true colors - jb & ag 《completed》

{eight}

Ariana closed her locker and leaned against it with a sigh. For the third day in a row, she felt like the walking dead. The night before, Bieber House had hit a new level of creeptastic. Sometime after midnight, she'd been startled awake by a noise that faded before she'd fully awoken. Her heart beating in her throat, she'd lain stiff as a board under the coverlet. Just as she'd begun to relax, a creak echoed through the hall, followed by a soft thud, and another, and another—footsteps. She'd pulled the covers over her head like a frightened child and slept fitfully the rest of the night.

In the light of day, she began to suspect the noises had less to do with ghosts and goblins and more to do with a certain individual whose house she now occupied. At one point during the night, she'd heard running water, followed by the metallic bang of pipes. Unless her mom had started sleep-showering, they had an uninvited houseguest.

"Nice outfit, Grande." Lisa approached, eyeballing Ariana from her black Converse to her oversized sweater and ripped jeans, to her ponytail and glasses. Then Lisa hooked her arm through Ariana's and tugged her into the flow of traffic. "I'd hoped my fashion tips might've begun to rub off on you, but this is even a step back from your usual preppy Gap-girl look."

"I'm not even sure my socks match." They turned into the arts hallway and then into the choir room, their only class together besides Study Hall.

"Another sleepless night in the haunted mansion?"

Ariana dropped her books on the floor and rotated her stiff neck as she climbed the risers, Lisa on her heels. "Or were you having evocative dreams about Mr. Dark and Brooding?"

Ariana frowned and narrowed her eyes at her new friend before plopping down on the top bleacher.

Lisa sat beside her and raised her hands in a pleading gesture. "Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to offend."

Students streamed into the room, bringing with them an almost deafening chatter.

"No, I'm sorry." Ariana sighed and met Lisa's concerned gaze. "He's just a sensitive topic right now. And a big part of the reason why I'm so exhausted today."

"Wait." Lisa gripped her upper arm, blue eyes flaring wide. "What?"

As Ariana opened her mouth to share her theory, Yolanda and Ona climbed the alto risers, bringing with them a choking wave of incense and musk. Yolanda tossed the blue-black sheet of her asymmetrical bob out of her face, dropped her binder with a loud smack, and then crossed her arms, pulling her crochet knit top tight across her braless chest. "Only the strongest voices get top row."

Ona flipped her wheat-colored cornrows over her shoulder and gripped her bohemian-print-clad hips, giving a tight nod. "Yeah." She'd gone to Jamaica with her family in July, where she claimed to have met her spirit mate, who told her never to unbraid her hair. She hadn't washed it since. It was September.

Secretly, Ariana had always thought of the hippie-emo twins as Yoko and Ono, but since they pretty much ruled the school, she'd kept it to herself. Besides, knowing them, they'd take it as a compliment. It wasn't. The two of them had been relentless in their quest to break Ariana down in the weeks after Justin's arrest. And when they finally taunted her until she ran to the bathroom in tears, they'd christened her Weeping Widow—which was shorted to Weepy and adopted by their entire crowd.

In no mood for their usual sass, Ariana shot to her feet.

Before she could open her mouth, Lisa rose beside her and jabbed a french-manicured nail toward the bottom row. "Well, good thing there's still room for you two down in front." She might look like a delicate fashion plate, but she was also a New Yorker.