What Good Girls Do

Chapter Five

There is something about watching your social life disintegrate that turns a person savage. As I flick through my phone, hours and hours pass in a blur, I see the photos of events and parties I'm not invited to. I see Kyle with his shiny new girlfriend Laura and their stomach-turning posts about how loved up they are. I see my friends doing the things I used to do. Simple things like shopping or eating out - just being. And I see how I've become a joke, a meme to be dragged up every time someone loses control. I hadn't realised so many people had filmed me destroying Kyle's car, or how much pleasure they'd taken in watching me fall so far, so fast. I was always at the right parties, always at the right places, with the right people and now, I'm back on the outside looking in. I haven't been that person in so long.

Since I'd sat down to digitally torture myself and stuff my face with Oreos, the light had faded and the night had turned thick and heavy. The front room is lit only by the bluish light of the TV, and the glow coming in from the Grady's garden lights. Another night of listening to the faint pulse of music and their laughter. I had refused every invitation to go. Dad was already there, his face not even shifting into disappointment when I'd said no again. He just expected it now.

It didn't help that I was still in the dark about Connor. Dad refused to tell me exactly what Connor was waiting sentencing for. His body turned tense, his face contorted unhappily whenever I pushed. It wasn't his story to tell, was all he'd say, and I'd huff back to my room. I slightly admired Dad's stubbornness, but it was another reason not to go over there. Quite frankly, I had my own drama, and I didn't need anyone else's. It didn't matter how goddamn blue his eyes were, or what that smile did to my heartbeat.

I try to stop flicking on my phone, but my rigid fingers are glued to the screen. My head is aching, and my bones are stiff from not moving for so long, but it doesn't matter. I'm trapped in this self-harming circle of peering into my former life. A notification pops on the screen and I sit up sharply.

You would have done this so much better! Miss you.

I frown. What is Tessa talking about? I'd been tutoring Tessa for the past few years, and she was the only person from the Academy who still contacted me. Mainly she's sent memes and photos of anything she thought would cheer me up. It was more the thought behind the messages that made me smile than the fuzzy dogs or the latest dance trend themselves.

Tessa had moved to England when she was twelve, and though she was probably the smartest girl in school, the language difference was hard to overcome. I'd started tutoring because I thought it would look good on my Oxford application, but it had been almost a year since Tessa had really needed any help with her English. But we'd kept meeting, anyway. I'd suspected she was the only real friend I had, and now it was confirmed.

I open the photos Tessa has sent me. She's at the Christmas ball, an annual event I'd started and organised, but since I wasn't allowed in the building, the rest of the social committee, a group I'd also started, had arranged it without me. And they hadn't even bothered to tell me. My former friends had decorated the ball using all my original ideas, only they'd butchered them into shoddy knock-offs. My idea was to base the ball on the famous Scandinavian ice hotel, turning our school hall into a white space of luxury and drama. But it looked like Kyle and the rest of the committee had stuck some paper snowflakes and glitter to the walls, patted themselves smugly on the back and left it at that.