Page 12 of The Ruling Class

It’s none of my business.I made it halfway to the door, but couldn’t make myself keep walking.

“Hey,” I said, feeling about as awkward as I sounded and wishing I was the type of person who could leave well enough alone. “You okay?”

Oh God, I thought, realizing how much I sounded like Vivvie.It’s catching.

There was another ragged breath on the other side of the stall door, and then: “Go. Away.”

Whoever was crying in that bathroom stall would have wished me off the face of the planet if she could have. It wasn’t the anger in her voice that crawled beneath my skin and stayed there—or the deep and cloying sadness. It was desperation: wild, violent, spiraling out of control.

“I saidgo away,” the girl repeated, her voice hoarse.

I almost did, but as my hand brushed the door to the bathroom, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t justleave.

“Not a big fan ofawayright now,” I said instead. No response. I leaned up against the wall and crossed one foot over the other. The seconds ticked by in silence. Finally, the stall door opened. The girl inside was doe-eyed and baby-faced—and not a graceful crier. Everything about her screamedfreshman.

“You’re the new girl,” she said, her eyes swollen from crying, her voice dull.

“Tess,” I supplied.

She didn’t tell me her name, and I didn’t ask.

“I’ve had a really long day,” I told her. “You?”

The girl looked down at the ground, then walked over to the sink. She turned on the faucet and washed her hands. Again. And again.

“I did something stupid.” Her words were almost lost to the sound of the water. She was taller than me, but bent over the sink, scrubbing at her hands like she could wash away this entire day, she looked very small. Very young.

“How stupid?” I asked softly.

She should have told me it was none of my business, possibly with a few colorful modifiers thrown in for emphasis. She didn’t. Instead, she turned off the faucet. The edges of her lips trembled. “The kind of stupid that involves pictures?”

I slammed out of the girls’ bathroom. Vivvie was waiting for me.

“Just out of curiosity,” I asked her serenely, “where is the boys’ bathroom?”

“Down the hall and to your left,” Vivvie replied. “Why?”

I was already striding down the hallway. “No reason.”

If Vivvie had known me for longer than a few hours, she would have been concerned. Very concerned. I reached the boys’ bathroom, put my hand on the door, and shoved it inward.

“Tess!” Vivvie said. I glanced back at her. She studied me for a moment and then shrugged. “Godspeed.”

A ghost of a smile pulled at the ends of my mouth, but as I stepped into the guys’ bathroom and the door shut behind me, the expression hardened on my face. Three boys stood nearby, passing a single phone between them.

“No,thisone is my favorite. Totally this one. The expression on her face!”

“Fresh meat, man. You should have heard her. ‘Are you sure? Do I look okay?’ ”

Fury worked its way through my body as I sidled up behind them. The phone was passed from hand to hand, and inadvertently, they passed it to me. The third boy’s eyes registered my presence just as my hand locked around the phone. He attempted to pull it back, but I twisted. Hard.

“What the—”

I tucked the phone into my waistband. They all stared at me like I had just announced an intention to set myself on fire.

“This is my phone now.” I let the weight of my words sink in. The biggest of the three boys took a threatening step toward me.

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “Hand it over.”