2. Gulliver
GULLIVER
What the fuck is Penelope Rhodes doing sneaking out of the old photography darkroom? The corridor is empty except for me and her. The warning bell for next period will ring in a moment, but right now we’re the only two stragglers who aren’t where they’re supposed to be. My secluded spot, hidden in the shadows beside a bank of lockers, is the perfect place to see but not be seen. It’s also out of the range of the cameras and far enough away from the smoke detectors that I can enjoy a cigarette without anyone noticing.
Penelope isn’t someone I usually pay attention to, she’s too busy making sure everyone is looking at her for me to give a fuck what she’s doing. But right now, I’m rapt, wondering why she’s shiftily scanning the hallway like she’s doing something she shouldn’t be.
If it was anyone but her, I wouldn’t care. I’m not a snitch, and I don’t care who’s fucking in the empty classrooms or doing coke in the bathrooms. But Penelope prides herself on being perfect, she’s the epitome of Little Miss Goody Two Shoes, and right now I’m intrigued to know what the hell she’s up to that she doesn’t want people to know about.
Gaze fixed on her, I scoff lightly as she pushes a key into the lock on the darkroom door and secures it before sliding the key into her blazer pocket. Rolling my eyes, I let my back rest against the wall behind me. Of course, she has a key. She’s the golden girl of GAA, and the faculty definitely loves her enough to give her a private room to use as she sees fit, but if she’s not doing anything wrong, why is she acting like she’s up to something?
Penelope was a quiet, friendless freshman when her great-grandfather named her in his will. The moment she gets her inheritance, she’s going to be a very rich woman and every single person at this school knows it. Now our simpering classmates follow her around like they think money is going to start falling out of her asshole, it’s fucking pathetic.
What baffles me is that our entire graduating class is all fucking rich. And I’m not talking buy-yourself-the-latest-pair-of-limited-editions-kicks rich. I mean the never-have-to-work-a-day-in-our-lives kind of rich. The fact that we even attend GAA says that our parents are loaded, so why worship the bitch just because she’s going to be mega wealthy?
Unable to tear my gaze away, I stay silent and still as she does something so unlike the Penelope Rhodes I know and hate that I actually blink to see if I’m imagining it. As I watch, she lowers her head, drops her chin almost into her chest, lets her straight blonde hair fall over her cheeks, obscuring her face, and curls in on herself, like she’s trying to make herself as unobtrusive as possible. Then she walks away.
“What the fuck?” I murmur beneath my breath. I don’t know what just happened. Penelope is quite possibly the most confident woman I’ve ever met. To her, life and especially this school are her stage and the rest of us are just the audience, intended to stare up at her in wonder while she struts past.
She doesn’t cower. She doesn’t hide herself or try to be anything less than the center of attention. So, what the hell was that? The bell rings, but I ignore it. The urge to follow her has me pushing off the wall and emerging out of my hiding place as I try to keep her retreating form in sight. Little Miss Perfect isn’t the type to skip class, but she sure as shit isn’t in French right now, where we’re both supposed to be.
Keeping enough space between us so she doesn’t realize I’m following her, I turn the corner and almost walk straight into someone as they step out of a classroom.
“Mr. Winslow, where should you be right now?” Principal Smith asks, her shrill voice instantly recognizable.
“Je suis supposé être en cours de Fran?ais, mais comme vous le savez déjà, je le parle couramment et pourrais probablement orienter l’enseignant sur la manière d’améliorer sa prononciation,” I reply back to her in flawless French.
Her scowl is so funny, I barely hold back a smirk. It’s widely known, and kind of ironic, that Principal Smith doesn’t speak any of the four languages that are taught here, including Latin, which is a compulsory course every student is required to take to graduate. “I don’t speak French, Mr. Winslow. Perhaps you should get to your class and ask your teacher to critique your oral skills,” she says, one hand propped on her hip, the other pointing in the direction of my classroom.
With a sigh, I feign subservience, dip my chin, and lazily prowl forward, hoping to waste enough time that class will be almost over by the time I get there.
“I suggest you hurry, Mr. Winslow. I’ll be checking with Madam Allard to ensure you made it there and that you’re up to date with all of your classwork.”
“Of course, Principal Smith,” I say, knowing we can both hear the mock deference in my voice.
I hate it when she calls me Mr. Winslow. I have a fucking name, which I know she knows, but yet there isn’t a single teacher in this school, including her, who will use it.
