As I walk into the hall, I see that the area is roped off with ‘wet floor’ signs and tape, so no one could have gotten close to the bathroom anyway to hear me yelling.
Well done Astor. You really do know how to make sure a job is thoroughly done. I’m so ready to knock Astor’s head clean off of his shoulders.
I head straight to my room. I missed my last class while I was locked up, and it was immediately after I promised Madame Bisset that I would clean up my act and start taking my school career seriously. I wasn’t hit by a train wreck. I am the train wreck.
Dana isn’t in the room when I get there, so I just grab my towel and a change of clothes and I head out in search of something she mentioned a while back when I first got here. Aside from the regular showers, there’s supposed to be a mineral bath on campus … kind of like the old Turkish baths they have in movies.
If there is one thing I could use right now, it’s a good soak.
I’m relieved to find that there’s no one in the bath when I get to it. There are two doors clearly marked, male and female. Separate baths. I wonder why, until I step into the female changing room and see a sign that reads ‘no clothing beyond this point’. Oh. It’s a nude bath. So much for the swimsuit. I leave my clothes in the changing room and take only my towel in with me. I’m not quite a prude, but I’m also not the type to go prancing around in my birthday suit when I can help it.
It’s deliciously quiet and peaceful in here. Even though the water smells funny, from the minerals I’m sure, it’s the perfect temperature for the soreness and pain to start seeping from me. I relax in the steaming waters and force myself to let all of my worries go. For the time that I am here, I do not allow myself to think of any of the people I am so concerned about; the ones who are bullying me, taunting me, teasing me, driving me slowly out of my mind. None of them are in the bath with me, and none of them are allowed in my head while I’m here.
I need this. To focus on me, for a change. I’ve been so focused elsewhere.
I wish I could stay longer, but I do still have one last evening of detention to deal with.
The mineral baths must be magic, I’ve decided, because I haven’t felt this relaxed since the day I walked into this school in my too-big, shabby black dress. It’s like I can breathe again, and for the first time, I actually feel like everything is going to be okay.
I rise from the water and walk into the changing room with my towel wrapped around me, only to immediately stop short. My clothes are gone. I look around, wondering if someone just came in to tidy things up and might have put them in another locker, but they’re all empty. I even go so far as to check the bathroom stalls ... only to find nothing.
That’s it, my clothes really are gone. I am standing there in nothing but a towel, and I realize that I’ve been had again. I’m starting to think that they must have followed me, but then … they could always have one of their many cronies do that for them. It doesn’t matter. Either way, it’s where I am now. I’m just glad I still have the towel.
It could always be worse.
Isn’t that what I said about my old life? I thought this new one would be different.
Anger flushes through me, washing away all of the temporary zen happiness I found. I tighten the towel around me and yank the door open, stepping into the hall. No one is there. Of course not; they’re never there. They torture me and then disappear. It’s one of their favorite games. It’s like whack a mole, except somehow I’m the mole and they’re the mallet.
I hurry through the hall and hope to get to my room and change before I’m late to detention. The last thing I need is to be found running around wearing nothing but a towel in front of the rest of the school.
I come around the corner and I know that I’m going to have to head up the main lawn to get to the dorms, but I’m desperately hoping that if I hurry, maybe I’ll be lucky and only a couple of people might be around. Or no one. That’s possible too, though not probable.
Somehow, I get all the way to the dorms without being spotted by anyone important. I catch a few younger students making out behind a couple of trees, but there’s an unspoken agreement between all of us to never tell. I’ve almost forgiven the boys, writing this off as one of the less harmful of their pranks, when I throw open a door into a back stairwell and come face to face with all three of them. They’re all standing on the stairs, watching me, waiting for me.
The holy trinity, and all of their entourage, except for Victoria and her two wing ladies. I don’t have time to wonder if they’re too hungover to join, or just weren’t invited—because I’m discovering that this was only the very beginning of the prank.
Everyone laughs and starts pulling out their cell phones the minute I step inside, but they aren’t filming me. I draw the towel closer to my body as my eyes follow to where they’re all looking. When I see it, my jaw falls slack.
I’ve found my missing clothes.
And it’s worse than I imagined.
There, pinned to the wall, is my bra. The word ‘whore’ is written boldly above it, and underneath it are five photographs; 8x10 glossy prints of me in a blue dress, laying on a sofa underneath Blair. In some of them his hand covers my breast and in others it’s disappeared between my thighs. It doesn’t matter that nothing really happened, because these photos make it look like we’re going all the way.
I scream.
I have never been so horrified in all my life.
“Nice work, Wills,” Astor tells him loudly, giving him a high five. “You should be a photographer.”
“Should be? I’d say I already am. I think those came out pretty well.” Wills laughs coolly, and I turn to face them bitterly.
“How could you?” I shout at them, but they all just laugh. It’s Blair that hurts me the most. He winks at me when he catches my eye, like this is all some funny joke. Another game for his ‘Bunny’.
I race halfway up to my room before I collapse in a corner of the stairs. I can still hear them several floors below, their voices and laughter melding together in a confusing cacophony of voices. This time, I’m unable to keep the tears from flowing. They sting at my eyes and spill over, staining my cheeks with wet streaks.
But I can’t stay here. I won’t stay here to be found out.