"Yeah. She glanced in the direction of her house, and something passed her face, a brief look of fear that made me worried.
"Want me to walk you home?"
"No. Yeah. No." She sighed, digging her heels into the concrete sidewalk. "Ugh. Fine. If you have to. God, I hate these.” She reached down, unbuckling the little straps on her sandals and taking them off. She held them in her hand and walked ahead of me.
I stopped the car and got out. The night wasn’t over yet, and I was still just as desperate for inspiration as I’d been when she first got in the car.
She raced ahead of me, so fast without those heels I could barely keep up. I kept up a leisurely pace behind her, and after the first block, even that pissed her off, and she ran back to me, glaring again.
"Please, hurry up.”
"Why? It's five a.m. Don't tell me someone's waiting up for you."
She pursed her lips. "I'm tired and I’m scared of walking alone.”
“I thought you didn’t even want me to come with you.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” she mumbled, the closest thing to a compliment I was going to get that night. “You got anything better to do tonight?”
I thought of the empty doc on my computer and shrugged. "Not really." I gave her a look, remembering she wanted to get into Eastvale as well. "Hey, you turned in your essay for Eastvale, right?"
"Yeah?" She gave me a suspicious look. "Why? Did Miss James say something?"
"Nah," I shook my head. "I... I haven't turned mine in yet."
"What? But tomorrow's the deadline. I mean, today, I guess."
"I know," I muttered. "I just don't know what the hell I should write about."
"Bit late for that."
"Don't need a reminder, but thanks."
"You know everyone lies on those essays, right?"
"Not me." I looked into her dark brown eyes. "And I'm guessing not you, either."
"I know," she laughed. "That’s why you’re my only rival. Cause we actually have some integrity."
"So, what'd you write about?"
"As if I'm gonna tell you."
"Why not?"
"What, so you can copy me?" she laughed. "No way, querido, dream on."
We kept walking in silence and I finally muttered, "I guess it's just not going to get done then. Unless I have a sudden burst of inspiration."
"Just write about your Dads," she suggested. "Growing up with your real brother and adoptive gay Dads is pretty cool."
"Nah," I dismissed the idea. "I don't want it to be about them. It's my essay. And I don't wanna blow steam up their asses over at Eastvale."
"What do you mean?"
“I’m not gonna use my parents as a reason to get in there, Stells.”
“I get that.” She tapped a long lilac fingernail against her lips. “Why don’t you write about everything you’ve achieved so far?”
"Like what? What the hell am I bringing to them, anyway? I'm an average lacrosse player. I have great grades, but so do you. What's my talent? What am I actually fucking good at?" Frustrated, I kicked a stone on the gravel, bouncing it over to Estella. She kicked it back to me.
"You really can't think of anything?" she asked, and I shook my head as we kicked the stone back and forth. "Nothing at all?"
"No," I admitted miserably. "I'm not you, Estella."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't have... all this. The perfect family. The perfect boyfriend. The perfect future. I don't even know what I want."
"That's okay. Write about that."
"What? My ability to not decide on anything, ever? I can't even pick a major, Stells."
“So? Spin it. You know how to tell a story, don’t you? Just tell them not deciding on what to do is your specialty. And that you chose them not because you knew what you wanted to study, but because you knew your best education was waiting right there, at Eastvale. No matter what major you end up picking.”
“Damn,” I whistled. “Wanna write it for me?”
“As if,” she stuck her tongue out. “Besides, we can’t both get in. And you’re gonna have to try damn hard to make your essay better than mine, because I fucking aced it, querido.” She winked. We stopped on her street and she picked up the stone we'd been passing and handed it to me. "This could be the beginning of your life, Milo Earnshaw," she said. "The first stone on your path to greatness."
"Is that a line from your essay?"
"You'll never know," she laughed, blowing me a kiss and waving before heading to her house.
I turned around, walking back to my car and slipping the stone in my pocket. She was right. I could still turn this around. If for nothing else, I'd do it to beat Queen Estella at her own game. Lord knew she needed to be brought down a notch.
Game on, Stells.
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Also by Betti Rosewood
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ELITE OF EDEN FALLS PREP
A Hurt So Sweet Volume One
A Hurt So Sweet Volume Two
A Hurt So Sweet Volume One: A Dark High School Bully Romance Page 18