Me and my friends are Elite, which is the GAA equivalent of prefects or head boys. The tradition of Elites at Green Acres Academy dates back to the school’s inception, and it’s a role I’m incredibly proud to have been chosen for.
As each group of Elites graduate, they handpick their replacements from the junior class, except a few years ago, the system fell apart when instead of juniors, a group of freshmen were unprecedentedly picked to become the new Elites. Sebastian Lockwood, Hunter Rossberg, Clay Jansen, and Evan Morris ran GAA for three years. The four of them were a powerhouse even at fifteen, so despite it being unusual, it makes sense that they were singled out to rule. They’re all about to graduate college now, and three of them are married, but their reign here was legendary, and their names are still reverently whispered in the halls even all these years later.
When my friends and I were selected to act as Elites, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. The four of us have a lot in common with Sebastian and his friends, although we use influence and power to rule, rather than intimidation and fear.
Being Elites elevates us above the other students. We have a defined role within the school, and when we’re doing our job well, it means the teachers don’t have to deal with spoiled little rich kids who have zero respect for a faculty who earn less than their parents’ housekeepers.
It’s why the Elite system works. Me and my friends were chosen because our families are part of the upper echelon; we’re rich, successful, and well respected. Everyone at GAA knows who we are, they know who our families are, and they know that in a few years time, when petty arguments over parties and girls become business deals, acquisitions, and mergers, it’s better to be our friend than our enemy.
It only takes me a couple of minutes to get to my French classroom. Pushing through the door, I don’t bother to offer Madam Allard any explanation as to why I’m late. I just ignore her rapid-fire French tirade and make my way to my seat.
All eyes are on me as I march between the rows of desks, but I don’t care. Davis Aldrich, one of my closest friends and fellow Elite, lifts his eyebrows at me, a smirk curling at the corners of his mouth as he watches me approach. Before I sit, I spy Penelope fucking Rhodes sitting in her seat in the middle of the room with her laptop out on her desk and a page full of notes open on her screen.
How the fuck did she have time to get to class, set up her laptop, and take that many notes before I got here? Tilting my head to the side, I watch her, but she looks just as polished and confident as ever; nothing like the nervous girl I saw sneaking out of the darkroom only minutes ago.
“Monsieur Winslow, please take your seat,” Madam Allard orders in her thickly accented voice.
Sighing loudly, I slump down into my chair, prop my feet up on my desk, and close my eyes. If I were any other student in any other school, I’d probably be kicked out of class, given a detention, and maybe even suspended, but at GAA, I’m practically untouchable.
No matter how influential Principal Smith might think she is, she’s dirt on the shoes of the families of the kids who attend this school. Green Acres Academy might be an outstanding educational facility that people fight to get into, but the place only exists because of the tuition fees our families pay and the donations they make when we graduate. Smith might think she’s in charge, but she’s nothing more than a puppet, and we all know it.
Davis shoves my leg, and I crack my eyes open and turn my head to look at him.
“Why are you here? You never come to French,” he asks, amused.
Closing my eyes again, I slouch down a little further in my seat. “Smith found me in the hallway.”
“Bro.” Davis chuckles, the sound low and infectious.
“You know she uses every fucking opportunity to denounce the Elites, so I figured I’d come to class and take a nap.” I yawn widely.
The sound of Madam Allard’s melodic accent, combined with the cool air pumping from the air conditioning duct over my head, has me drifting off to sleep until the bell rings and forces me awake again.
It takes me a minute to move, my limbs heavy with sleep. “Fuck,” I groan, stretching my arms up and over my head.
“I can’t believe you just fucking slept while I had to learn shit,” Davis whines, pouting like a little bitch. Davis Aldrich is the son of a British earl who defected to America, invested his family’s millions in tech, and turned them into billions. His father and mine are business associates, and Davis and I have been friends since we met in kindergarten.
Following Davis out of the classroom, I offer Madam Allard a smirk as I pass her and step into the busy hallway. From the corner of my eye, I spot Penelope sauntering away, her shoulders pulled back, her head held high. Even the way she’s walking is completely different. Right now, she’s strutting with a group of two girls and a guy circling around her like she really is the queen she pretends to be.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say the Penelope I’m looking at right now is a different person than the one I saw creeping from the old darkroom. That Penelope was trying not to be noticed, disguising her face and curling in on herself, trying to look smaller and unnoticeable.
