Blood pumps quickly through my veins as I look from one face to the other. Maria’s head is lowered, her blonde hair covering her face, and Natalia and Leah have both awarded the carpet with their gazes. Susan’s piercing brown eyes are pointed at me, sharp and cold, and I find myself biting my tongue to keep from saying anything.
It feels like my blood is boiling beneath the surface of my skin. Suddenly the room is too hot for me to stay in it.
I grab my bag and my heels and I wrench the door behind me open, and without another glance I am out of the room, slamming the door behind me.
. . .
“Here,” Alex says. He hands me a spoon.
I eye the plate on the table in front of me, where a piece of cheesecake in the shape of a triangle is centered.
“I’m not hungry,” I tell him.
“Rachel.”
“Alex.”
His gaze shifts to the plate and then back to mine. He sighs eventually, in defeat, and brings his own spoon down to take a piece of the cheesecake. After he brings the spoon to his mouth and swallows the food, his eyes find mine again.
“So what happened?”
I shake my head, my eyebrows knitting together slightly. “I’m not actually sure.” I think back. “I went into my dorm room, and the Cherubim were there, like I just walked into some kind of intervention. And then Susan just started firing accusations at me.”
He waits for me to continue. When I don’t say anything, he says, “And then what happened?”
“Nothing. She said some things, and then I left before I could do anything stupid.”
We lapse into silence. After a while I realize Alex is still looking at me, so I look back up at him. “What?” I ask.
He looks down at my hand, and I follow his gaze only to find the spoon I’m holding filled with cheesecake and halfway towards my mouth. I blink at my hand, unaware of my own actions, and then set the spoon back onto the plate.
Alex stares blankly at me for a moment. Then in half a second, Alex has picked up my spoon and is shoving the utensil towards my face.
I move my head backwards, away from the spoon, but Alex is determined to feed me. “Rachel, you’re hungry. Just eat it. It’s cheesecake.”
I glance at him. Reluctantly, I take the spoon from him and take a bite of the cheesecake. It’s good.
The both of us eat quietly for a while. Lost in our own thoughts, I suppose. I watch Alex discreetly, and I can’t help but be glad that Alex’s roommates Justin and Pete are not in the room. I find myself thinking back to earlier in the day.
The hotel. Room 416. Alex and I.
My heart beats faster against my chest. I shouldn’t be focusing on the moment Alex and I shared, or the closeness of the moment, or how I felt during it. I shouldn’t be thinking about it at all.
It was a part of the cover that Alex and I had. We were just carrying out a plan, a strategic plan.
But the scene echoes again and again in my mind.
“Alex,” I say softly.
He snaps out of his thoughts. “Yeah?”
And then he looks at me, his green eyes boring into mine, and I can’t remember what I was going to say. So I say something else entirely.
“Model Mayhem is three weeks away.”
His gaze hardens a bit, and then he stands from the black couch we were sitting on and walks over to place the empty plate in the sink. “Yeah.”
“What are we going to do?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He makes his way back over to me and offers his hand to pull me up. I look up at him, and then take his hand.
When I’m on my feet Alex turns and heads to his bed.
I stand in the middle of the doorway that leads to his and his roommates’ bedroom, wringing my fingers.
“Alex?”
He turns back. “Yeah?”
I pause, wondering if I should ask. “Can I . . . stay in here tonight?”
We stare at each other, and soon enough I start to think it was a bad idea to say anything.
Then Alex says, “I’ve already brought out the other blanket.”
And then he turns and continues walking to his bed, and for the first time in a while, there is a genuine smile on my face.
. . .
The next day I am sitting in a chemistry class receiving old tests back from the teacher, and that is the first time I see the Cherubim again. Susan eyes me from where she sits, in the front of the room. The rest of the girls avoid my gaze.
I sit on the left of Maria, and I watch the teacher walk past her desk, placing two pieces of paper, stapled together, on her desk. There is a grade on the top in green marker but before I get the chance to see what it is, Maria is stuffing the test into her bag.
I don’t try to figure out what it was that she scored because Maria tends to get very defensive around her grades, and I want to grant her that privacy.
And anyway, something else has caught my attention.
Natalia has turned to face me from the desk right before mine, and she hands me a ripped piece of paper with writing on it. Susan is not paying attention. I look down at the paper.
It reads:
We would like to speak to you.
Without Susan.
I look up at Natalia. She’s still staring at me, and her eyes are serious. So I meet them with my own, a bit challengingly, trying to decide what she wants to talk about.
When I decide I should see what they have to say, I look down at the paper, and then give her a nod.
As Natalia turns around to face the front of the room, the teacher walks up from behind me and places a test on my desk. On the top of the test paper, in green marker, A+ is written in sloppy handwriting.
* * *
Heylo guysssssssss.
So like. I had severe writer’s block.
And then my internet went out . . .
.___.
But then since the internet went out I started to read for a bit, and then I got inspired, and now it is four o’clock in the morning and I’m still here writing this author’s note. So yeah.
Who would’ve thought the internet would go out and result in something good?
NOT. ME.
:3
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Model in Disguise
Teen Fiction“A pretty face can be the deadliest weapon.” A spy like her is a queen of disguises. This girl is someone who will outshine you even when she's down. Join her on a journey of beauty, love, secrets, and lies, as she tries to dodge every bullet thrown...
29. Rising Suspicions
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