my silly words

boarding school is GAY

"Hell no. Private school is for blonde anorexics with daddy issues and a four figure allowance." I crossed my arms and blew a strand of dark hair out of my eyes. "I am not even one of those things."

If the counselor pressed her fingers to her temples any harder, I'd be worried she was going to puncture her skin. "Miss Halliday. I will say it one more time." I raised an assholish eyebrow. "Your mother's brother has tragically—"

"Not tragically. No one liked him."

"Tragically," she continued through gritted teeth, "passed away, leaving you as the sole heir to his rather... hefty fortune."

"Sick. I'm rich."

"Once more, Lia, the will is more complicated than that." The lady pushed a piece of thick, important-looking paper across the table to me for the eighteenth time. I'd counted. "Here— and here— stipulates that this money is to be used, solely and entirely, to pay your tuition at North Seaforté Academy."

"Yeah. Sure. Except that's absolutely ridiculous," I exploded, flinging the paper like a frisbee at the opposite wall over the counselor's sickeningly meticulous desk. "If my creepy uncle came to my house a week ago and told me to go to Fancy Prep Ocean School or else, I would've told him to shove a chopstick up his anus. Why does he get to tell me what to do now that he's dead?"

Counselor lady opened and closed her mouth, looking like she was genuinely considering if the legal repercussions of strangling me right now were worth it. I knew I was being a little sh*t, even by my standards. But there was a hot itchiness spreading up the back of my neck like a rash, and the raw panic I felt at changing schools was something I'd rather bury under a million snarky comments than ever face head on. My world was being yanked out from under me, and making counselor lady regret her choice in degree was the closest thing I had to a coping mechanism.

She was talking, measuredly explaining some legal BS with a Latin name, when I heaved a dramatic sigh, clutching the armrests of the uncomfortable wooden chair I was seated at to stop my hands from shaking. "Okay."

"Okay?" She repeated, tilting her head warily. Waiting for the but. She couldn't quite wrap her head around being free from me yet.

"Okay. Fancy Prep Ocean School it is."

Counselor lady looked like she might cry tears of joy.

~ ~ ~

"Lia." My mom banged on the door impatiently. "Are you almost done packing?"

"Yep." Lie. I was, in fact, sitting cross-legged on the floor staring murderously at the wall. Mom didn't respond anyway, though, pounding down the stairs as fast as she'd come up them, yelling something at one of my 6 little siblings. She had an excuse not to care— that woman was stretched paper thin and I tend to cause headaches wherever I go— but still. She didn't care.

Despite the constant cacophony downstairs (I liked to play this fun guessing game called tickle fight or prison riot), my room suddenly felt suffocatingly quiet. And I felt stiflingly small. A familiar, horrifying pressure began to climb up the backs of my eyeballs. I caught my reflection in the thrifted mirror leaned against my wall— an embarrassingly short sophomore curled into a ball, dark hair frizzing down my back like a storm cloud, sitting among piles of rejected sweater vests and band tees that didn't fit in my tiny suitcase. I guessed it didn't really matter; five days out of seven I'd be stuck in a plaid skirt that looked like something Scotland had thrown up.

A tap on my window jolted me from my thoughts, and I dug the heels of my hands angrily into my eye sockets. I was not about to be a damsel in distress. How bad could private school possibly be?

El opened her mouth as soon as I had wrenched the shutter open.  "Private school is literally the most awful thing on this planet." I gazed into the blue-gray eyes of my best friend in the world, losing my train of thought for a minute. They were storm-colored, deep enough to drown in.

"Uh, earth to Lia." El snapped her fingers in front of my face. "You were supposed to hit me and tell me to stop being a raging pessimist. Missed your cue, babe." With feline grace, El pulled herself through my tiny bedroom window and sat cross-legged on my shag carpet.

"Raging pessimism is good for the soul sometimes," I muttered, stuffing the last of the plaid skirts into my suitcase and zipping it shut with a horrifying finality, sealing it like a casket.

~ [] ~

nah cause.....g,.,.,,.,.,.,.,.... . ., i just wanted to write about rich kids and getting hazed . hashtag real