Good Guy

Part Seven

Her lineup of weapons was complete: a cheeseburger, a medium shake, a neon marker and the reading material for next Thursday's Psychology exam. The afternoon was sunny, the bench she'd selected was shaded by the leaves of a nearby tree, and the football field in front of her was vacated. She was ready.

Cleo opened her textbook to the pages she needed to study, and began reading through the long lesson quickly and easily. She was a sucker for the kinds of topics they discussed in Psyche class, and that's why she'd chosen it as her first-year elective. Using her marker, she left strips of color over the most important words and phrases, remembering them by heart, before moving on to the next paragraph. The marker only ever left her hand when she reached out to take a bite of her burger or a sip of her shake. Her eyes, on the other hand, were practically glued to the book.

"Hey. Cleo?"

She was too deep in the Psyche zone, and didn't immediately hear someone call her name. She only managed to realize that someone else was close by when that person's shadow landed on the pages. Cleo looked up in surprise.

"Cleo Hilard, right?" asked the girl who stood in front of her.

Cleo nodded, taking in the stranger's pricey looks and fancy get-up. The girl's long, black hair had had its fair share of salon treatments, and her fingernails looked like they received weekly manicures at some five-star spa. Her shoulder bag and matching pouch, Cleo noticed, were made of pink leather. Combined with her cream turtleneck mini dress and black gladiator heels, she looked like she'd stepped out of a fashion magazine. Cleo thought that she was vaguely familiar. "Hi, um..."

"Adelih," the girl introduced herself, then gestured towards another student behind her, dressed more plainly in a simple flowing skirt and spaghetti top. "I'm Adelih Valeria, and this is my friend, Maggie Donovan. We all take Psychology together."

"Oh yeah! I remember you," Cleo said, snapping two fingers together. "I got your test papers the last time we passed them clockwise for checking."

No wonder Adelih's name sounded familiar. Their Psyche professor had a habit of letting them check each other's answers during the lecture pre-tests, and oftentimes he'd instruct them to either pass around their papers for a specific number of counts, or simply exchange them with the student they sat next to. If Cleo remembered correctly, Adelih was in the other section of their batch, one of the chattier kids who sat in the back row during their electives.

"Yeah," Adelih confirmed, tucking one perfectly straight lock of treated hair behind her ear before looking down. "Nice... um..."

Cleo looked down as well, and noticed that her schoolmate was eyeing the battered shoes on her feet. "Loafers. Or slippers, whichever you wanna call 'em."

"Loafers," Adelih said, frowning at the well-worn pair, a stark contrast to the high-end apparel on her own two feet. "They look... nice. Not really my thing, but they're cute."

"Right." Cleo simply nodded. She had a really odd feeling that Adelih was someone she'd have difficulty getting along with. Her classmate's passive-aggressive remark was rubbing the wrong way. "Did you two wanna talk about something? Or—"

"Yes!" Adelih exclaimed, not even waiting for Cleo to finish the sentence. "Yes, we wanted to ask you something."

"Okay..." Cleo responded hesitantly. "I guess it's alright."

She watched as Adelih elbowed Maggie in the side, forcing the much quieter girl to step forward and sort of start off the conversation. "Adelih and I noticed that you've been coming to school with that guy from the upper class, and we thought it was kinda cool. And like, it's super weird at the same time, but like a cool kind of weird. You know?"