#MNGirl Sneak Peek
#ONE
Saylor
“I don’t think anyone is coming,” my best friend, Oaklynn, whispers next to me, while gripping my hand tightly between hers. My eyes scan the room one more time, taking in the pastel pink, lilac purple and teal balloons, the gold confetti over the tables, and the three-tiered strawberry cake with pink whipped frosting that sits uncut. An angry flush covers my cheeks, and I swallow the painful lump in my throat.
“Let’s wait a little longer,” I tell her, hating the way my voice wavers with indecision.
“Say,” she starts to argue, then slams her perfectly pink glossed lips closed, when she sees the sheen of tears in my eyes. It’s my seventeenth birthday, and we’ve been planning this party for the past eleven months. Oaklynn had pulled extra volunteer hours at her mom’s charity, so her mom would call and make the reservation for us. I had stashed away the majority of my allowance each week, foregoing movies, nights out with friends, and the perfect pair of Versace Medusa high heels in order to pay the cost to rent the top floor party room at one of New York’s upscale restaurants. I was not leaving before midnight, even if no one else showed up.
“Nash said he was on his way,” I remind her gently, while running my free hand over the plum, crushed-velvet skirt of my dress. Of course, that was over two hours ago when my on-again, off-again boyfriend had texted me. Turning my phone over in my hand, I check the screen again. No messages and no missed calls. It suddenly felt like all the blood was rushing to my head, and it hurt to breathe, which only makes me grip Oaklynn’s hand tighter. I’m fully aware of the questioning and lingering gazes of the minimal staff that were assigned to this party tonight. They’ve stayed diligently in the background, but I can hear the murmurs.
“The staff need to leave,” Oaklynn says, leaning closer to me. “The manager needs to cut them from their shift if no one is coming.”
A lone tear falls down my perfectly contoured cheek, and I wipe it away furiously. My chest heaves because I know what I need to do. “Okay,” I tell her, signaling that we will leave. I don’t want to hold people up or keep them away from their families. I’m not a brat, and despite the designer label I wear on the outside, I would rather die than be the cliché rich girl from the Upper East Side. But, as I make this decision, I swear I hear my heart crack in my chest for yet another time this week.
“It’s going to be okay,” she tells me, pulling my frozen body into hers, hugging me tightly. I want to believe her, but the horror of the past few days crashes into me all over again.
“I can’t believe he didn’t come.” The words fall from my lips, as I swallow down another surge of anger.
“Nash is an asshole, Saylor. His mommy probably told him he couldn’t come after all the publicity.” She waves her hands around. “You can do so much better than him, girl.” I nod, knowing she’s right. Nash Aimsworth is an enigma at Trinity Prepatory, our elite private school, in Manhattan. He’s lusted after by girls, while guys are dying to be in his group of buddies. Nash plays sports, and he is in the top of his class academically. Ivy League schools have been showing an interest in him since his sophomore year. He’s the classic boy every society mom wants their daughters to date. He’ll grow up to own one of the most lucrative companies in the world, and he carries all this on his plate with a crooked smile and a hidden, cunning gleam in his eye. He’s a senior while I’m a junior, and every girl in school has told me how lucky I was to have caught his eye on my first day. That was last year, and, since then, nothing with Nash has been quite the fairytale that the female population likes to think it is.
We often go back and forth on if we’re a couple or not. We went to parties on the weekends and often spent time at his parent’s club. I didn’t need a grand gesture, but if we’re together, I’d like to know we aren’t seeing other people. Nash is gorgeous. I know it, and he knows it. His thick dark hair is always styled perfectly, and his deep brown gaze glitters with mischief. He may have been trying to get my attention the first time I saw him, but he also had two of the most popular girls in the senior class draped all over his body, feeling up his sculpted arms, which were thanks to his years of playing football. Of course, he was also the all-star quarterback of the school, and his influential family had just donated the money for a brand-new stadium. Everything I had seen and knew about him screamed egotistical manwhore. I should have known better, but I had been intrigued by the confidence he has. He carries himself in a way that doesn’t allow others to look down on him. For a girl who was changing schools and didn’t have many friends, I was lacking that confidence in myself. I thought I could be the one to change his playboy ways and I stupidly ignored the red flags that had been waving in my face.
For the first few months at my new school, I had been known as “new money.” I learned quickly that it was not a friendly endearment from my peers. I didn’t grow up wealthy and privileged. I had not been in class with them since they were wearing golden diapers at their elite preschool. My family was new to having money. This made me an outsider -- someone who was in the running to achieve a scholarship or place on a team that they had already spent years working toward. I was a target because I was someone who didn’t understand the hierarchy that ruled from inside the academy; the fact that the older the money, the higher up the food chain a person sat.
Oaklynn had done her best to shield me, to warn me and protect me, but she could only be in one place at a time. Monopoly money was shoved in my locker on a daily basis. Within my first week there, my regular underwear had been exchanged for a sparkling G-string during gym class, and I was constantly asked if it was my mom or I who had been prostituted to help further my dad’s career. One kid, who excelled in technology classes, went out of his way to produce my face in a porn flick. He swore up and down that that was how I earned my tuition. Yeah, kids are cruel. The kids at Trinity Prep, though, took things to a whole new level.
It wasn’t until I caved and started going on dates with Nash that the outright bullying stopped. Once in a while, I would still hear bitch or whore muttered under people’s breaths in passing. I guess as much as they loved Nash, they also feared him. I clung to him and the little bit of protection dating him offered. In the beginning, he was different. I thought I knew who he was from all the time we spent together outside of school. In the end, though, I found out he wasn’t the world’s greatest boyfriend, and I wasn’t proud of myself for the way I used his name to survive last year in high school.
At the beginning of this year, everything was manageable. No more pranks occurred. The name calling stopped, and I was making friends. So, I guess I was lucky Nash liked me. My past and the fact that my family hadn’t always been wealthy had never been an issue for Nash. His mother, maybe, and maybe that was why he kept dating me. My lips pucker at the sour thought. At this point, I know for sure he isn’t coming. He probably is at home or with his friends, instead of being here for me on a night like this. A night when my whole world was crumbling around me, and I needed the two people who I thought were on my side despite my family issues, to be here.