Page 249 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol 4

I concentrated on zipping up my backpack, waiting for the incessant clicking to disappear. I’d only had one interaction with Isabella. Barely. She’d caught me staring at the Untouchablesduring lunch. I really needed to break that bad habit before it got me in more trouble than just a sneer from her.

The clicking of her heels finally stopped. Unfortunately, she stopped right in front of us. I looked up from my backpack.

“There’s a hole in your shoe,” Isabella said to me. Or more accurately, she said it through me. That’s how it felt when she spoke. That she wasn’t really talking to you at all. Just at you. Her friends giggled.

I glanced down at my sneakers, even though I already knew what she was talking about. There was a hole in the side of my Keds where the fabric was ripping away from the rubber soles. I had enough money saved to buy new ones. But my mother had bought these for me for my birthday a few years ago. And any excuse to be closer to her was one I’d take.

“Don’t listen to her,” Kennedy said. “She’s just jealous that her legs only look good when she wears sky-high heels and yours look amazing in sneakers.”

Isabella snickered. “I’d look like a million bucks in cheap kicks. But this school is a little too classy for such things, don’t you think?”

I tried to stand up a little straighter, channeling Kennedy’s energy. But I had nothing to say to Isabella. All I could focus on was the fact that my shoes weren’t cheap. To me, 50 dollars was hours and hours of work. To her it was probably a fraction of an allowance. If rich people even got an allowance. She probably just had a credit card with no limit.

“You should just throw those ratty things out,” she said. “They’re hideous anyway. Trust me, I’m doing you a favor by mentioning it, darling.”

My mother used to call me darling. But not inthatway. My mother’s voice was full of love and warmth. God, I missed her. I felt tears welling in my eyes.

“Well don’t cry about it,” she said with a laugh that dripped with disdain.

She didn’t understand. How could someone like that understand? She had everything. All I had was a memory of my mother’s love that was growing more distant by the second, an uncle I barely knew that had taken me in, and a pair of beat-up sneakers that I clung to because I didn’t have anything else. But still I stood there. I stood there and took her cruelty because I didn’t want her to see me run away and cry.

Kennedy’s camera flashed.

“Taking pictures of me for your project?” Isabella asked. “How quaint.”

“No, I’d never include someone with such a hideous soul in my project,” Kennedy said. “I just wanted to capture an image of you being intolerably you.”

Isabella rolled her eyes.

“Come on,” Kennedy said and pulled on my arm.

I closed my locker and pulled my backpack over one shoulder. I heard Isabella and her friends’ laughter echoing around in my head as we pushed out the ornate wooden front doors of the school. Normally I loved when summer drew to a close and fall began. But the change of season was harder to detect in New York. Everything was concrete. There was certainly a chill in the air this afternoon, but I was pretty sure only I could feel it.

“You know, one day I’m going to show Isabella this picture,” Kennedy said. “She’ll look back at this interaction and be ashamed of herself. One day she’ll regret being a bitch for no reason other than to be cruel.”

Maybe.But probably not. I looked over my shoulder, hoping she wouldn't follow us outside and continue torturing me. Empire High was nestled between two skyscrapers. By being in such close proximity to those buildings, you'd think my new high school would be easy to overlook. But it wasn't. If anything it stood out even more with its old charm. The endlessly high set of stairs up to the entrance had been killing the muscles in my thighs all week. The entranceway was adorned with thick marble columns on either side of the doors. The letters branding the prestigious Empire High academy shone in the sunlight, and I was pretty sure they were real bronze. It looked more like a castle than a school. And whenever I walked up the steps I felt just as out of place as if I was walking toward a castle.

“Just wait," Kennedy said. "She’ll see. One day you and I are going to be rich and we can serve her a big slice of humble pie. Because we won’t be ass faces like her when we have enough money to fill a tub with.”

I didn’t respond. I used to want to be rich one day. Back when I was living in Delaware with my mom and we were barely scraping by. I thought money could have fixed everything. But when my mom got sick, all I could focus on was time. And not having enough of it. For so long that had been at the forefront of my mind. And I still felt it. A ticking time bomb waiting to explode. But hadn’t it already exploded when I’d buried my mother? When I’d moved here? When I started going to this school where I so blatantly didn’t belong? But still I felt the ticking. Like the next bad thing was about to happen. Another explosion when I was barely holding on from the first one.

I watched the Untouchables drive off in James’ Benz. Despite Kennedy’s nickname for the four of them, everyone at this school knew that they weren’t the Untouchables. That title belonged to me. And the other scholarship students like Kennedy. We were untouchable. Because we didn’t belong here in their world. We never would.

Untouchable - Chapter 2

Friday

“You ready to go?” Kennedy asked from the kitchen.

I jumped, hitting the top of my head on a shelf in my closet.Ow.I was still getting used to the fact that she had a key to my uncle’s apartment. Not that I was mad about it. Her mom and my uncle were close because they'd been neighbors forever. And if it wasn’t for their friendship, I never would have been invited into Kennedy’s circle of one. Now two.

She walked into my bedroom eating one of the vegetarian burritos I’d made for my uncle. “When are you going to decorate?” she asked after another huge bite.

Despite her declaration of love for junk food, she didn’t seem to mind my cooking. “I don’t have anything to decorate with.” It wasn’t exactly true. I had tons of pictures. But most of them were of my mom and me. Right now I could barely think about her without crying. If I had to see her smiling face every day? I shook away the thought and finished pulling my hair into a ponytail.

“I mean like posters and stuff, not fancy vases or anything. It looks like a guest room instead of your room. You gotta settle in.”

“I’m settled.”