...
❝He was the poison I was dying to taste on my lips.❞
...
I was a coward.
The coward who wanted to leave behind the wreckage of her life for the man who had tormented her for as long as she could remember. The boy who had spit venom at me gro...
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september 2005 — age ten
"DID YOU HEAR that she's the charity case of the Vanderbildts?"
"Really?" There was a gasp, and I once again felt eyes on my back even though I'd only been inside the gates for a whole of fifteen minutes. "They're so nice! My parents would never deal with such peasants. Can you imagine what diseases they'd carry into the house?"
I saw the girl shudder from the corner of my eye as I turned and sat beneath a big oak tree. The girls shot me a barely concealed nasty look and I rolled my eyes.
"She probably smells like onions. Don't go near her," one of the girls with shiny brown hair warned, and her two friends burst out laughing, frantically nodding along.
Ugh. Racist bitches.
But just to be safe, I discretely sniffed under my armpits and my shirt. Nope, they smelled nice and fresh, like the Ariel washing powder my mum used. I knew that this would happen, hell I was even expecting it, but I didn't think I'd get a ton of disgusted stares from the moment I stepped inside the gates of Clement.
I'd been dreading this day for the whole three weeks I'd been in Glésford, and I could safely say that I hated this school. Though the girls were all under the age of eleven, they carried themselves with authority and with their noses up in the air. And here I was, the same age as them, wanting to just turn invisible and leave this God forsaken place already. The vast difference was not lost on me; money just had a huge influence.
"I take it you're the girl that everyone's been talking about all morning," a low, feminine voice said to me, and I glanced up to a girl that looked like everyone else here from the exterior — rich, polished and pretty. Only, her tone was friendly and her smile was welcoming.
"The charity case?" I guessed. "Yeah. That's me."
"Only you look and smell perfectly normal." She plopped down beside me casually. "Actually, you smell better. Not like the expensive, smelly perfumes that everyone wears here."
"Uh, thanks?"
She laughed. "You know, I saw you sitting here from across the yard, underneath this tree that's rustling and dripping water on you every other second. But you didn't seem like you cared and it made me really curious."
"That I'm letting some rainwater drip on my clothes when it's going to dry the second I leave my spot?"
"Do you not realise how important appearances are here?" She questioned. "Getting caught with even one strand of hair out of place is equal to social suicide and basically asking to be the topic of rumours for the next half year. No matter how old we are, by the way."