A part of me really doesn’t give a fuck what the hell she’s up to, we’re not friends. But the girl I watched sneak out of that unused room captivated me, and now I need to know why she was acting so differently from normal. Our families are in the same social circles, and her parents have been throwing her into my path since the marriage clause in her stupid inheritance came to light.
But no matter what her family or mine want, I’m never going to marry her because she’s everything I hate. On the surface, she’s shiny and perfect. Straight A’s, the classic all-American sweetheart, but beneath the veneer of perfection, she’s a fucking leech, latching on to every powerful person around her and refusing to let go.
Penelope is a very convincing actress, but I don’t believe she’s anything like the pretty little StepLong wannabe she pretends to be. I’ve seen the calculating gleam in her eye when she thinks no one is looking. I’ve seen the way she flits from one guy to the next, smiling coyly while her viper of a mother coaches her, practically pimping her daughter out to the highest bidder.
The entire Rhodes family are the worst kind of assholes. Before their daughter’s name appeared on that will, they were old money nobodies. Now they prance around expecting everyone to be desperate to befriend them because Penelope comes with a billion-dollar dowry.
“Bro,” Davis says, interrupting my internal diatribe. “Summer just texted me a picture of her pussy. I’m going to go and get my dick wet. I’ll meet you in algebra,” he says with a wink, slapping me on the shoulder before sprinting off in the opposite direction.
The hallway starts to empty, but I don’t rush to my next class. Just because I have to attend doesn’t mean I have to be enthusiastic about it. Davis stumbles through the door just after the bell has rung, his hair a disheveled mess, his clothes askew, and a wide, dopey grin spread across his face. For the next hour, we listen to our teacher attempt to explain quadratic equations, but my mind is still caught on Penelope. Everything about her behavior earlier is nagging at me, and I don’t know why.
I know her well enough to know that I don’t want to know her any better. We might be forced to move in the same social circles, but that’s where any similarities between us end. She spends her evenings and weekends being touted about like a sideshow at the circus, while I spend my time partying with my buddies, drinking thirty-year-old scotch, and fucking whichever new money girl is offering up her pussy in the hopes of bagging a respectable old money husband.
People assume that it’s only poor women that are gold diggers, and some of them are, but the rich always want to be richer, and for most trust fund girls, their entire aim in life is to marry someone richer than they are.
Money is a vicious circle, a fucked-up merry-go-round that never stops, and you can never get off.
As the only child of Donovan Winslow and Camilla Winslow-Henderson, my dad decided the day I was born that as soon as I was old enough, I’d take over the family business. Until their divorce, that’s what my mother expected of me too. Now she’d rather I waste my life being rich and spending Dad’s money just to spite him. That’s probably why I haven’t seen or spoken to her in nearly two years.
The truth is, I don’t have a problem with running Winslow International when my dad retires. Business has always fascinated me, and I’m incredibly proud of everything my dad has achieved, when he could have just sat on his butt and lived off his trust fund his whole life.
I’m willing to fall in line with the life my dad wants me to live, but only up to a point. I’ll go to his alma mater; I’ll intern at his company. I’ll work my way up from the bottom and earn my place. But I refuse to pick a wife from one of the suitable girls he keeps parading in front of me in the hope that I’ll be engaged before the end of fucking high school.
Unfortunately, Penelope fucking Rhodes is number one on my dad’s fantasy daughter-in-law wishlist. I see the way his eyes light up when he mentions her and the company she’s due to inherit. He couldn’t give a fuck about Penelope, but in this archaic Richie Rich world we live in, whoever she marries will get automatic control of her great-grandfather’s businesses.
Sometimes I almost feel sorry for Penelope. Her great-grandfather gifted her a fortune, but he made sure it would never truly be hers. Her parents treat her like she’s their golden goose, making her prance and preen for every eligible guy from the age of seventeen to seventy-five, and no matter who she actually marries, they’ll never want her for her, it’ll always just be about the money.
That fucking will put a target on her back and a noose around her neck. But who the fuck allows themselves to be controlled by a dead guy? Penelope could walk away, she could refuse to play the game, she could take back her own life, but she hasn’t. Instead, she flirts and rubs against every guy her mom points her toward. Because she loves the game, she loves the attention, even if the only reason anyone looks at her is because her pussy is the key to a billion-dollar payout.
All of this makes her skulking around school and hiding in the dark room even more intriguing. Penelope is always so fucking predictable, her behavior always so obvious, but today, for the first time ever, she’s managed to pique my interest. Because what could the ultimate good girl be doing that she needs to hide?