Elle
Hot water scalds my skin, sloughing off the first layer and turning it a ghastly shade of red that competes with my hair.
Still, it doesn’t feel hot enough to get rid of Gant’s urine. His spit. My humiliation.
My guilt.
Sure, I felt somewhat vindicated by staking my own claim on Gant. I’d briefly revelled in his shocked reaction and that of the crowd, but then he’d smiled. A cruel smile that showed all of his perfectly straight, white teeth as he’d laughed straight in my face.
And so did everyone else as he patted my head like I was a three-pound yapping Chihuahua.
Then, he strolled out of the auditorium and somehow his silent dismissal was worse than his acknowledgement.
Still, I hadn’t cowered, and I hadn’t cried. My composed, unassisted journey off the theatre floor, out of the dark opera house and into the sunlight gave me an ounce of dignity. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes instead of a loser running from a puddle of piss.
Or maybe that’s just what I keep telling myself so I won’t break. Bend, but not break.
Still, I feel myself splintering.
Dead.
Madame is dead… and he, the boy that just violated me, thinks I killed her.
He thinks I killed his mother.
The thought’s been stabbing at my brain, chipping away the grey matter ever since I left the head office. Mrs. Cardot had flagged me down and she didn’t so much as flinch when she spotted me drenched in urine. Nor did she ask any questions. She only confirmed what I already knew to be true. An anonymous donor paid my tuition and now I know it’s from yours truly.
I may not know anything about the social hierarchy here, but from the way the staff turned their heads at the sight of me and the students from my golden shower as it was happening, it’s obvious Gant Auclair and his minions run this school.
The red-haired cunt is mine.
Sic her.
As I travelled down the path to the dorm, I swear I could see the wheels already turning in people’s heads. They whispered amongst themselves, but they never called out or tried to touch or trip me. No, I bet that’s too petty for their tastes. They’re plotting, and I don’t even want to know what terror they have in store for me. But their silence was unnerving, frazzling me more than if they were outright with their disdain that Gant had infused them with.
The gravity of it is slowly starting to sink in.
Eight hundred and seventy-two people, students, seniors, and strangers, hated me for something I hadn’t done.
Or had I?
Had my leak indirectly caused Madame’s demise?
Was it her husband? Gant’s father? Had he gotten violent with her?
I swallow, letting the water scald my back.
Had she taken her own life?
The thought takes my breath away and the steam filling the bathroom doesn’t help. And yet, I can’t bring myself to turn off the scorching water that’s my torture, and my relief. I press my forehead to the cool shower tile and inhale.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe—
“SHIT!” I shriek as the hot water shuts off and Aria Dupont’s unamused face floats in between the shower curtain and the wall.
“ARIA!” a voice outside the bathroom chastises and a second later the bedroom door slams shut and Stassi appears. “Leave her alone. Don’t you think she’s gone through enough?”
“I’ll say. At least fifty gallons of hot water.”
I grab the shower curtain, hiding my nakedness as best as I can. Although neither girl seems to notice my discomfort as Aria slides crossed-legged onto the marble top vanity, while Stassi leans against the doorframe, her expression somewhere between pity, and accusation.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were Gant’s target?” she asks finally.
So much for “Leave her alone.”
“H-how was I supposed to know?” I mumble, my confusion doubling. I’m already ping-ponging about Gant. The ass had grotesquely violated me, assaulted me, and yet my conscience is desperately prodding me to get answers from him. To understand.
What the hell happened to Madame?
His mother…
The cold air streaming through the bathroom door makes my skin scream and prickle in protest. It makes me hyper-aware of how vulnerable I am if either girl tried to…sic me right here and now on Gant’s behalf. Whilst I’m butt-ass naked in the slippery tub.
I lift my chin, trying to appear far braver than I feel with two potential enemies caging me in the nude.
Don’t cower.
Don’t cower.
We don’t cower anymore.
“Can you hand me that towel?” I ask Aria, whose hip is next to my Maldives beach towel. Of course, I’d never actually been. Mum found it at a thrift store and it’s the nicest towel we have. However, seeing it next to Aria and Stassi’s plush linens in their respective caddies makes it look like a dishcloth. The disposable kind.
“How could you not know?” Stassi asks as Aria tosses it at me. It socks me right in the face. “You’re all Gant thinks about.”
Dread crawls each vertebra of my spine as I wrap the towel around myself and climb out of the shower.So she and Aria are Gant’s friends. They have to be downright besties if they know I’ve been Gant’s fixation for all these years. He doesn’t strike me as the type to spill his guts to just anyone. Then again, he had to the entire auditorium. But that’s different. That’s because he needs their help to destroy me. It wasn’t just for the sake of it.
