Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Ruth
I slam my open palm against the glass with a whine.
My Doritos got caught on their way out of the vending machine, and I have no more spare change.
I’m starving, I’ve just come out of a history quiz—which I’m fairly certain I’ve bombed spectacularly—and I just need some junk food to help me wallow in my misery.
And to make matters worse, the girlish giggling is getting closer and closer… and then the door flies open and two of the prettiest girls in the entire sixth form stumble in, arm in arm. I slam my palm against the glass one more time before an embarrassing whimper falls from my lips.
“Having trouble?” The dark-haired beauty untangles her arm from her blonde friend’s and crosses the common room towards me.
“I just wanted Doritos,” I whine. For fucks sake, Ruth. Could I possibly embarrass myself any further? The pretty, popular girls are acknowledging boring, good-girl Ruth for the first time in her life, and what does Ruth do? She whines like a little baby bitch. Good job, moron.
“I got you, gal. Step back.”
The blonde girl giggles with a hand over her mouth and a little shrug when I look over, like she knows exactly what’s coming.
Like it’s happened before. I step to the side, eyes fixed on the brunette as she measures a specific spot on the glass with narrowed eyes, before slamming her forearm against it.
At the same time, she shoves her biker boot against the lower half of the machine.
As if by magic, two bags of my coveted Doritos fall into the drawer, along with a KitKat.
Brunette Girl squats to retrieve them and hands over the haul with a triumphant grin.
“Here you go,” she says kindly. “Bonus extra snacks.”
“Keep one if you want,” I offer, clutching one of the bags to my chest. “Payment. I only need one.”
“Okay,” she says with a little shrug. The blonde girl crosses the room to join us then, plopping into a plush upholstered chair and crossing one knee over the other as she leans back.
Brunette Girl takes the chair opposite her friend, leaving one more around a small table.
I sit in it gingerly, perching on the edge of the seat.
“I’m Amie, by the way. This is Katy.” The brunette introduces herself and her friend.
“Oh. I’m Ruth. Hi. Thanks for helping with the Doritos.”
“No problem,” Amie grins. She tears into the other bag of chips and pushes the open pile of snacks into the middle of the table. “What are you studying? I don’t think we’re in any of the same classes.”
“I’m doing history, law, English language, and psychology. What about you?”
“Oh, I’m in language and psychology too!” The blonde—Katy—exclaims. Who have you got for them?”
“Jude Harvey for English. Russell Richards for psychology.”
“Oh, I like Jude. I’ve got Janine Forbes, and Howard Brent for psych. Amie’s in Russell’s psychology class though.”
“Thursdays and Mondays.” Amie nods, taking a delicate bite from the corner of a neon orange tortilla chip.
“Oh, mine are Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons.”
“Bummer,” Amie sighs. “Would’ve been nice to see you in class. Everyone in mine is boring as fuck. I’m doing psychology, Spanish, French and mixed language and literature.”
“What about you, Katy?”
I can feel my heart pounding, rattling against my ribcage.
I’m surprised Amie and Katy can’t hear it.
I’ve never had such a casual a conversation with the popular girls before, and honestly, they unnerve me a little bit.
I wasn’t wildly unpopular in high school, but I’ve always been the good girl, the straight-A student who loved learning.
I’ve never been the pretty one or the one with lots of friends.
But here I am, sitting around a table with Amie and Katy, sharing Doritos like we’ve been friends for years.
“Oh, I’m taking PE and English literature too.”
“What’s PE like in college?”
Amie snorts a laugh as she leans forward to snag another chip. Katy rolls her eyes.
“Not nearly as much fun as I’d hoped,” she complains lightly. “Too much physiology. Not enough running and netball.”
I shudder.
“I hated PE in school. Can’t even run for a bus. No good at physical stuff.”
“Me and Amie met doing cross-country running in year seven,” Katy explains, before snapping a chip in two and shoving one piece into her mouth. She chews thoughtfully before continuing. “It’s basically the only thing I am good at.”
“Don’t be silly.” Amie flicks a Dorito at Katy, who, quite impressively, catches it in her mouth and chomps with a grin. “You’re good at plenty of things.”
“Yeah,” Katy agrees after swallowing. “Just not school. I’m great at drinking tea.”
“And braiding my hair,” Amie adds. “If you ever want fancy braids, just ask K. She’s got wizard fingers.”
The pair collapse into another fit of giggles, and I find myself laughing along with them. It’s easy. It’s nice.
“It’s true,” Katy agrees after she recovers. “I could braid your hair if you want. I bet it would look lovely braided, it’s so pretty and shiny.”
“I wish my hair could be that shiny,” Amie sighs wistfully, eyeing my hair.
Hers is a similar shade to mine, just a little warmer and redder, with wild curls that hang halfway down her back.
I’ve never really thought about my hair before.
It’s always been the same boring dark brown shade, and right now, it’s long overdue a trim.
My parting is right down the middle of my head, just as it’s always been, and my hair hangs straight to a point a little below my shoulders, where it ends in a blunt line.
I rarely do much with it beyond tying it in a ponytail.
