The Girl in the Boys' Dorms

Chapter Twenty-Four: Find my secrets, hold them close, and keep them.

DISCLAIMER: THIS CHAPTER IS A BIT OF AN EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER.

The Girl in the Boys' Dorms - Chapter Twenty-Four: Find my secrets, and keep them. Hold them close, and don’t release them.

The next hour seemed to pass in a blur of colors and sounds. The eight pageant contestants went back onstage, accompanied by our partners. We stood in the spotlight - the other girls fidgeting on their toes, while I was a bit of a careless statue by that point - as Principal Dennis blabbered on about how difficult it had been to pick the people moving forward. He lifted his hand in the air, facing the audience, and showed them the five slips of paper that held the names that would be continuing in the competition. Then, in a booming voice, he announced them, one by one.

Evelyn Walker.

Bethany Kahanic.

Ashleigh Fitz.

Collette Edelman.

Bailey Underwood.

There was a part of me that whooped with joy when Mr. Dennis called my name. A small, miniscule, whispering piece of my insides that was doing a little happy dance. Because, after all, the expression of utter shock Evelyn had displayed, was worth the beacon of excitement that spread a blanket of warmth through me. The slight, wavering smile on my face was almost genuine, too.

Almost.

Because although Chase was standing beside me, his lips spread in the most dazzling of grins, and his mouth throwing out words of congratulations that I couldn't even register, my eyes were fixated on a single person in the audience.

Clapping his hands energetically in the third row, was Evan. He was beaming, and he kept yelling something that I couldn't quite understand, but I knew it was probably something good. But he wasn't alone. Next to him, still draped in that beautiful crimson gown, and displaying one of her fancy earrings to the world, was Kendall - and although she mirrored Evan's happiness, the way she was leaning against his shoulder, her fingers curled possessively around his upper arm, told me that she had other ideas.

And that managed to annihilate my mood in less than ten seconds.

...

I chewed on my bottom lip as I sat on the edge of the bathtub, my fingers curled into the soft fabric of the midnight blue gown I'd been wearing since the beginning of the evening. It was wrinkled now, and dug underneath my nails as I picked at it, but I didn't care anymore. The dry, breathless wailing had long died off, and had been replaced with a dull, empty silence, like the painfully somber atmosphere after a hideous storm. And it draped over me like a thick blanket, wrapping around both the inside and outside of my body, quieting me with a peaceful vigor.

Disgusting was the word that surfaced when I realized that I'd spent the past hour crying over a boy - more specifically, over a boy who seemed to have priorities that included much more than preserving whatever relationship he shared with me. But I knew, I knew, that that couldn't be the only reason I was so deeply disturbed. Emotions had been building inside of me for weeks, and they'd just happened to explode now; like a two-liter of soda that had been shaken around, and managed to erupt at the most inconvenient of times. To put it simply, I was a wreck. I had basically been a ticking bomb, ready to destruct whatever was standing in its way.

And unfortunately, the destruction had occurred, and I was what had been destroyed.

I dragged a palm down the side of my face, feeling a layer of concealer come off with it. Scoffing under my breath, I wiped it away onto the shower curtain, too distraught to care that I'd just defaced school property. The plastic ruffled under my grip for half a second, but I drew my hand back into my lap almost immediately.