After about thirty minutes, I’ve chilled out enough to get out of the car and walk in. I’m not going to learn anything sitting in my car watching. I already know that. I know the Dolce secrets are buried too deep to see through a window or even digging through their desks. To get down in deep, I have to let him pull me under the surface. I have to be willing to take the risk, to know I might drown.
When I walk through the door, the first thing I see is the desk off to my right. Behind the desk, her hair pulled back in a businesslike bun, wearing a hotel uniform, is Gloria Walton.
Her face goes chalk white when she sees me. I’m just as surprised, but I stroll over like I wasn’t expecting anything else. I lean my elbow on the counter and look her over. “Hey, Lo.”
“Harper,” she says, gulping and searching the room with her eyes, like she’s looking for an exit. “W-what are you doing here?”
I cock a brow. “What are you doing here?”
“I work here.” She smooths her hands over her dark green polo shirt with the hotel logo on the breast.
“Why?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“Because,” she says, lifting her chin and pinching her lips together. “It looks good on college applications.”
“Or… Maybe because you’re not exactly who everyone thinks you are?”
“I’m exactly who everyone thinks I am,” she says. “I’m Gloria Walton.”
“But are you Gloria Walton, rich girl? Or Gloria Walton, scholarship student like me?”
She reaches across the desk and grabs my forearm, her long, iridescent fake nails biting into my skin. “You cannot tell anyone,” she hisses. “I’ll be ruined. And not just me. My sisters. My brother—well, he’ll probably be okay, he’s a guy. They always bounce back. But do you know what this would do to my reputation?”
“Yes,” I say, detaching her hand from my arm and leveling her with my fiercest gaze. “I know exactly what it’s like to be a scholarship student at Willow Heights. You made sure of that from day one.”
“Listen, I said I was sorry,” she says. “And I really am. You know I meant it.”
“Or maybe you just mean it because you got caught.”
“No,” she says, holding up a hand. “I like you, Harper. I was a bitch, but I’ve tried to make it up to you. I invited you to the mall, and the game, and the New Year’s party. Not just to make up for that, but because I like hanging out with you. We text all the time. We’re friends now. Right?”
She searches my eyes, and I cross my arms and stare her down. “Are we? I don’t know what to think right now. I’m not sure I know you at all.”
“Look, I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. What do you want? I’m seventeen.”
“I’m seventeen, too.”
She crosses her arms, mirroring my pose, like we’re in a standoff. “You’re not perfect, either.”
“No,” I say. “I’m a slut, a whore, trash, garbage… What else did you call me? A cockroach, maybe? It’s so hard to keep up with all the insults.”
“I thought we were past all that,” she says, looking truly wounded by my words, as if they didn’t come out of her mouth first. But see, that’s the thing about words. They don’t break bones like sticks and stones. They cut your soul to shreds, make you believe you’re not worthy. Wounds from fists heal. Words, they linger far longer than bruises or even a tooth knocked loose.
And even though she’s right, and I actually consider her a friend, at the first sign of betrayal, it all comes flooding back. She treated me like shit for months, and all along, she was no better than me. She was a scholarship student, too. But she never let me forget it for a minute.
“What is Royal doing with that woman?” I ask.
She gulps. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit.”
A man in a suit comes in and checks in. Before he leaves, he looks me up and down like he might order me off a menu. When he’s gone, Gloria leans over the counter and lowers her voice to a whisper. “Royal’s not your boyfriend, Harper. He said you knew that.”
“That doesn’t mean what he’s doing doesn’t affect me,” I say. “I should be able to make informed decisions about my health and the rest of my life, and that’s exactly what sleeping with someone is, if they’re not being safe with their other partners. If they’re doing what I think they’re doing…”
She looks like a kicked puppy. “It’s not what you think.”
“They’re not fucking?”