Never Have You Ever (The Love Game #1)- Elizabeth Hayley Page 0,1
in and sat down on her bed. “I heard about what happened this morning with Carter.”
“Well, with how news travels in this house, I’m not really surprised,” I said with a laugh.
“Right.” She took a brush from her bedside table and began running it through her long dark hair. “Well, Aamee’s a bitch.”
“Obviously.”
“She’s worse with this stuff when it comes to guys, and she’s liked Carter for four years, since they were freshmen. I bet it’ll all blow over once she moves on to whatever or whoever she has an issue with next. Just give it a little time.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “I’m not so sure. She told me she was going to think about my consequence and she’d let me know what kind of trouble I’m in later tonight.”
“Ugh.” Gina lay back against her pillows and stared up blankly, like she was trying to make out the solution to my problem in the popcorn ceiling. “I wish she’d calm down with this shit. She’s not making any friends by pointing out every little thing all of us do wrong.”
“She still has her groupies.” I shrugged.
“Ew, don’t call them that. She’s not Justin Bieber.”
At least Gina always had a way of making me laugh, even if I might not be laughing later when Aamee dished out my punishment like a crotchety grandmother serving someone’s second helping of dinner. She really wouldn’t give a fuck whether I wanted it or not.
“I gotta admit,” I said, “I’m actually a little scared. Aamee is no doubt going to make me pay for this.”
“Maybe she’s gonna make you walk naked through the streets while we all point at you and yell, ‘Shame,’ like you’re Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones.”
I laughed again. “I think I might actually prefer that to what Aamee probably has in store for me.”
Gina looked over at me, her expression serious for the first time since she’d entered our room. “Seriously though, what’s the worst that can happen?”
“Sophia Mason, you are here in the presence of your sisters to atone for your sins.”
“I think ‘sins’ is a little extreme, Aamee,” someone said.
It might have been Gina, but I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t see anything in the dark room except the blinding flashlight of Aamee’s iPhone shining in my face.
“Shut up, Gina,” someone confirmed.
Aamee got closer to me, bringing the light with her. It was like I was heading toward my inevitable death, but instead of feeling a peaceful calm as I sat surrounded by loved ones, I was battling a power-hungry college senior who was permanently PMSing.
I moved back and turned my head to the side so the light wasn’t directly in my eyes. “Can we turn that thing off and have a normal conversation about this, please?”
There was silence for a few moments until the light shut off and a lamp turned on instead. “Fine,” Aamee said, “but the process is still the same.”
Some of the girls were looking at their nails in between eye rolls, seemingly siding with me on the ridiculousness of this. Others were nodding as Aamee spoke, though I wasn’t sure if it was because they agreed with her or were just too scared not to.
“Can we just get this over with?” I asked.
I knew Aamee was pissed about Carter, but after my conversation with Gina, I’d let myself get my hopes up that my punishment began and ended with her silence toward me over the past two days. It was a consequence I was happy to accept since it was more of a reward than a punishment.
Aamee flipped her blond hair behind her shoulder and pursed her red lips together. They were so plump, I’d once asked if she’d done “whatever Kylie Jenner had done.” I’d quickly identified that question as a mistake, but it was too late to take it back. And thus began her hatred of me.
That night she’d announced the addition of my name to her Shit List, and I’d only moved up in rank since then by doing little things like using her toothpaste or disconnecting her phone from a charger so I could charge my own.
“Then let us begin,” Aamee said. “On the fifteenth of September, you, Sophia Marie Mason—”
“My middle name isn’t Marie.”
“Sophia Elizabeth—”
“Nope.”
“Ann?”
I shook my head.
“Whatever. Like…ninety percent of the female population has one of those. I just guessed.”
“Well, you guessed wrong.”
“Do you plan to tell me what it is?”
I pretended to think for a second. “No, I think I’ll leave you in suspense.”