Some girls do

Chapter 3: Chaewon

I laugh when she flips me off, because me? I'm the asshole? She's the one darting between rows of parked cars like a squirrel on speed. If anybody is wrong here, it's her. Definitely. So what if I did try to scam a car wash out of it?

The girl slapped her hands on my baby. She's lucky I didn't cut them off.

I pull into a parking space, far enough away that I don't think she can see me, but where I can still sorta see her and her very angry big brown eyes. There was a second there, when the sun hit just right, that they almost looked amber.

Not that I'm really interested in her or her kinda amber, mostly brown eyes.

More mildly curious. It's a pretty small school, and I've known most of these kids since I was little. It's not often we get new kids, especially not this late in the year—there's got to be a story there.

A tap on my side window pulls my attention, and I turn to see Karina—literally the only person on earth cleared to touch my car besides me—giving me a funny look. I pop my door open and she steps back, running her fingers through her hair. One of the boys from the lacrosse team whistles as he walks by with his teammates, flashing her a grin and tacking on a "Looking good, ladies" to round things out.

Karina clucks her tongue. "Wish I could say the same for you, Jaewook."

Jaewook grabs his heart dramatically, walking backward as the rest of the team falls into a chorus of "ooooh" and "ouch."

Jimin gets that a lot. I'll take "Looking good, ladies" any day over what people say to me when she's not around. I guess that's what you get when pretty much everybody considers you a trashy time bomb. Like it's only a matter of time before I start spitting out kids and ruining lives or something.

I push my seat forward, shoving a pair of heels, my tap shoes, and some garment bags out of the way to grab my backpack. "You know he's into you."

"I do." She smiles.

"But?"

"But nothing. He hasn't asked me out, and I'm not about to ask him."

"Wow," I say as we start to walk toward the building entrance. "Way to set back women's rights about ten billion years. If you like him, you should go for it."

"Says the girl who sneaks around with Park Sunghoon every time he texts her for a hookup."

"Hey." I hold up a finger. "There's nothing wrong with owning your sexuality. I text him as often as he texts me. And it's a mutual understanding. No pining, no feelings—"

"The boy likes you."

"He does not!"

"That hickey on your neck says otherwise."

I snap my hand up to cover it. "I put makeup on it!"

"Yeah, well, not enough." She laughs. "Credit to Sunghoon, though—it's amazing you can even see it with all that spray tan you got on."

"That was my mom's doing," I say, holding out my arms and frowning when I notice a small streak.

"Yeah, well, tell your mom if she makes your white ass go full Kardashian, I'm gonna stop shooting you on principle until you turn back to the shade of skin god gave you."

I huff; I don't even remember what shade that is anymore. My skin and nails and hair have been tanned and painted and bleached since I was a little girl. Sometimes—all the time?—I wish I could peel it all off, just to see who I am underneath.

"You think I'm playing?" Karina smirks. "Maybe your mom will leave you alone if she has to start paying for those Instagram pics."

Karina is obsessed with photography, and it shows in her work. She's fantastic. She's been doing my headshots for the last couple of years and providing content for the Instagram account my mom manages for me. Mom thinks it will lead to modeling gigs or something, but all it's led to so far is creepy dudes in my DMs.