New Girl - By Paige Harbison Page 0,28

than you.”

I didn’t even know what to say. This was baffling. She just went on and on.

“And that’s just physically. But otherwise? Everybody loves her. She started everyone going down to the boathouse to have parties. She came up with that. She’s fun, and you’re drab. You and your hippie lifestyle—”

“Hippie lifestyle? Are you kidding?”

“Yes, you’re all tan and your hair’s all wavy, you’re always wearing flip-flops and beat-up jeans—you’re trying so hard to look like some kind of ad for Sex Wax. How much do you spend a year on self-tanner and highlights? How much of your life have you spent trying to look like you’re not trying?”

“I…”

It was impossible to defend. This was crazy. For one small and pretty irrelevant thing, I actually really didn’t use self-tanner. It was something my mom was always reprimanding me for. And as for my hair, it was the one thing I really liked about myself. I never highlighted it or colored it, and it always got lighter in the summer. But I couldn’t insist that to a crazy person. I couldn’t engage in this. And she was grief stricken. I wanted to understand her but she was making it impossible.

“Becca will come back,” she threatened, “and then you’ll see. If anyone is giving you any kind of second look right now, you’ll see how quickly that goes away, because you could never compare to her. You’ll never be as good as her. You’ll never be as pretty. You’ll never have what she has.”

That was it. I whipped around, and my hands were moving of their own volition. I was pulling thumbtacks out of the wall and gathering the pictures of perfect little Becca and hurling them at Dana.

“Stop it!” Horror was filling her eyes, and seemingly paralyzing her where she stood. “Becca put those there! You put them back!” She was screaming now, reminding me of that scene in Lord of the Rings when that blonde girl goes from beautiful to a big computer-graphic monster.

“No! You take these. Put them up on your own damn wall if you want to. Put them in a box for when and if she comes to pick them up, but I am not going to stare at these pictures anymore.” I threw the last of them on the floor and then threw the thumbtacks at her closet. It may have been the most violent act I’d ever made. “This is my bed. This is my shelf—” I picked up the remaining four picture frames “—and this shit is not mine.”

“You bitch. You fucking bitch!”

“I don’t care what you think. I’m sorry you’re worried about your friend. I really, truly am. But you will not belittle me and my life because of it.”

I grabbed my wallet and key and left the room, slamming the door. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was, that every single door along the hallway was closing as I walked out into it. Great. If everyone was talking about me, then now they could add psycho to the list of things wrong with me.

I had no idea whether it was too late to go check out my phone, but I needed to call someone. My mom. Leah. Emma. Someone.

I ran to the cell phone office. It was eight forty-five. I glanced out the doors. Dark already.

“Hi, I want to check out my phone, please.” I handed him the checkout card I’d been given on my first day.

He handed me my phone. “Fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.”

I turned it on and darted out the side door into the courtyard. It was freaking cold, and my Florida-based wardrobe only made it colder. I called Home the second it turned on.

No answer. My desperation was starting to make my hairs stand on end. I needed someone to tell me that I was right.

But I had a bunch of voice mails.

The first one was from my mom:

“Hey, sweetie, I miss you already! I know you’re going to have a fantastic time at Manderley. You really are. It’s such a good school, you’re going to get into a fabulous college, and oh, you’re going to have so much fun. You’re going to make so many friends there. Oh, gotta go, I think I’m getting pulled over. Call me sometime soon. Love you!”

She sounded so sure that I would do well here. I made sure not to delete the message and listened to the second one. It was from Leah, my best friend. The first few seconds was just a