me so that you could have some idiot take a photo of us to help your father screw over my mother even more...”
“You can’t really think that, Elle. It’s ridiculous. It’s not like my dad was thrilled about the photo.”
Ellie said nothing.
“He flipped out on me, the same way I’m sure your mom did. Why do you think I’m here at the crack of dawn? I had to get out of the house.” He seemed to be telling the truth, but Ellie couldn’t be sure. “Why would my dad want this out there, anyway? It’s not like he comes out of this looking good.”
He had a point. It wasn’t just Marilyn those anchors had been dissecting this weekend. But still, it was more embarrassing to her, somehow. Ellie couldn’t put her finger on why—was it because she and her mom were the females in the situation? Not a word yet about Senator Mills’s humiliation, yet everyone was dying to discuss the shame she and her mother must be feeling. As if Gabe and his dad were high-fiving each other about it.
“I mean, Jesus, Elle. That you would even think that. Why do you always assume the worst from me?”
“Because I don’t trust you,” she said, simply and honestly.
“You don’t trust me, or you don’t trust yourself with me?” he asked, looking deep into her eyes. The familiar butterflies rose up in her stomach. The ones that always made an appearance when she was around Gabe.
“It’s the same thing, Gabe,” she whispered.
He reached for her hand, sending chills up Ellie’s spine. “Ellie, I was thinking about you all weekend. This could be a good thing,” he said seriously.
“What are you talking about?” Ellie asked. She suddenly felt exhausted.
“I figure this was always the worst case scenario, right? That word got out about us to our parents. To the public. So, how much worse is it, if we just say, ‘yeah, we’re together’?”
“Um, a lot worse,” Ellie said. The idea of approaching her mother and telling her she was now dating Gabe Mills was…impossible. She could never do it.
“Okay, fine, so it’ll suck a little. But my point is, we’re already near rock bottom anyway. If we ride this out together, eventually it will stop being a story and people will stop caring. It’s Media 101.”
Ellie closed her eyes. Her sinuses throbbed from all her crying the night before and the car walls felt like they were beginning to close in on her.
“Come on, Ellie…” he urged softly in the alluring voice Ellie had never been able to completely eliminate from her dreams. She opened her eyes to find him gazing at her steadily, but she would not let herself give into him this time.
“No, Gabe.”
“Why?” he asked, his temper flaring a little.
“Because of Hunter.” Ellie had missed him intensely over the weekend, almost dialing his number a dozen times after she watched the Meet the Press segment.
Gabe shrugged. “I thought you said you guys broke up?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want it to stay that way,” Ellie responded before she could stop herself. A flash of hurt crossed Gabe’s face, but he quickly covered it.
Ellie needed air. She couldn’t continue with this. “I could never be with you Gabe. Everything is just too hard with you around.”
She was about to exit the car when there was a rapping on the window. Ellie turned to see Taryn Reyes standing there and she did not look happy.
CHAPTER TWO
Monday, 7:16am.
Taryn Reyes had pulled into the student parking lot exactly one minute earlier, ready to get to the bottom of things after her horrible Friday, easily one of the worst days of her entire life. First, she had been bulldozed by a terrible rumor Brinley Madison had begun, that Taryn had traded sexual favors for Percocet with the gnarsty school drug dealer.
And then, the awful photo had come out. The photo that clearly showed Ellie Walker, who Taryn had thought was one of her new friends, kissing Gabe Mills, who Taryn had liked since her first day at G.A.. They were supposed to have gone out that weekend. Of course, she’d made the date before realizing he’d been playing her for his own ulterior motives. Potential boyfriend and best friend lost in one fell swoop. She had texted Gabe and cancelled their date immediately after she saw the photo, but she had been waiting to confront Ellie about it until school today.
Now, her heart raced when she saw Ellie’s car in the lot, parked but running. Taryn marched out of her Prius, her long dark hair cascading behind her, her white bell-sleeved sweater and bright maxi skirt perfectly off-setting her brown eyes and bronzed skin, and bee-lined to the driver’s side window, rapping on it quickly.
