the foot of the bed. The sheets trailed across the floor. Crushed into the throw rug in the center
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of the room--the brand-new, cheery throw rug Sabine had given me--were dozens and dozens of
blush beads. Pink and brown powder everywhere.
I started to hyperventilate, breathing in the scent of Cheyenne's perfume until it started to poison
my brain. Cheyenne. She had done this to me that first day of chores last year. That day I had been
woken from my bed in Billings and forced to do whatever the residents asked of me. Cheyenne
had told me she liked her pillows fluffed, her sheets tight. And when I had talked back to her, she
had crushed an entire pot of blush beads into her white and green flowered rug. She'd demanded I
clean it up.
Suddenly, my dinner decided to make a reappearance. I turned away from my room and fled for
the bathroom. I dropped my book bag in the hallway and clawed off my coat. My knees hit the
hard tile in the first stall just in time. Everything I had eaten in the past five hours came right back
up. Tears streamed from my eyes as I retched. Luckily the bathroom was empty. Thank goodness
for small favors.
Finally, I sat back on my butt and flushed the toilet. I wiped my hand across my mouth and nose
and dried my tears, shaking uncontrollably. My temples were pounding, my vision blurred.
My stalker had sunk to a new low. That had been one of the worst mornings of my life, and my
first real introduction to Cheyenne. Seeing those blush beads brought her back to me more vividly
than any of the other pranks and plants I had endured--even more than the perfume. Whoever
was doing this really was trying to drive me crazy.
And maybe they were succeeding. A girl could only take so much.
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I pressed my palms into the cool tile at my sides and pushed myself up. I cleared my throat as I
stepped tentatively from the stall and around the partial wall that separated the toilets from the
sinks and showers. There I found out I was not, in fact, alone. Ivy stood at one of the sinks, smiling
happily at me.
"Okay, that was disgusting," she said to me, shouldering her bag. "Bulimia is so last century, Reed.
Next time you want to toss your cookies, do it in the privacy of your own room. That's what plastic
trash cans are for."