“I can’t believe you’re the girl that leaked Gant’s mum’s sex tape,” Aria says, studying me as I scroll to the vanity with all the composure I can muster. “From his email. The audacity...”
From her tone, I can’t tell if she’s disgusted or impressed.
“The stupidity,” Stassi adds. “Why on earth would you show up at Gant’s school after pulling that stunt?”
“That email was three years ago,” I whisper, reaching for a hairbrush with shaky fingers. The steam’s hiding my reflection, but I don’t need to see it to know my hair’s a heap of matted wand curls, in desperate need of conditioner. I ran out last week. “I thought it was ancient history. A terrible mistake.”
Liar! Nightmare Gant, who visited me every few months when my conscience was at its peak, wasn’t letting shit go anytime soon. Truthfully, I knew he wouldn’t get over it easily, but selfishly I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.
“Wait a second. Did you just say Gant’s school?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady as I rake through the tangles. Broken strands fall into the filled sink where my white polyester uniform shirt is soaking in bleach. I hope it’s salvageable. I can’t ask Mum to send me another one. Not yet.
Yet? Or ever?
How could I still stay here after everything?
Then again, how could I leave?
Despite everything, Beaulieu is my dream, the opportunity of a lifetime. I can’t let one boy change that. Right?
You don’t belong here, Elle. Mum’s earlier words flood my ears and I swallow the thought because I want it to be a lie. And yet, after Gant’s declaration, they only point further towards the harsh truth.
“Gant’s the king of Beaulieu,” Stassi says. “He’s like royalty. Untouchable.”
“Untouchable?” I ask, pulling on another knot, hoping the pain would be distracting enough to stop the sensation of my intestines from free-falling. “Does that apply to the staff too?”
“Did Mrs. Cardot care that you were soaked in piss?” Aria asks bluntly and I don’t answer.
I’d already known the answer before I asked.
“One thing you need to learn and fast is the hierarchy at Beaulieu,” Stassi says. “It’ll save you a world of pain.”
I think it’s a little too late for that.
“And heads up, the staff are at the bottom,” Aria adds.
Stassi strolls to the massive vanity mirror. With her finger she draws a circle through the fog, then four more beneath it.
“This is Gant,” she says, pointing to the top circle. “These circles beneath him are the rest of the school’s royalty. This is Jung Bae. Everyone calls him Bae because, in South Korea, the surname goes first, so he’d always introduce himself as Bae Jung. Anyway, Bae just stuck.”
“The boy with hair Rapunzel would envy?” I ask.
Aria nods. “He’s a chaebol back home.
“What’s that?” I ask and immediately regret it. It can’t be anything good and I’m desperately trying to find a light in this tunnel. Not more horrible news.
“It’s far more detailed than this, but basically he comes from a family so rich, prominent, influential and powerful, he really is untouchable,” Stassi says.
“Like a blueblood?” I ask. “Isn’t that most students here?”
Aria shakes her head. “Put it like this. The richest kids here still have a net worth smaller than Bae’s dogs.”
I suddenly imagine the impossibly handsome Korean male Rapunzel surrounded by dozens of mastiffs whose collars cost more than my life. Or did he fancy Dobermans?
What the fuck does it matter?
“Got it,” I say weakly, though the last thing I’m in the mood for is a play-by-play of my new tormentors and how they’re basically above the law with their infinite wealth.
“Next.” Stassi moves to the next circle. “Is étienne—”
“Dazzling blue-green eyes. Dark, wavy hair?” I blurt, before I can stop myself. The boy from the front steps looked like the embodiment of an étienne if ever I saw one. Besides Bae, he’d been the only one of Gant’s goons to not touch me.
Aria narrows her own blue-green eyes at me. Blue-green eyes with a starburst of bright yellow around the pupil. How hadn’t I noticed them before?
“What?” I ask. Did I say something wrong?
“éti’s Ari’s brother,” Stassi clears her throat.
Really? They shared a resemblance, but Aria is mixed race and étienne didn’t appear to be. Maybe étienne is too, but he leans more towards the White side. Or maybe they’re half-siblings who share a White parent? Either way, it’s none of my business.
Heat creeps up my cheeks in embarrassment for speculating.
“Look, I didn’t mean anything by it. I don’t have a brother, but I can only imagine how annoying it must be to have your peers constantly hitting on them.”
“He’s my stepbrother,” Aria snaps.
“Oh,” I say puzzled, searching Stassi for a clue, but she only turns back to the mirror and ducks her head, hiding her expression. “Oh…”
“Aria and étienne are èze’s ice skating darlings.”
