The Academy

Chapter Two

Orientation ended at nine--approximately two hours later than it should have ended.

Because classes started tomorrow, the faculty instructed that lights were to be off at ten. Now, it was nine-fifty and Marisol was in her closet on a mission.

"Where the hell is it?" she asked herself. Something fell with a crash, and I tried to peer into her closet to see what the heck was going on, but I couldn't see a thing. "Here! Finally."

She stepped out of the closet holding a dress over her chest. "You like?"

It was navy and quite short—shorter than anything I would wear. It was strapless and navy, but it was pretty. "Yeah," I replied. "What's it for?"

"The party, silly," she said, stopping in front of her mirror to analyze her button nose and mile-long eyelashes. "Aren't you going?"

"Party?"

Marisol spun around, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah. The party I told you about. Are you going?"

"You didn't tell me about a party."

She kept staring at me, her expression blank. "I thought I did."

"You didn't."

"Well, shit. I'll tell you now." She plopped down on my bed beside me and I shut the Jane Austen book I was reading. "Every check-in day, Celia Howell has this huge house party. It's insane. Everyone from Beaumont and Pentry sneaks out from the dorms and goes. At least, the relevant students do. It's super easy to sneak out, honestly. There are no surveillance cameras or anything. You have to come!"

I glanced down at the book in my lap. "I won't know anyone there."

"Yes, you will. Carlisle, Aspen, and I will be there. Lindsay's got a movie date with her loner and hates parties like that, but you can hang with the three of us. You could meet other people there, too. It's a great place to make friends."

I wanted to ask, "Parties like what?", but I didn't want to seem like a prude. Honestly, I wasn't much of a party-goer. In Bunting, I didn't have very many friends. None of my friends had been party-goers either. They were the type that would sit at home and read. I guess I was too. And as I looked at the book in my lap, I realized that that wasn't who I wanted to be anymore. I wanted to be someone fun. I wanted adventure. That was the whole reason I started researching boarding schools, anyway. This opportunity just presented itself, and it'd be foolish of me not to take it.

I looked back up at Marisol, who was sitting there, waiting for me to accept or decline the invitation.

"So?" she asked, tilting her head. "What's it gonna be?"

~~~

The thing about adventure is that the road to it is pretty humbling. I learned this as I walked down the street alongside Marisol, tugging at the bottom of the dress she lent me. It was navy, an awful color on me, and quite short—not as short as the one she was wearing, but short nonetheless. It was too loose in the top, forcing me to stuff my bra just a bit—which was both embarrassing and awkward— and too tight on the bottom. With every step I took, the dress would inch up my thighs, so I had to constantly pull it back down. To top everything off, I didn't have any shoes that would look good with the dress—only my Keds—so I had to borrow a pair of heels from Marisol. Her shoes were a size and a half too big for me, and I couldn't even walk in heels that fit. This was already shaping to be a disastrous night.