“Okay—？”
“She’s a fucking liar,” Sloane interrupts, a viciousness in her voice I never expected from her. “Like, pathological. Did you know that?”
“I … don’t really know anything about her.”
“Yeah,” she says, looking away, as if that somehow proved her point. “Just take everything she says with a grain of salt. Trust me.”
“Look, don’t you take this the wrong way, but if that’s how you feel, then why are you friends with her?”
I don’t know what drove me to say it, but suddenly, standing here listening to Sloane bash her best friend sitting just inside, a strange protectiveness has settled over me, like Lucy somehow needs me to defend her honor in her absence. I don’t know her, not really, but she gifted me an opportunity—an opportunity of belonging, of friends—and so far, she hasn’t given me any reason to doubt her intentions.
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.”