Rigs Redding University: Bexley

Chapter Three

BEXLEY

I eat an early, quick breakfast in the dining hall and take my class list to the bookstore to load up on my books for the semester. I can't find a lot of the books at the online stores so I end up purchasing most of them in the bookstore and have to lug the lot of them back to my room.

By nine a.m. I have my books organized on the bookshelf in my room and am ready to go back for freshman orientation. I head back to the student union, keeping an eye out for Artemis and Tamsin. There's a group of maybe a half dozen girls sitting on and standing around the big round fountain in the courtyard in front of the student union.

To a girl they are dressed in tiny skirts and tees with little heeled sandals on. I can tell even from a distance that their hair and make-up is carefully done. These are the kind of uber-rich girls who're here to find husbands rather than to grow up a bit and work towards a career. They aren't here based on a thirst for additional knowledge, they're here to pin some hapless dude — or dudes — down for a life sentence.

Glancing down at my cut off jean shorts, plain grey tee, and flip flops I internally shrug. To each their own and shit, but god I hope that most of the other students don't dress this way on the regular. Artemis and I won't do well with that. We had to were a uniform all through middle and high school and we don't do skirts or blazers unless it's a special occasion or our father begs us to.

A girl with long, artfully wavy lavender hair glances at me and frowns before poking her neighbor and motioning towards me.

I bypass them as best I can because I can see this is trouble and I am in no way interested in trouble. I hear, "homeless" and "birds nest" and assume they're talking about how I look and all I can think is that it's a shame that they feel that its necessary to comment on my appearance at all.

"Those girls just said you look like a homeless person with a birds nest for hair," Tamsin tells me as she and Artemis stroll up. "They also feel like they would totally like die if they looked as bad as you do right now and can't fathom who goes out in public and makes no effort to look nice for the people who are forced to look at them. Those are the sophomores, by the way, they all live on the first floor of Vaughn. Charming, right?"

I erupt in laughter.

I'm a pretty girl but nothing too out of the ordinary. My honey brown hair falls to the middle of my back my and I keep it clean and shiny (and usually piled in a messy bun on top of my head) and I make a small effort to emphasize my light blue eyes with mascara. I'm on the short side and a little bit top heavy and I'm not flawless by any means but my body is strong and I like that a lot.

I'm not like Artemis who is unreasonably beautiful. She has this long, dark chocolate colored hair that moves around her like water and big, almond shaped navy blue eyes. Her mouth is dark pink and wide but heart shaped and her cheekbones are high blades covered in these super charming little freckles. She wears a ring through her eyebrow and along the top curves of her ears and I think it's to take away from the fairytale princess look of her face. It doesn't work. It just makes her look like a badass fairytale princess. On top of her perfect face she's willowy with long, toned legs and perfectly proportioned breasts.

If she wasn't my sister I'd be a little intimidated by her.

But she's my sister and so instead of being cowed I'm very proud of how beautiful she is and how smart and generous she is. Not that I tell her these things very often, I like to think it's my job to stop her head from exploding with ego.

Artemis is wearing a tank top and cargo pants that hang low on her slender, curvy hips and, like me, she's got on flip-flops. She manages to look model chic and condescending in her outfit while I look like any random college kid.