“Is it that obvious?”
I shrug. “I’m good at reading people. I don’t think it’s that obvious.”
My first lie in a while. I don’t want to make her feel bad.
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. She wants nothing to do
with me anymore … and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.”
I cringe inside, and I know it shows on the outside.
“Sorry, that has to suck. I’m sure she doesn’t make it easy with the whole … this … thing.” I mimic the way she tosses her hair over her shoulder, and Dana lets out a loud sigh.
“Tell me about it.”
“You can do better,” I say. “Perfect people like her don’t have much room for losers like us.”
Dana snorts, nearly inhaling the tomato she was chewing. “Easy for you to say. She seems to actually like you … and that doesn’t happen often.” She purses her lips a second, and then blurts out, “she’s not as perfect as she wants people to think. I’m pretty sure her dad knocked up the maid.”
As soon as it’s out of her mouth, her hands fly to cover the bottom half of her face. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Just remind me not to tell you any secrets,” I say, and chuckle.
Now that one secret is out, the rest just comes out like a flood. She’s talking so fast I can barely keep up. So much for thinking she was the quiet type.
“… if she could just see how I want to help her. I know her better than anyone here. I just want to love her, but she just wants to deny it all.”
I felt a twinge of sympathy upon hearing Victoria’s story, but even more hearing the way Dana talks about her. Sounds to me like Victoria isn’t the only one in denial, but I don’t know Dana well enough yet to tell her that.
Turns out that Dana’s inside knowledge extends well beyond the inner workings of her ex-best-friend Victoria’s life. She knows everything about everyone and proceeds to tell me all of it. I knew there would be drama going on in a place like this, but I eventually have to stop her.
“Dana … as much as I would love to know all the details of that random guy’s hookup last year with the old Drama teacher … but I’d rather hear about someone else.”
My eyes scan the crowd, looking for a pair of cruel eyes looking back, and find none.
I make sure I ask in a nonchalant way, but I really want to know. “Victoria said this morning that Astor’s family founded the school. Is that true?”
If it is, then that means he’s going to have a lot more clout and popularity than any of the other boys, and I cringe to think that I blew my first meeting with him. He could really make it hard for me here if he wants to. I saw it with Thomas … and that was just the first day. I’ve already gotten a reputation for standing up for the school’s pariahs.
It’s not a way to make a good first impression with the person who’s responsible for making them pariahs in the first place.
“Yes, and because of it he seems to think it makes him totally immune to the rules here. Even basic human decency rules.” She goes back to picking at the last of her salad. “He’s the poster child for jerks, but Victoria really seems to like him. I don’t know what it is she sees in him. But then again … I don’t know what I thought she’d see in me.”
She mutters the last part to herself.
This strikes me more than it should. All my life, even before Ms. Martin, I’ve been told I would never amount to anything. I’ll wind up homeless and in the gutter. I don’t have a brain in my head. I’m nothing at all, and I’ll never be anything but nothing.
I know how it feels to have all the odds stacked against you.
Yet here I am. I’ll prove them wrong. And I’m starting with a whole lot less than Dana.
Against my better judgement, I reach across the table and rest a reassuring hand on hers.
“Victoria would be lucky to have you.”
Dana won’t do much to help me socially, but sometimes you can’t help who you end up being friends with. And just like Victoria would be lucky to have her, I think I am too.
Chapter 6