The uper Circle?
Chapter 11
S O P H I A
The next morning, I wake up with a throbbing headache.
My cheek is pressed against an open textbook, my neck has clearly been filing complaints for the past several hours, and the first coherent thought I manage is something between ,where am I and what did I do to deserve this.
I sit up slowly.
My notes are spread across the desk in front of me, buried under the hoodie I'd apparently been using as a pillow. The pen is uncapped somewhere underneath all of it.
Shit. School
I have completely forgotten to set a timer.
I don't actually remember falling asleep ,one minute I was reading about derivatives, and then my aunt is screaming my name from downstairs.
I sit up too fast. Prince, who had apparently curled up on my lap at some point during the night, startles at the movement, lets out an offended hiss, and retreats to the bed with the wounded dignity of a cat who has decided this relationship needs reevaluation.
"Shopi." My aunt's voice floats up from downstairs"Breakfast. Ten minutes."
I am out of the chair before she finishes the sentence.
I dress in seconds, nearly trip over my own bag gathering my things, and make it downstairs in a state that can generously be described as functional.
The kitchen smells like coffee and butter and something faintly burnt, and the morning light is coming through the window over the sink in long, pale strips.
My aunt is at the stove in her silk robe, one hand managing a pan and the other holding a page of fabric swatches up to the light, her reading glasses pushed up into her hair.
"There she is." She smiles without turning around then does turn around, and the smile widens.She nods at the counter stool. "Sit. You look like you slept in a chair."
"How would you even know," I say, sitting down.
She slides a bowl toward me and turns back to the stove without answering. Which is an answer.
"So," she says pleasantly.
I reach across the counter and pull the stack of design papers toward me before she can get there first. Large-format sketches, fabric samples clipped at the corners, notes crowding the margins in her handwriting her shorthand, the private language of someone who thinks faster than she writes.
"Are these the new designs?" I ask.
"Don't change the subject." She grins at the pan. "How was last night?"
I should have known better. My aunt has never once in her life been successfully redirected. It is one of her most endearing qualities and, in moments like this, one of her most inconvenient ones.
"Nothing special," I say.
She makes a sound that communicates she finds this answer insufficient but is choosing, for now, to file it away rather than pursue it.
Then the egg in the pan reaches a critical juncture that she completely ignores, and she turns around with the fabric swatch still in her hand, and her face does the thing it always does whenever the Calloway commission comes up, something between disbelief and joy,
like she is still waiting for someone to tell her it isn't real.
"Shopi," she says. "The Calloways."
"I know," I say.
"One hundred years. Do you understand what that means?"
"I do."
"Every designer in this city wanted this. Every. Single. one." She presses the swatch briefly to her chest "Every single one, Shopi."
I smile.
She has dressed important people before, impressive people, but this is different, and I understand why. Watching her light up from across the kitchen counter is the easiest thing I've done all morning.
I am proud of her.
I am also completely aware of what is coming. She turns back from the stove, plate in hand, and her voice shifts into its softer register.
"I need you to get his measurements today," she says. "Please."
I wrap both hands around my coffee cup.
"I promised," I say, taking a careful sip and nearly burning my tongue. "But why can't you use the measurements you already have on file for him?"
I try my luck. But the look she gives me answers the question before she opens her mouth.
"Sophia, darling it's the centenary. Imagine if something didn't fit. Imagine if he'd ..." she searches for the word, gesturing vaguely with the spatula, " gotten more muscular, or something."
I nearly choke on my coffee. The image of him almost completely naked flashes back into my memories. The way his toned body would look with even more muscle makes me turn red.
"I'll handle it," I say, pushing the image away.She looks at me for a moment Then she leans across the counter and kisses my forehead.
"That's my girl."
" See you later " I smile and head down the stairs to the bus stop.
I spend the entire Bus drive quietly dreading the part of the day that requires me to find Lorenzo Calloway and ask him about the stupid measurements.
I sight and lokk out the window. Weststar Academy comes into view , sitting at the top of its long, tree-lined drive behind iron gates that manage to look both welcoming and quietly intimidating.
Wide stone steps, tall windows, the kind of architecture that says something about the people inside before you've technically arrived.
I had grown up knowing places like this existed.
But knowing about them is different from showing up to one every day.
One last deep breath and I step out and make my way to the entrance.
Maria finds me before I've made it halfway up.
She comes from the left side of the steps, and to my genuine amazement, she looks absolutely perfect not a single visible trace of having been out until two in the morning.
Her long red hair falls straight over one shoulder, her uniform worn with that particular carelessness that somehow looks more intentional than careful: blouse open one button too many, skirt just short enough, finished with heels, white knee-high socks,
and a Vivienne Westwood chain that catches the morning light.
How she manages to look like that on the same amount of sleep I'd had while I look like I'd spent the night wrestling with my pillow.
She grabs me in a hug before I can say anything.
"You okay?" She pulls back and looks at me with eyes that are both genuinely concerned and very slightly hungover.
"Completely fine," I say.catching the way her eys narrow "You're doing the thing."She tells me pointing at my face
"I'm not doing a thing."I defend myself lokking past her
"Good morning."
James appears from the direction of the parking lot, coffee in hand, looking genuinely well-rested in a way I find personally offensive given that he has been out until two in the morning aswell .
