“You must be Kinsey Holland,” a smiling staff member said when I stepped inside the warm office. It was a relatively small space, but it reeked of money like the rest of the place. Polished wood paneling lined the walls and the floors were made of ornate marble tiles. Worlds apart from my old school, where the flooring was dark green linoleum and the walls were white-washed plaster with peeling patches.
I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat and returned the office lady’s friendly smile. “Yes, that’s me. I was told to come here to sign in this morning.”
“Welcome to CPA, Kinsey. I have your school-issued tablet right here,” she replied, placing a shiny new iPad on the counter in front of me. “You’ll just need to turn it on, follow the prompts, and create a new password. I also have a paper copy of your schedule in case it takes you a while to get the tablet figured out. There’s also a map and a tutorial for our online student portal.”
“Thank you.”
“Your guide should be here in a minute.” The office lady’s brows lifted as her eyes traveled over my shoulder. “Oh, there she is. Perfect timing.”
I turned to see a tall brunette with gunmetal-blue eyes and a perfectly-pressed uniform. “Hi,” she said in a flat tone. “I’m Erin Middleton. I’ll be showing you around this morning.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said with a smile. “I’m Kinsey Holland.”
“I know. We should get going. I have a lot to show you.” Erin turned around, beckoning for me to follow her out of the office.
I caught up and fell into step beside her, heart pounding with anxiety. She was being polite enough, but I could tell by her tone that she wasn’t happy to have been tasked with showing the new kid around the school.
“You said your last name is Middleton, right?” I said, trying to make conversation as she led me down a long hall. “As in the drugstore Middletons?”
She nodded. “Yes. My family owns a whole chain of stores down the west coast.”
“My mother is actually working in one of them now,” I said. “She’s a pharmacist.”
“Oh, that’s right. George Kingsley is friends with my parents, so he helped her get the job.” Erin paused for a beat and side-eyed me. “So… you’re living with King Jax, huh? What’s that like?”
“Honestly, he’s been a total tool so far.”
“He can be a bit of a dick,” she said, raising her brows. “He’s usually notthatbad though, unless you cross him in some way. So I’m sure he’ll warm up to you eventually.”
I doubted that, but I didn’t want to seem argumentative, so I simply nodded and turned my attention back to the hall in front of us. “Do people really call him King Jax?”
She shook her head. “Not in a serious way. It’s more of a sarcastic joke thing that someone came up with last year,” she said. “But it’s basically true. He and his friends are like royalty around here, and he’s definitely the leader.”
“Ah.”Just what I was afraid of.
Erin stopped and pointed through a wide entryway that led into a courtyard. One of the other main buildings was visible on the other side. “Okay, so, the freshmen and sophomores have that whole building over there. I figured there’s no point showing you any of it today, seeing as you’ll probably never have to go there. Things will go faster if I just show you what you need.”
“Efficient. I like it.” I smiled at her again, but she didn’t return the gesture. Instead, she ducked her head and acted like she hadn’t seen it.
I sighed inwardly. Being the new girl sucked so hard. No one wanted to be your friend until they knew what everyone else thought of you.
“I’ll take you to your locker before we do any exploring,” Erin said, turning left into another hall. “That way you won’t have to lug your bag and tablet around with us.”
After that was done, she took the paper copy of my schedule and campus map, marking out crosses and little notes on different locations as we wandered around.
“That side of the building has all the STEM stuff,” she said, pointing down another lengthy corridor. “Chemistry, math, bio, and so on. Then the opposite side is humanities. I’ve put crosses on the exact classrooms you’ll need to know, but we’ll walk past them anyway. That way you’ll know exactly where to go later.”
“Thanks. That’s really helpful,” I replied. I pointed to the right. “What’s down that hall there?”
“Rooms for all the different extracurricular clubs. If you look on the online student portal, you’ll see a bunch of links to them on the left side. Most of them meet after school, but a few have early morning sessions and others meet at lunch. You’ll see all the info on the portal if you’re interested in joining any.”
I nodded slowly. “Cool. What about the mandatory PE class that’s marked there?” I asked, pointing to the Wednesday afternoon slot on my schedule. “Do I have to pick an activity, or does the school assign something to me?”
“Oh, you haven’t chosen a sport yet?” Erin’s forehead wrinkled as she looked at me. I shook my head, and she sighed. “Hm. Okay. We’ll sort that out after we find all your classes.”
“Thanks,” I said in a small voice. Erin clearly didn’t want to spend any more time with me than she had to, and she wasn’t doing much to hide that fact. I had to keep trying, though. The people-pleasing part of me wanted her—and everyone else—to get a good first impression of me.
“You said your parents are friends with George, right?” I said, making another attempt at conversation as we headed toward the STEM wing.