KILL YOUR DARLINGS ✸ Saltburn

𝒊𝒊. a blossoming flower

𖤐 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑻𝑾𝑶:
╰┈➤ a blossoming flower ༉‧₊˚.

THE SMILE ON MEREDITH'S FACE WASN'T GENUINE. She was just waiting for one of her friends--accomplices--to notice.

"So you don't think I should have slept with him?" Alice, a girl a couple inches shorter than the rest of them, asks with utter confusion drawn out on her face.

The other girl, Livia, shakes her head rapidly. "Alice, that was your boyfriend's best mate. No, you shouldn't have slept with him."

Meredith must have accidentally spaced out of almost half of this conversation because last she knew the four of them were discussing which teachers they liked and which they didn't.

Max, who's standing behind the brunette barks out a laugh, and Meredith could feel it on the back of her head with the movement from his chest. "You slept with him again?"

"Again?" The anger on Livia's face is remarkable, and almost laughable now. Meredith hadn't known any of them well at all, except for Max, but now she only knew enough, and that the one girl is a highly infidelic person.

Meredith turns her head away from them, biting her lush bottom lip just enough to contain the laugh threatening to spill out.

"What do you think?" Alice asks, and given the look in her eye, it's pretty clear she just wants to hear the opposite of what Max and Livia have already told her. Unfortunately for her, Meredith agreed wholly with her friends.

She hummed. "You and Jeremy are exclusive, no?"

She lowers her gaze, frowning, giving the curly haired girl her answer. "Yes, but..."

"Then shouldn't you be with him? Only him?" Meredith offered a sweet smile to the girl, and it somehow made enough of a difference to snap her friend back into reality.

Meredith Archibald was like a superhero and one of her powers was that she could seemingly always manipulate with kindness. Just one glimmer of her brown eye and the curling of her lips and it was like some hypnotic trick to snap you into doing the right thing.

"Thanks, Mere." the brunette smiled with gratitude before tightening her grip on the tote slung over her shoulder. "I've got to get to class."

Meredith's smile grew, giving her friend a knowing look. "And to talk to Jeremy, right?"

Alice rolled her eyes playfully before nodding, her shoulder slumping. "Yess."

Max chuckled once again beneath Mere, and she too let a loose laugh slip past her plump lips in just enough time for the boy behind her to give a squeeze to her hand.

Livia leaned her foot back onto the brick wall that was formed around the elderly tree in the center of the courtyard. She tilted her head to the side just a slight bit. "How do you do that?"

The smile on Meredith's face dimmed before she could help it as a hint of confusion loomed over her. "Do what?"

"That." Livia pointed to Alice, who was now perkily walking into one of the many buildings on campus. "You see the good in people and somehow show them the good in everything too without saying anything at all."