Trust No Bitch: Part 1

Alice Jenkins: Saturday, 31st December, 2014

"You're brain dead. It's oxygen deprivation from the amount of time you spend down with your head down Luca's trousers. That's the only reasonable explanation I can think of. You've got to be joking me, Cleo? Dealing! Why? If you get caught you will be kicked out of uni and-" Cleo rolled her eyes at Alice, who lay sprawled across Cleo's bed, as she packed up her things. She had come back to uni for the New Year's Eve party and was going to Las Vegas the next day for the rest of the Christmas holidays.

"You're acting like it's heroin, Alice! It's just some weed here and there, maybe some E at times..." She said. "For the time being anyway." Alice went quiet as she tried to work out if she could buy speed off Cleo without Cleo knowing it was for her.

"So...what exactly are you dealing then?" She said, breaking the silence. Cleo raised an eyebrow skeptically, holding up a top in front of her.

"Why? What do you want?"

"Nothing." Said Alice a little too curtly. "Well, I do want to buy something but it's not for me. It's for my friend, Sasha, from Latin. She just needs a little help with her revision." She tried to say more casually, passing it off with a nonchalant shrug.

"Sasha Evans?" Murmured Cleo with a smirk. "I knew that bitch had help." Alice laughed again, but this time it was only as a courtesy.

"So, do you?"

"Yeah." Cleo said, shrugging. "I should be able to get you something..." Alice's eyes betrayed her, widening in panic at the wording of the statement. She thought she saw a trace of a smile cross Cleo's face. "For your friend Sasha, I mean." Cleo added, this time with what Alice could've sworn was a wink. She quickly returned her gaze to her copy of Far from the Madding Crowd to avoid making eye contact with Cleo, who had returned to her chest of drawers. On top of them sat the agglomeration of drugs she intended to sell at the party that night. She proceeded to count them, emitting only whispered numbers and prices.

"Surely you have enough money as it is...and if you don't then why don't you just get a job or something?" Alice said, breaking the quietude and steering the conversation back to Cleo.

"Because I don't believe in that shit. I'm a hedonist, Alice."

"You're not a hedonist." Alice replied matter-of-a-factly. "You're lazy. Why don't you ask one of the others if there are any part time jobs going where they work?"

"Whatever." Cleo lobbed a pillow at her but Alice caught it in one hand.

"It's a sin, you know, sloth. And Greed, too." She said, placing the book on the bedside table and sitting up.

"Since when have you been religious? Last time I checked you were an atheist. I mean, I know you've got some Jewish in you but please do not go all Old Testament on me."

"I am an atheist. But you don't have to be religious to know that sloth is one of the seven sins. You know, pride, sloth, wrath, gluttony, greed, envy and lust."

"Which are you?" Said Cleo, looking over her shoulder with a smile.

"Pride, I suppose. Probably amongst others." Alice replied. "What about the rest of us?"

"Well, Lilly can't control herself around anything with a penis so I'll say lust." Alice spluttered but Cleo carried on. "Gemma, envy, because she's jealous as hell of me."

"She told you that?"

"What? No! No-one ever tells you that. I can just tell."

"Clara?" Said Alice, looking back to her book.

"Wrath."

"Why wrath?"

"Because I've seen her almost tear Georgie Caines to pieces just because she talked a bit of shit about me. She's like my little guard dog, it's ridiculous. But brilliant." Alice went quiet as she contemplated what Cleo had said before turning to conversation back to more shallow territory.

"Were you not there when we watched that Seven film?" Cleo shrugged, Alice sighing before continuing. "You know, where that drug dealer was-"

"Oh, yeah actually I remember. Because I said that I wouldn't mind being strapped to a bed and left to rot for a year if Brad Pitt was going to rescue me." Cleo said to which Alice rolled her eyes, getting up and dropping the pillow on the bed.

"Do you not realise how ridiculous you sound sometimes? If I didn't know better I'd say you were partially deaf with a mild case of Tourettes."

"Bitch. It's part of my charm." Cleo shot back, amused. Alice smiled wandering over to where Cleo was separating sachets of weed from ecstasy.

"Oh, so that's what you call it! Charm." She nodded in faux contemplation. "To think, all this time, I assumed it was just you being a pretentious arsehole." She said and Cleo shoved her gently. "I'm joking, Cleo." She peered over Cleo's shoulder. "Who do you even get this from?" Cleo tapped her nose. "You don't know or you're not telling me?"

"Not telling you." Said Cleo with a smile.

"Don't do this." Alice replied. "You know how much it annoys me."

"Because you need to know it all."

"And you don't?" Alice raised an eyebrow.

"Sometimes, my darling Alice, things are best left unanswered."

"Don't be cryptic."

"I'm not, babe. I mean it." Alice sighed and walked back over to the bed, retrieving her book and handbag.

"I'm going to get going, I've got to drop by the library to get some books out for the essay due in when we go back." She said.

"I forgot about that." Cleo replied, yawning. "Ah, fuck. I'll just find something online. Copy it on the plane tomorrow."

"Jesus Christ, Cleo. Would it kill you to just do your own for once?"

"Probably. Eurgh, Alice, I haven't got the energy, time or patience to do this bloody essay."

"My heart bleeds for you." Said Alice, rolling her eyes as she rammed Far from the Madding Crowd back into her satchel and slung it over her shoulder. "I'm not going to say anything else about it but please be careful tonight, won't you?"

"I'm not going to war, Al, I'm just dealing. Don't look at me like that! I'll be fine. Do yourself a favour and for once, just stop worrying." Cleo said as Alice made her way towards the front door. "Oh and...don't mention anything to the others." She added.

Alice had just opened the door to let herself out when Cleo said it: "You're more like me than you realise, Alice."

She had slowly turned round, her brow furrowed.

"What do you mean?" She said.

"Just wait. One day, you'll see." Cleo replied, with that oracular smile. Alice frowned to herself, shutting the door behind her and making her way to the library.