Only If You're Lucky(13)
So far, she’s been nothing but nice.
Sloane looks back at me, her eyebrows bunched like she’s never actually asked herself that question before. Maybe she’s jealous, I think, the same way Maggie was jealous in the courtyard outside Hines. Maybe she’s threatened by Lucy—or, I realize with a sudden sense of surprise, maybe she’s threatened by me. By another person stepping in, taking her place. I can understand that: the envy that blooms in your chest when you see your best friend with somebody else. The fear of being replaced.
Sloane is quiet for a while longer, considering, before turning back toward the shed like she’s afraid Lucy might be hiding in it.
“She’s fun,” she says at last. “She gets you into places.”
“Lots of people are fun,” I counter.
“When you’re friends with Lucy, she makes you feel special,” Sloane says, exhaling, like the statement finally unburdened her from a truth she’s been carrying around for far too long. “Like she chose you for a reason.”
That, too, I intimately understand. I’ve been feeling that way ever since she stepped into my dorm room, the piercing blue of her eyes pulling me into some kind of trance. It’s almost as if I’ve been hypnotized ever since, entranced by the spell of her, moving through the motions of whatever she tells me to do without a second thought.
“I don’t know.” She sighs again, like she’s doubting herself now. “Maybe I’m being harsh.”
“Maybe a little bit.”
“Or maybe I’m afraid of what would happen if I stopped.”
She looks at me now, an intensity in her eyes that makes my skin crawl. This veiled warning of hers cloaked as concern is making me feel light-headed, dizzy, like standing on a ledge and looking down, feeling my body start to sway. I know I should probably take a step back and reassess what I’m doing here, but I also know that if I think too hard about it, I’ll come to my senses and scamper back to safety. To a place where I can feel my own two feet planted firmly on the ground.
I think of what Sloane just called me: vanilla, malleable. A blank slate. That’s what I was with Eliza, too, if I’m being honest with myself; not my own person but a mirror she could stare into and see a reflection of herself gazing back. Sloane is trying to tell me that, if I’m not careful, Lucy will do the same. She’ll turn me into something I’m not. She’ll twist me and mold me until I’m unrecognizable, transforming in her hands like soft, wet clay. She’ll shape me into whatever she wants me to be. Something useful to best fit her needs, a deliberate instrument of her own design.
But here’s the thing Sloane doesn’t know: I want to be changed.
That’s all I’ve ever wanted, really: for someone to scoop me up and tell me what I’m supposed to be. My entire life, I’ve contorted so easily in the hands of others—my parents, Eliza—shape-shifting at any given second to be the thing that everyone else wants. So maybe that’s who I am: a chameleon that can take on the appearance of its surroundings. A master of camouflage to stay invisible and safe. I need someone to mold me like putty; give me function and form.
I want Lucy to bend me, break me. Rip me to pieces and reassemble me into something different, better. New.
CHAPTER 9
A scream echoes across the backyard, startling Sloane and me out of our standoff.
“What was that?” I ask, eyes darting, though Sloane doesn’t look concerned. Instead, she looks annoyed.
“Come on,” she says, taking off toward the Kappa Nu house, cutting her way through a sea of weeds and apparently forgetting about our conversation entirely. “Let’s meet the boys.”
We walk the length of the yard and approach the house from the back. The door is cracked open and we step through it, entering a massive living room, though I hesitate to call it that because I can’t imagine people actually living here. I’ve wondered about the inside of this place so many times—and not just this place, in particular, but all these places. The houses students flock to in packs, themed parties and coordinating outfits. Greek letters hanging haphazard against the siding and music beating against the walls like the house itself is a living, breathing thing. I don’t know what I was imagining before—something grandiose, maybe; something to at least justify the exorbitant membership fees—but instead, the space is giant, square, and almost entirely unfurnished with the exception of one ripped-up leather couch, a few lopsided composite pictures, and a folding table in the center of it all. There are about a dozen boys huddled around it, red Solo cups knocked over and dripping foam onto the carpet, and I can feel the crunch of it beneath my shoes, a crust of fossilized fluids built up over the years. Even the air feels sticky, a concoction of sweat and smoke gripping my skin like cling wrap.
“SLOANE!”
A shorter boy in the middle with sleepy eyes and an exaggerated grin throws his arms up in way of greeting. He’s brunette and overly muscular, not bad looking but clearly overcompensating, and I look over to Sloane next, trying to study the way she acts around them: passive and uninterested. Like she couldn’t care less.
“Boys, this is Margot,” she says, ignoring him completely. “She’s taking the room next to Lucy’s.”
I stand still as their collective gaze turns in my direction and I can feel it slipping all over me: my face, my neck. My chest, where their eyes linger too long, then down the length of the skintight camisole I changed into while unpacking. I can practically see the cogs turning behind their bloodred eyes, trying to imagine how everything looks underneath.