The Boy Across the Fence

Chapter 5

        "Angelina is a girl you don't want to mess with. She's 'that girl' -the rich one, the fake one, the one who always gets what she wants. Yep, she's the one who can part crowds in the hallway. She's the queen.

        "Her boyfriend's name is Marc -we met him up at the office. He seems pretty nice, except he's dating Angelina."

        Claudia jumped a little when Addie said Marc's name. He certainly hadn't seemed the type to be dating a girl like Angelina. And it saddened her, too, because she had seen what girls like Angelina could do. It was likely that Marc had been dragged into the relationship -either that, or her was totally into the relationship, which was probably full of gross physicalities, like sloppily making out in front of people the way Jared and his girlfriend had done. In the office, Marc had seemed legitamately kind, but Claudia had yet to meet a person with his social status who was also a person with deep, true feelings. He couldn't possibly be the person he had seemed to be that morning.

        Also, although she would never in her wildest dreams admit it, Claudia was personally disappointed. She had certainly been attracted to this kind, handsome -ok, hot- stranger, but he was turning out to be a different kind of person with a different kind of life. And a different kind of girlfriend.

        Claudia blushed as she shook herself out of her thoughts. She couldn't possibly be... jealous? Of this girl Angelina she had glimpsed briefly in the hallway? And because of a guy she had met that morning in the office as she cradled a bloody nose? Meanwhile, Addie was chatting on.

        "Everyone expects him to be the male equivalent of her, but... I'm not sure he is. I've never heard him say anything mean to someone, and he's not linked to all those gross, druggy parties like Angelina is sometimes. Angelina probably only likes him because he's hot. He would make them a perfect stereotypical couple, except that he's not like most popular guys."

        Addie paused.

        "He's still dating Angelina though, and that should be a crime on its own, so he's still bad to a certain extent," she concluded. "I'd say stay out of his way, too. Any girl linked to him would have Angelina to face.

        "Angelina's posse is just a bunch of wannabe-Angelinas. They'd give anything to be her, so they pretty much copy everything about her. There's four of 'em to watch out for -Jacqulin, the dumb redhead, Amy (she's filipino, with really long hair), Dorian, who we're pretty sure probably had plastic surgery to look exactly like Angelina -I swear, they look almost identical-, and Lydia, who was a nerd until freshman year; over the summer she had a total makeover, and now she looks like she's been one of them since the beginning of time."

        Addie stopped to draw a breath. She looked a bit resentful.

        "They're all the same," she said slowly, her eyes trained on a spot in the distance. "All those rich kids." She spat out the words "rich kids" as if they were a bad-tasting food, then shook her head and sighed. She ran a hand through her hair, pressing it against her head like she was trying to crush her own skull. 

        Claudia narrowed her eyes. There was something else; something Addie wasn't telling them. She could see it in Addie's guarded brown eyes. It was the same thing that had flashed through Addie's eyes earlier after they helped Nigel, and when she had caught the basketball.

        Addie's throat moved as she swallowed, hard. She turned to Claudia, and Claudia could suddenly see tears glimmering in her eyes.

        "Addie!" Claudia sat up staight, startled. "Are you okay?"