Sweet Like Revenge

16 - Started From the Bottom

One thing that the old Ana never had was a social CV. Apart from my mother—and for a day, Cameron—I had been completely friendless.

The same could not be said about me now.

The new Ana had infiltrated the lacrosse team, become the subject of a Panther's affection, and secured a spot on the cafeteria's most illustrious lunch table. I had inflicted partial revenge on one of my targets and was starting to figure out how things worked for those at the top of the social food chain.

Still, there was one thing that I hadn't quite worked out: why had Sienna Hawthorne let me sit at her lunch table in the first place?

Of course, there was Matt. He had vouched for me, and that in and of itself should have been enough. But I knew how the Elites were ranked, now more than ever. I knew that Poppy out-ranked Matt, despite his status and prestige. And Poppy clearly didn't want me on that table. Theoretically, Sienna should have taken her side.

That's why, at first, I had thought that maybe Sienna's seal of approval was all part of an elaborate scheme. That Irvine's queen was going to let me taste popularity, to feel a false sense of safety or accomplishment, before pulling the rug out from under me. To build me up only to tear me down in a deliciously humiliating fashion, and remind us all of why she was queen.

Yet, after a full month, Sienna hadn't done anything of the sort. I sat in the cafeteria day-in and day-out, gossiping with Kat and Chontelle and sharing stolen glances with Matt further up the table — a rags-to-riches success story. The ease of my infiltration, which I had expected it to be so much more difficult, was unnerving. Because it didn't make sense.

"I need caffeine," Sienna grumbled from the head of our table. She placed her cucumber sandwich back down on her tray, then moved a dainty hand to cover her eyes. "I'll never get through French like this."

Kirsty, who sat beside her in what was usually Poppy's seat, threw me a hard glare. "I could do with a latte." Her words were directed at Sienna, but her eyes were firmly fixed on me.

Before my return, I thought that I knew everything there was to know about Irvine's elite. To me, they were all the same; rich, beautiful, popular, and rotten to the core. But that illusion of equality was just that. An illusion. The truth was, while everyone in Sienna's inner circle was undoubtedly at the top of our school's hierarchy, there was also an inner hierarchy within the circle itself. Not everyone in the group was equal.

There was Sienna, of course, the high priestess of evil, right at the top of Irvine's food chain and, fittingly, at the head of our table. Next were her male counterparts — Nate, the unattainable heartthrob, and Astor, the bad-boy football captain — as well as Poppy, since she was Sienna's right-hand she-devil. Chontelle and Kirsty-Lee were nobility, of course, second-closest to the Queen as well as beautiful (and bitchy) in their own right.

Then there was Kat.

Don't get me wrong — Kat was popular, of course, and hell, maybe she was pretty enough to pass for a Hadid sister. Or at least a not-too-distant cousin. Kat knew everything about everyone, and that certainly made her an asset to Sienna and her crew. But Kat's family was... average, to say the least. Her parents had a moderate amount of wealth and status, but nothing like Sienna's state senator father or Astor's ex-supermodel-turned-designer mother. Amongst the glitz and glamour of her friends, Kat was relatively normal, and so she sat at the very bottom of the A list. The very bottom, that is, until I came along.

Because I was the new girl. The outsider. And if I wanted permanent access to Sienna's inner circle and all the privileges that came along with it, then I had to pay my dues.