A second later, Ellie rolled it down. And that’s when Taryn’s jaw dropped. Sitting next to her was none other than Gabe Mills.
Then again, what else could she expect from these two? These were the same people who basically convinced her they couldn’t stand each other, yet somehow found themselves mauling at a party.
“Look who it is, Georgetown Academy’s hottest couple,” she couldn’t help but blurt out, the acrimony oozing from her mouth, feeling bitter and unfamiliar on her tongue. Taryn typically was a very chill person. She tried to assume the best in everyone and usually things worked out. But she had been at Georgetown Academy less than a week and was now well aware of the fact that this place was very different from her old school in California.
“Taryn, I can—” Gabe tried to say, but she cut him off.
“You asked me out on a date two days after you hooked up with Ellie at the rookie party.” Taryn had recognized the army green jacket draped over Ellie’s shoulders in the photos as the one Gabe had worn that night and the timing of the events only upset her even more. “Did you think it would be better cover for the two of you if you were seen outwardly dating me or something?”
“No, of course not. The whole situation is way more complicated than that,” he said in the deep voice Taryn used to find irresistible. Now she just found it affected.
“I think I can keep up,” she responded, her dark eyes flashing with anger. “Did you ever even like me, Gabe?”
He gave a slight look to Ellie before opening his mouth.
“Never mind. Don’t answer that.”
Gabe looked out the window, chagrined, and Taryn turned her attention to Ellie who remained stoic, staring down at her lap, refusing to meet Taryn’s eye.
“I thought we were friends, Ellie,” Taryn said, daring her to make eye contact. In fact, the minute she met Ellie the first day of school, Taryn had found her grounded, smart and funny. Finally, Ellie swallowed and turned to her. There were tears in her eyes.
“We are—”
“Then you have a seriously warped definition of friendship. The night you warned me off of Gabe and told me he ‘wasn’t a good guy’ was the same night you hooked up with him yourself.”
Gabe gave Ellie a surprised look, but Taryn wasn’t done.
“And then the next day, you do a one-eighty and tell me you were cool with us dating, after all. The sad thing is, at the time, I thought you were trying to be a good friend.”
“I was!” Ellie exclaimed.
Unbelievable. She was going to just sit there and lie to Taryn’s face.
“You two are made for each other,” she spat out, before spinning around and walking away.
Taryn walked through the empty hallways a few minutes later, heading toward the administration office, surprised at how much bigger the school felt when there was almost no one inside it. She’d been called in to talk to the headmaster, which was why Taryn had gotten to school so early, though the chance to confront Ellie and Gabe in the parking lot had been an unexpected bonus.
She had received the note from Headmaster Hopkins last Friday afternoon, asking her to meet with him immediately after school so he could discuss the Percocet rumor that Brinley Madison had started. But Taryn had ditched the meeting that day, too overwhelmed to deal with it. Now it was time t
o face the music. She had emailed him an apology over the weekend and he agreed to meet with her first thing today.
As his secretary led Taryn into his inner-office, Taryn’s pulse raced. Of course, the rumor wasn’t true in the slightest. First of all, Taryn didn’t like putting any type of drug in her system. She was more into homeopathic remedies than Advil. Secondly, they were essentially calling her a prostitute. It was absurd. If that same rumor had started back home at her high school in Los Angeles, no one would have believed it, including the principal who loved Taryn and had put her on the influential student admissions committee. But here in D.C., where she was still the new girl, everyone had latched onto the rumor as truth. Even the headmaster, it seemed.
She stepped into the beautiful glass-enclosed office with its impressive panoramic view of the front lawn. Mr. Hopkins, the robust headmaster who was fond of using esoteric words in everyday conversation just so students would have to look them up, glanced at Taryn from his perch behind the desk.
“Taryn, have a seat,” he boomed, before returning his eyes to the computer screen on his desk.
As Taryn sat, she was surprised to find he was scrolling through what looked to be a Twitter feed.
“Just trying to get a handle on what people are saying about this Mills/Walker situation,” he explained, noticing her expression. “People are apoplectic over it. Sean Hannity just tweeted that Ellie Walker is an embarrassment to America.”
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