“But not champions. Two years in a row we’ve come second place.”
“The judges were biassed,” Stassi says. “This year you’ll win for sure.”
Aria seems to perk up at that. Perhaps their little tiff this morning would be forgotten soon.
But if they’re no longer fighting with each other, that makes me an even bigger target.
“That’s their speciality here, so they’re always at the ice rink.”
Wait, Beaulieu offered ice skating? There’s an ice skating rink on campus?
“The next bubble is my lard-headed brother, Zedd,” Stassi goes on. “Dirty blonde hair, golden eyes. Can’t stay out of my business for shit.”
An image of the blonde boy smirking at me cruelly as he drove his knee into my elbow and ran a hand through my hair pops into my mind. I hate how, despite everything, I can’t overlook his beauty, or any of their beauty for that matter. But I don’t need a second death glare so I keep quiet, working on the knots at the back of my head.
They’re assholes. Minions. Who gives a fuck what any of them look like?
“Zedd and Stassi are gunning for the championship too this year in ballroom,” Aria says.
Ballroom? I’d been so focused on ballet that I’d never seriously checked out the other departments Beaulieu offered.
Just like you didn’t ever check out who the hell Beaussip is.
“We’ve been dancing together since we were six. Our parents thought it’d be the cutest thing ever.”
“I think it’s cute,” Aria smiles.
“It’s different for you,” Stassi says. “I want to rub up against someone who isn’t my bro—”
At Aria’s reddening face, Stassi shuts up.
“I just mean, how cute are those sporting couples who seem to be in love? Aria, you know this. They’re the crowd”s favourites. They get reposted all over social media as couple goals. Heck, some even inspire romance books and TV shows, even if it’s all fake. It doesn’t matter, people simp over those cute edits.”
“You have a point,” she says begrudgingly. “They are the most popular and they get all the endorsements.”
“Right! It doesn’t matter how technically good Zedd and I are, no one can ship us,” she says, dry gagging. “I really think if we swap partners, we’d stand more of a chance, but Zedd won’t let anyone near me.”
The room grows quiet as both girls seem momentarily lost in thought. Not that I’m complaining. I’m just glad not to be the focus for a beat.
“Lastly, we have Hale,” Aria says, coming back to the present and pointing to the last bubble that’s rapidly fading as the steam clears. “He’s in dance too, with Zedd and Stassi. He’s the one Mrs Cardot called out at the assembly and he’s also the school’s boyfriend.”
At my confused look, Aria clarifies, “You know, community cock.”
I don’t miss Stassi’s quick look down at her feet.
“And those boys make up the academy’s male royalty,” Aria says.
“They’re super popular, got it. But why are they untouchable?” I ask. “Why does everyone worship Gant Auclair and his minions?”
“Money, obviously,” Aria says. “Gant’s father and mother contributed millions of dollars to get the ballet program up to where it is now, with better studios, and world-renowned teachers. The latter is mostly thanks to Madame Auclair and her killer connections as a prima.”
Killer. The word causes the knots in my stomach to multiply.
“H-how did she die?” I ask. “I couldn’t find my phone to look it up and I was desperate to shower.”
“It fell out in the auditorium,” Aria says, pulling my phone from her pocket and opening up the web browser. “Here, I’ll show you.”
“The footage was leaked a few weeks ago,” Stassi says at my questioning gaze. “But the Auclairs went along with it. They’re offering a big reward to anyone who can identify the driver.”
“That’d be a lot easier if they could properly identify the car,” Aria says. “The route they took cuts through the woods and there are barely any cameras there. Only one managed to catch a glimpse of the vehicle and it caught less than ten percent of the back fender. Look.”
We all watch the video in silence and then a half second later, I jump out of my skin as a loud crash sounds, and the Auclair’s Bentley wraps around a pole. But seeing the accident in real time, then in slow motion given the extensive edit isn’t the worst part.
Aria’s right. The only bit of the passing car that’s visible is nothing more than a black blur given the camera quality. It’s like one of those cameras on children’s rides that shake back and forth and then give you the shittiest black-and-white photo at the end.
But the worst part is when the video switches from CCTV footage to a cell phone camera video as a passerby stops to check the wreckage out. With each step the cameraman takes, my heart stills its beating, until it stops entirely when the camera pans inside the car.
Gant’s wheezing sounds like a death rattle as he suffocates on his own blood, but what’s more bone-chilling is Madame’s lifeless eyes staring into the camera and straight through my soul.
Her face is glistening almost ethereally in the shattered glass, forever frozen in sheer terror.