“It’s just hair.” I shrug. “I don’t really do anything with it. You can do whatever you want,” I tell Katy, whose eyes light up. She rushes over to the sink in the corner to wash Dorito dust from her fingers before drying them on her jeans and coming to stand beside me.
“Oh, it’s really soft, too!” She exclaims, brushing a hand over it before picking up a section from the front. She begins to weave it around her fingers, the sensation of the light pull on my scalp lulling me into a daze as Amie fills us both in on some gossip from her Spanish class.
“You should come out with us this weekend,” Katy announces after Amie has finished. “We’re just going shopping, nothing fancy. But I need new trainers, and Amie wants a dress.”
“I have a date,” Amie explains. “And I have nothing to wear.”
“Please.” Katy scoffs. “You have your wardrobe and mine to choose from, A. You have plenty to wear.”
“Your dresses are too short for me, Little Legs. And I don’t have enough boob to fill them out.”
“Bitch. I can’t help it if all my growth happened in the chest.” Katy pauses her braiding to push her chest forward and shake it in Amie’s direction. Amie, for her part, just laughs.
“You’re lucky,” I say with a sigh. “I don’t have much boob either.”
I glance between Amie and Katy, committing them to memory.
Amie is the taller of the two, slender and athletic with a small chest and barely-there curves.
The curves she does have are hidden beneath a pair of boyfriend jeans and layered, loose-fitting plum and black tank tops.
Katy is shorter, still slim and clearly athletic, but with a defined, hourglass figure and a much larger chest which she shows off with a tight-fitting white V-neck beneath a light pink, chunky-knit cardigan with large plastic buttons in the shape of bows.
I imagine I fit somewhere between the two of them: taller than Katy, small-chested, but a little curvier than Amie; slim, but hardly athletic.
“The tiny titty committee,” Amie laughs, snapping the KitKat in two and offering me one of the fingers. I take it, and she holds hers in the air to nudge against mine like we’re making a toast. “Come with us. We can look for tiny bras together.”
“Okay. That sounds good.”
Three days later, I shift my weight nervously from foot to foot as I wait for Amie and Katy just outside the shopping centre, at the bus station.
We exchanged phone numbers before we left the common room the other day, and almost immediately, I was added into a group message thread with instructions to meet here for our shopping trip.
I’m still not entirely sure I’m not being punked, though.
I tug my coat tighter around my torso as a cold gust of wind barrels between the bus shelters and the side of the building.
“Ruth!”
I look up to see Katy waving at me as she climbs out of a sleek, dark blue car a few feet away.
“I’ll text you when I’m ready, thank you for the lift. Love you!” she calls through the window to the car’s driver before turning back to me as the car pulls away.
“Hi! I’m a bit early, I think. I’m always early for things.” I bite my tongue. I don’t need to start babbling right now.
“Nah, don’t worry. I reckon I’m just about on time, and Amie’s running late. Her mum’s working today so she’s on the bus. But,” she says, drawing out the but with a roll of her eyes, “her bus goes through Whitstonbury Heath, and those roadworks are a fucking nightmare.”
I bite back a giggle. It’s not that I’m so horribly sheltered that I’ve never heard the word fuck before—it’s as much a part of my vocabulary as any other word.
It’s just that to hear it from Katy’s mouth seems wrong, somehow.
She always seems so demure, with her wide eyes and blonde hair and big smile, but I’m learning quite quickly that Katy Keller is not quite as sweet and innocent as she seems. Beneath the sweet exterior lies a wild child, just waiting to be freed.
As if summoned by Katy’s words, Amie steps off the bus that pulls up and trots over.
“Fucking roadworks, honestly. Sorry I’m late.
Hey K, hey Roo. Wait—we can call you Roo, can’t we?
” Amie greets us both with quick hugs, squeezing our shoulders with her fingertips.
Her perfume is fresh and a little musky, and her fingertips dig in almost hard enough to bruise, but the hug is warm and comforting, an embrace I relax into easily.
“Yeah, you can call me Roo,” I say with a smile.
I saved my number in both of their phones as ROO with the little kangaroo emoji.
Up to now, only my parents and my brother have ever really called me Roo—a throwback to when I was too young to say my own name properly—but it’s nice that Amie and Katy want to.
It fills me with a pleasant kind of warmth, a sense of comfortable familiarity with these girls that almost steals my breath with the way it sneaks up on me all of a sudden.
“Okay. Come on, Roo. Let’s go shopping!”
Amie and Katy grab an arm each, looping theirs through mine and leading me through the doors of the shopping centre.
Amie leads us immediately to a shop I’ve never even looked at before.
All three of us leave with new dresses, and Katy buys some hair clips shaped like moons, stars, and clouds.
We spend hours talking nonstop and sharing stories, laughing with the kind of ease I’m not sure I’ve ever had with anyone before. Certainly not recently.
But when I get home to find friend and follow requests on my social apps, and more messages in our group chat to plan more friend dates, I smile. And then I squeal into my fist, press play on my queen Taylor Swift’s newest album, and fling myself onto my bed with a giddy smile on my face.
I think I just found my best friends.