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A goth girl!
My heart almost immediately sang the moment I saw her.
She had deep toned skin. She had her hair straightened and back in a stylish high ponytail with expertly styled edges. She had ridiculously cute little cartoonish white skulls clipped around the ponytail holder. She had beautiful light grey eyes that glistened in the terrible lighting of the cafeteria. She also had a clear post in her nose, which I knew was used to follow school regulations, but when she left, she more than likely had a metal stud or hoop that went in.
Her makeup was perfectly blended anddark, though she chose a nude lip, like I always did. She wore a black button-up that was buttonedall the way upand ablack tie!She paired it with a black skirt and…
My heart.I couldn’t stop the excitement when I saw the fishnet stockings and black heeled boots.
“Hello?” she said.
I shook my head and closed my slack jaw. “I’m so sorry. Rude. Hi, I’m Temperance,” I said with the first bit of genuine happiness I’d felt all day.
Well… aside from that moment when Damian was under my skirt and kissed my…
I shook my head again to rid my brain of the thought.
“I’m Luna,” she said. “Luna Kimani, but I prefer to go by my middle name. Luna Grey. My dad’s a dick.”
I smiled. “Hey, Angelina Jolie goes by her middle name instead of using Voight for the same reason.” I shrugged. “And she’s a sexy genius, so I think that’s a great choice.”
She smiled. “Nice to meet you. So… did you really kick the demon’s ass this morning?”
I inhaled deeply and sighed. How the hell was I supposed to answer that? If I was honest, it would look like I was bragging. But I also couldn’t lie because if she was asking about it, it had already made its rounds.
“It wasn’t exactly like that,” I said, choosing the diplomatic option. “I saw him tormenting someone, and I tried to stop it. I thought he was going to grab me, so I defended myself accordingly. That’s all.”
She blew out a raspberry laugh before her entire face scrunched into a full-belly laugh. “Oooh,fuck,I would have paid to see that! Alotof money. Like anobsceneamount of money. Pretty much anything I have. Just take it.”
I snorted. I liked her already.
“I’m Justin,” the tall boy next to her said, extending his hand to me. I shook it, watching as his lips turned into a subtle grin. “Justin Blackwell. There are a few other Justins here, but clearly, I’m the best.”
“Oh, clearly,” I said with a smile. He was cute and seemed sweet. After a moment, it clicked that Blackwell was a name on one of the boys’ dorms. He was a descendant of one of the founding families.
He wasrich,rich.
But also—didn’t seem like a dick.
“So, I gotta ask,” she said. “You were eyeballing me pretty hard. Bi, lesbian, or dislike my style? Any of those are fine. I dress for me, so I don’t care if someone doesn’t like it, and I’m pan, so obviously, no issues there either.”
I laughed at her straightforwardness. “I assume I’m straight. I’ve never really thought about it, but I’ve seen a few girls who had me questioning that, so I don’t know. However, I donotdislike your style. In fact, I was admiring it.”
She eyed me curiously. “Seriously?”
I nodded. “I asked the office if I could wear the boys’ uniforms, but they shot me down.”
I pulled my phone from my skirt pocket and showed her a normal photo of me. Her eyes lit up.
“Ah! A kindred spirit! Yes. Okay, well…” She looked me up and down and grimaced. “We havegotto fix this. I can meet you after school if you like. What dorm are you in?”
“The McArthur building,” I said. The dorms were named after the school’s founding families.
Her eyes widened. “How the hell didyouget stuck intherewith all those hoity toity bitches? They’re the worst of the worst. Technically, that’s where I’m supposed to be assigned, but I begged my dad to put me in a different one. I don’t care about the downgrades. It was worth it to switch.”
I had a feeling I knew exactly who she was talking about when she mentioned the hoity toity bitches, and she wasn’t wrong.
“Just lucky, I guess. Not all luck is good.”