We didn’t really talk about this at all. “Okay.”
He plays with my hair again. It’s a habit I used to find charming, but now it’s annoying.
“I’d rather be kissing you,” Alec says, leading me back to my bed, pulling my legs on top of his, rubbing his hands up and down them. He finds the nook of my neck again and kisses it. I want to fall into it all, but my mind buzzes with more questions and worries.
“But what does it mean?”
Alec untangles our bodies. “I’m not going to have this pointless argument with you about nothing. I liked her picture on social media. So what? I’ve known her forever. Does it have to mean something? I’m here with you. I’m with you.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
“Then let’s drop it.”
“Fine,” I say.
“We should probably go to the café now.” He’s halfway out the door. “You coming?”
“Not hungry. I’ll meet you after ballet class.”
“Okay.” That four-letter word stretches out long and hard. He rushes out the door, leaving it wide open.
I just sit there, stunned by the weirdness of our half argument. Minutes go by.
“You all right?” Cassie stands in the doorway.
“Yeah. Alec and I had an argument.”
She closes the door behind her. She walks around my room and grazes her hand over the barre I have set up. “I wish I had one of these in my room. Well, I wish I had a single. You lived with June last year, right?”
I jump at the sound of June’s name. “Yeah, I did.” I offer her something to drink so she’ll stop asking questions about June. I go to my minifridge and open it. “Do you want—hmmm.” There isn’t much in here. “Fizzy lemonade?”
“No, I’m good. That has a ton of calories in it.”
I set the tiny bottles back inside and make a mental note to tell Mama to stop sending them. “Okay.”
“Alec can be a bit of a pretty little princess sometimes.”
I nearly choke on my laughter.
“He used to throw a tantrum when his nanny wouldn’t cut his carrots into shoestrings and his PB&J into triangles.”
I think about what he might have been like as a child, how much they know about each other. I wonder if I should ask her about Alec and Bette, about him liking her photos, about whether I’m being paranoid. But I’m afraid she might tell me I am, so I don’t say anything.
“There must be something going around because June just threw a tantrum when trying to put her hair up in a bun for class.” She squeezes her eyes shut the way June does when she’s upset. She pretends to work with her hair. “What a terrible haircut.”
I let out a nervous laugh. “Oh, I didn’t notice.” But of course I did. June got it done professionally after the incident, but it still looks awful, like a kiddie bowl cut gone awry.
“Um, that’s a lie.” Cassie makes the sour face June does when she’s upset. I burst out laughing. “Everyone’s saying it was a prank. I asked her, but she denies it. Says it was just a slip of the scissors during a haircut. But now she cries herself to sleep at night.” She mimics the sniffling and low crying.
The desire to see June suffer overwhelms my body. I think about the tearstains on her silk pillowcase and how she looks like a three-year-old now with her bowl cut, flat chest, and frowning face. I push down any feelings of remorse. She deserved it. She killed something so valuable to me. Her hair will grow back, but my butterflies won’t come back to life. “She deserves it.” I don’t realize I’ve muttered those words until I look at Cassie’s face.
“You did it.”
I open my mouth to tell a lie.
“I had a feeling—” Her mouth curves into a little smile.
“I didn’t.”
“Ha! That’s awesome! It’s about time. By the way, the streaks in that new girl Isabela’s hair? That was me.”
“Really? She’s telling people she went to the salon.”
“Ha, such a liar.” She nods proudly. “Isabela thought she was going to talk shit about me, try to ruin my reputation with Morkie, and think it didn’t have consequences. I told myself I wouldn’t be a victim this year. I refuse to be one.”
“Me neither.” I hold her gaze for a long time. “Yeah, I did it. I cut June’s hair.” It feels good to say it out loud, to have someone smile back at me like I’ve won for once, like this is ballet class and I’ve just finished a million perfectly clean pirouettes and Morkie is beaming at me. It feels good that Cassie’s smile erases a little of my guilt.
“What did June do to you? I need to watch my back.”
I take a deep breath, my eyes drift over to my window where my butterfly terrarium used to be. The succulents Alec gave me sit in little clusters inside the glass terrarium. “I had butterflies. She killed them.”
Cassie looks genuinely shocked. “She’s super messed up. That’s like killing someone’s cat.” Her lips purse together. “When I was first here, they tortured me.”
“What did they do to you?”
“What didn’t happen?” She sighs. “They slipped purple hair dye in my shampoo. Put up terrible pictures of me in the Light closet. Hacked my private emails from Henri, and printed them. Spread rumors about me. Cut up my performance tights. They wrote shitty things on my pointe shoes—”
“They wrote things about me on the studio mirror.”
“Lipstick?”
“Yep.”
“Bette!” She clenches her teeth. “And June was part of it, too.”
“Yep.” I want to ask Cassie how she hurt her hip, but I know I shouldn’t. I can’t even find the words to form that question.
“We’re going to get back at each and every one of them. It’s time to stop being victims. This is our year.” The way she says our feels empowering and sweet. She goes to the door where her bag sits, and she riffles through it. “I need you to do something for me.” She returns with a tub of hummus, fire-roasted red peppers and garlic.
“I hate hummus.” I examine the labels. “Reminds me of a facial mask.”
“It’s not for you. It’s for Eleanor. I need you to get her to eat it.”
I quickly hand it back to her, like there’s poison seeping out of the plastic. “What’s in it?”
She pushes it back into my hands. “It’s her favorite. I just added a little bit of peanuts to it. Makes her lips get all puffy and gives her a small rash.”
“Peanut allergies are dangerous.”
“Hers isn’t. When I was here, I remember her gorging on peanut brittle that Bette’s grandmother would send from Boston.” She bats her eyes at me, like I’m so kind for being concerned about poor Eleanor and her slight allergy. “You know she used to do things for Bette all the time. She was her little minion, the one who put the hair dye in my shampoo and printed out the emails I got from Henri.”
“She sent me a moldy old cookie last year. Complete with dead roaches.”
“See?” She taps the lid. “She deserves it.”