He looks between us with the calm assessment of someone who has walked into a situation and immediately understood all of it. "Why does she look like that."
"I don't look like anything," I say, trying not to yawn.
"You flinched at a pigeon thirty seconds ago," Maria says.
I had, in fact, flinched at a pigeon thirty seconds ago.
But that has nothing to do with anything.
But wehen I see thei faces I know that thei woulden let it slide so I let my shoulders drop and tell them everything.
Maria's face moves through surprise, understanding, amusement, and then settles somewhere between sympathetic and entertained.
James just listens the way he always does in a steady and quiet, way.
"So you have to chase him down," Maria says, with a satisfied tone.
"I'm not chasing anyone," I immediately clarify. "I'm asking a straightforward professional question."
"Sophia." Maria has put her phone away , both hands free, full attention. She is wearing a different designer bag today, red, matching the exact shade of her hair almost too precisely to be accidental.
"Yes," I say. "Fine. Essentially. Can we move on."
James looks at me. "I could reach out to his..."
"No thanks but no " I say. "I can handle it"I give him a thankful smile.
The last thing I want is to look like I am afraid of Lorenzo Calloway. I am not. I simply have no interest in involving myself with him any more than is strictly necessary.
James nods. Drops it immediately. I appreciate that about him more than I ever say.
We walk toward the entrance together, and for a moment it is just easy , the morning, the three of us, the light coming through the trees along the drive. Small things. I hadn't realized how much I'd been missing small things like this until I have them again.
Then Maria links her arm through mine.
"So," she says. Very carefully.
I look at her. Something in her expression makes me slow my pace.
"James and I are on the planning committee this year," she says. "For the annual school event."
Another event?
"That's great," I say.
"It means we'll probably miss some classes," James adds. "Over the next few weeks."
I nod. Keep my face easy.
"Genuinely, that's brilliant," I say. "For both of you. What is it about ?"
"It's a combination of a thank you event and a celebration for the football team's win," she says, smiling at James. "That's why James has to help me," she adds."But wait. We don't know if the team will win," I say, and both of them look at each other as if they are about to laugh.
"Our team is the best," James says, which apparently should be enough.
Maria watches me with that expression as if she could look straight through me
"Lunch," she says.
"Every single day."
"Obviously," I agree."And if anything happens..."
"I'll text you," I smile and pull her in a hug.The I watch them turn down a different corridor beg I turn toward mine.
The mathematics classroom is on the second floor, at the end of a corridor lined with tall windows overlooking the school's inner courtyard.
A long stretch of pale stone below, a single old olive tree in the center, morning light lying across it, unhurried.
Nobody else has arrived yet. I choose the second-to-last row, close enough to the window to feel the air, far enough back to breathe.
Set my bag down. Pull out my notebook, my pencil case, and my copy of Jane Eyre the one I'd been carrying since I was fifteen, the spine soft with use, a small coffee stain on the inside cover I'd never bothered to hide.
It had been a gift from my dad, after I'd cried for an entire afternoon because someone had taken my first copy.
He had spent hours going from bookstore to bookstore until he found not just the same edition, but the very first print run.
He had placed it in my hands without making a single thing of it.
I open it and start reading, waiting for class to arrive.
When I'm about to turn the page, a book crashes down loudly beside me on the table, making me look up.
A girl takes the seat next to me, glaring at me as if I just stole her personal space."Hey, I'm Sophia." I smile kindly, holding out my hand but let it sink the second she spits out, "I know how you are."
"Okay," I say, turning my attention back to my book.
"No. Nothing is okay." She hisses, making me look up again. My gaze sweeps through the classroom, more and more students trickling in, but not one of them seems to care.
"You know how fucking hard I worked to get into the upper circle?"
she says, furious. "Do you really think you have a chance with your fucking deer eyes?"
she continues, not giving me space to process her words, let alone understand what she's talking about.
"You can try and suck another dick. Understand?"
I drop my book on the table, shifting my full attention to her.
"What the hell are you talking about?" I ask, genuinely confused.
"I think you're mistaking me for someone else," I tell her, but she shakes her head.
"I'm pretty sure I'm not. I saw you two yesterday," she almost screams. Still, nobody seems to care.
She saw me yesterday?
My eyes widen in understanding. She's the girl from the party the one Lorenzo kissed after the show.
"Look, whatever you think you saw" I try to calm the situation, but she stands up, pulling something out of her designer bag, and before I can process what she's doing, she pours her water bottle over my head.
Then throws it onto my table."You're not even close," she hisses, and takes another seat far away from me.
I'm too stunned to speak.
What just happened? What the hell just happened?
Just in time, I manage to pull my book away before the cold water trips over me.
My hair is wet, my uniform wet. Again."So please, take a seat," the teacher's voice sounds just as I'm about to walk out of the room."
I'm so sorry, I have to go to the bathroom," I manage to say before leaving the classroom.
I make my way down the hall, push the door open, and take in my reflection.
My hands curl into fists.That wasn't Vivien, and it wasn't the girl from the pool house the other day either.
I think about it while drying my clothes.
How many girlfriends does he have?
And why the hell am I always caught in the middle of them?
And what upper circle was she even talking about?