I slip off my jacket and slide my phone into the leggings pocket on the side of my thigh before closing my locker.

“Tu pasa…” I enunciate my vowels to myself and make my way to the weight room.

School starts in an hour, but lacrosse has workouts on Mondays and Wednesdays. The football team is done for the year, the basketball team and baseball teams have the room on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the swim team does most of their workouts in the pool.

Someone pops up to my side as I move past the showers. “Thin Mint?” she asks and shoves a silver roll of cookies into my face.

I scowl, barely looking up to see Becks next to me. “That’s not breakfast.”

Of course, I hadn’t had any yet, but I was pretty sure eating nothing was better than eating shit when I was about to work out.

“Come on. It can’t be any worse than donuts. I mean, who decided what breakfast food should be breakfast food anyway?” Becks grabs two towels from the stand and tosses me one. “I mean, maybe ham doesn’t go with eggs. Maybe eight Thin Mints is the same amount of carbs you’d find in a glass of orange juice. Maybe cereal was invented as a nighttime treat, but they cleverly decided, ‘hey, this is perfect for breakfast when people are in a hurry.’”

I cock an eyebrow. “Cereal was invented because John Harvey Kellogg believed Corn Flakes would stop Americans from sinning and masturbating.”

Her laugh quickly turns to choking as she swallows down the wrong hole and coughs to clear her throat.

“H…how do you know that?” she asks, still laughing.

I shrug. “This is a really good school.”

Her chest shakes as she laughs harder, and I slam my hand through the locker room door. “Come on,” I tell her. “We’re already late.”

And the coach isn’t the one keeping time, either. The last thing I need this morning is a super-sized cunt convo with our team captain. I had my dose last night.

Heading into the weight room, the sounds of barbells clanging and weights dropping fill the air, and I snatch one of Becks’s Thin Mints and stuff it into my mouth. She smiles and veers left, tossing the still half-full package into the trash can as I move ahead, down the center aisle, and toward the elliptical.

“¿Cual es son tu pasa…tiempos?” I mumble to myself, feeling eyes on me, but I refuse to look. “¿Tiempos?”

I jump on the machine, purposely not making eye contact with anyone, other than to check Becks and watch her pick up some baby weights in front of the mirrors, only actually completely three or four reps before she takes a selfie or starts talking to someone. She’s gotten messed with on account of me from time to time, and I like to make sure I know when that’s happening.

She would be a good friend, if we had anything in common.

For now, we enjoy a camaraderie—the types of friends who navigate toward each other when our real friends aren’t around. When there’s a party and we need someone to talk to. Or someone to eat lunch with.

We don’t call each other or text, but I’m glad I have her and a few like-minded individuals who make this place a little more bearable. Becks has money, but she doesn’t use it as a shield to fling mud like Clay Collins and her friends.

After thirty minutes of cardio and moving through three more Spanish lessons, I walk over to a weight machine, adjust the notch for forty pounds, and pull down the bar behind me, working my shoulders.

“It’s not hot yet,” I hear someone say behind me. “But it will be.”

I tap my earbuds, trying to initiate the next lesson. Did it pause? No sound comes through.

“None of those dresses are hot,” Krisjen Conroy says. “I would’ve burned mine if it wasn’t an heirloom.”

“Heirloom or not, I’ll burn the damn thing before Gigi Collins tries to force it on my daughter someday.”

Clay. And that awful debutante gown I’d love to burn for her, but it was ever-so-amusing to see her trussed up in it last night.

“Is Callum escorting you?” Amy Chandler asks her.

“Someone has to.”

I shake my head a little, like that will drown out their voices, tapping my earbuds again. What the hell?

“Come on,” Krisjen says. “He likes you.”

“And you’re about to go off to college,” Amy pants as she runs. “Live it up.”

I tighten my fists around the bar, my arms wide as I bring it down slowly and then back up.

“I’ll live it up,” Clay says in a low voice, taunting. “With someone who makes sure the only way I can leave his bed when he’s done with me is by crawling. Someone with a chest like a brick wall, and a cock, not a weewee.”

A laugh bubbles up from my chest, but I stifle it quickly. I hate her, and I hate that I laugh at her sense of humor, but I also hate her boytoy, Callum, and the joke was at his expense, so I’m excused. My jaw relaxes.

Amy continues the fantasy. “Someone who smells like a sea god and is named…”

“Gabriel,” Clay adds.

“Gabriel.” Krisjen sighs, sounding dreamy.

“But ‘Gabriel’ wants an experienced woman,” Amy warns her.

“Gabriel doesn’t want to break me of another man’s lousy technique,” Clay fires back. “He’ll teach me everything.”

My teammates laugh at each other, and I just roll my eyes as I head for the chest press and lie back on the bench.

This Gabriel sounds like a gem. He’ll make her into a real woman and teach the fragile little damsel how to take her man with silence and a smile. God, she’s pathetic.

A picture of Clay Collins, naked and willing as she wraps her arms and legs around some beefy, sweaty, misogynistic shit-for-brains plays in my head, and I suddenly feel like I have hair on my tongue.

Without thinking, I lower my eyes from the ceiling, looking straight over at her. Her blue eyes are already on me as she runs on the treadmill.

Why is she staring? Strands of loose blonde hair bounce against her face, her skin glowing with a light layer of sweat, and for a moment, I can’t move.

For a moment, she’s beautiful.

“¿Cual es son tu pasatiempos?” a voice rings in my ears.

I startle, realizing the earbuds have kicked back on and my tutorial has continued. The pain in my arms blares, and I still have the barbell suspended above me, and I don’t know how long it’s been there.

I clear my throat, swallow, and bring the weights down and then quickly push back up as a cool sweat covers my back.

“¿…cual es son tu pasa… tiempos?” I mutter, trying to get my head back on track. “Ti-emp-os.”

“What are you doing?”

I look up, pausing only a moment when I see it’s Megan Martelle. She smiles down at me, a clipboard in one hand and her blonde ponytail more white than Clay’s golden. She assists in the P.E. department, having graduated last year; but for some reason, she remains part of the eighteen percent of Marymount graduates who don’t advance to the Ivy League.

She still has time, though. Only nineteen and lots of people take a gap year.

I continue my rep, blowing out my mouth. “Trying to learn Spanish.”

“All by yourself?”

“Yeah, why not?”