After lunch, I saw Lily leaving the dining hall on her way to our next class, and I rushed to catch up with her so we could walk together.
“Hey, Lily, wait up!” I called.
She turned and smiled as I fell into step beside her. “Hey, stranger. Are you excited for another thrilling business management class?”
“Uh, no.”
“Yeah, it’s not the most exciting subject,” she chuckled. “Though given who sits right behind you, I have a feeling that class must still be one of your favorites.” She wiggled her eyebrows, and I blushed because I knew she was talking about Noah.
“Your cheeks are turning bright pink.” She giggled.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
She tilted her head and smiled, totally unconvinced.
As we continued into the corridor, I noticed people watching me. Being the new girl, I had gotten used to receiving curious looks, but this seemed different. I thought people had gotten bored of me by now. Some students appeared as though they were trying not to laugh when they saw me while I could have sworn others were looking at me with pity.
“Am I being paranoid, or are people looking at me weirdly?” I murmured when yet another kid glanced at me and struggled to smother a laugh.
Lily stopped and glanced around. “Yeah, maybe. I wonder what’s going on. It’s not like you have food on your face or your uniform is on inside out. You look really cute today.” She was frowning as she scanned me, trying to figure it out.
My skin started to prickle under the constant gaze of everyone around me. I’d just been in the dining hall with pretty much the whole school, and no one was watching me in there. Something must have happened in the short time since, but I had no idea what.
“They’re holding something,” Lily said.
“Huh?”
“Everyone who’s watching you has a piece of paper in their hands.”
I turned my attention to one of the closest students. The girl was intently studying a sheet of paper that she held with both hands. When she glanced up and caught me watching her, the girl blanched, and her eyes darted between me and whatever was on the page.
I didn’t know the girl I’d caught looking at me, but she seemed younger, probably a freshman. I walked over and held a hand out toward her. “Can I see that?”
The girl pulled the paper close to her chest. “Uh…”
“We know it’s something to do with Isobel,” Lily added as she stepped beside me. “Can you please show it to us?”
The girl swallowed before slowly passing the sheet to me. I turned it over in my hand to see what was printed on it, and my stomach dropped. It was a photo of Nina and me taken at my mom’s café. I was wearing my uniform, including my dirty black apron, and the clean but tired booths that lined the restaurant were evident in the background. Across the top of the page, a word had been scrawled in large letters with permanent marker. I read it out loud. “Liar.”
“Isobel, what is this?” I could easily hear the worry in Lily’s voice, but I couldn’t really focus on that right now.
“Where did you get this?” I asked the girl.
She pointed over her shoulder toward the end of the corridor. I gasped at what I saw. A large crowd of students had gathered, and more were flocking to join them. They were surrounded by white pieces of paper, similar to the one I held in my hand. They flitted through the air, were clutched in people’s hands, and were plastered to the walls and floor. The blood drained from my skin as I realized the sheer number of people who were discovering the truth about me.
“Isobel?” Lily prompted.
I started to move forward, slowly at first, but I quickly gained momentum as I drew closer to the crowd and saw the extent of the damage. There were other pictures of me stuck to the walls—one of me mopping the floor at the café and one of my mom and me standing outside, pointing to the sign above the front door. Each image had a different word written across the top.
“Fake, Phony, Peasant, Charity…”
I could barely bring myself to look at what the rest of them had to say.
As I reached the throng of students, one voice shouted above the whispers and laughter. “Step right up. Step right up. Come see for yourselves the embarrassing truth the newest addition to Weybridge Academy has been hiding from you all.”
I pushed to the front of the crowd and found Veronica standing against the wall. She was grinning widely as she handed out pieces of paper from a huge stack that one of her cronies was cradling in their arms. When she saw me coming, her eyes lit with delight.
“Ah, if it isn’t the liar herself.”
Laughter rang through the crowd behind me, and I shrank under the weight of it. I was too shocked not to react. Too hurt by all the painful truths that were splayed across Veronica’s posters. I didn’t know how to defend myself. How could I when it was all true?
“It’s funny,” she continued. “You’d think someone who’s intent on lying to the whole school about where she came from would remember to delete their old Instagram account.”
So, that was where she got the pictures. Nina had made the account for me on her phone years ago. I didn’t have a smartphone back then, and I’d forgotten the account even existed.
“So, it seems we have another scholarship student in our midst,” Veronica taunted. She was really putting on a show for those gathered behind me, making certain to project her voice so that everyone could hear. “And this one was so ashamed of it she thought she could pretend to be something she’s not and lie to the whole school.”
“It’s not like that…”
“Isn’t it?”
Lily finally caught up to me and lightly touched my arm. “Is this true?” She had one of the posters clutched to her chest, and her eyes were filled with hurt as she looked between Veronica and me.
I slowly nodded. I didn’t know what else to say. There were no lies written on the pages that were plastered on the walls and littering the floor. I might not be a scholarship student, but I was the biggest charity case in this school.
Lily took a sharp step back from me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I…”
“Are you ashamed to be like me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“Yes, Isobel, why didn’t you say anything?” Veronica stepped forward to stand at Lily’s side and glared at me. “Is it because you think you’re too good to admit you’re just another charity case? Or is it because you’re a pathological liar?”
I opened and closed my mouth several times as I tried to come up with a response. I was completely lost for words though. I could sense the eyes of the crowd on me from every angle. But it was the sadness and betrayal in Lily’s gaze that struck me the most.
“No one will ever trust another word you say,” Veronica continued. “You’re a fake.”
Tears started to well in my eyes, and I turned away before Veronica could spot them. I was met with a sea of judgmental stares, and I knew I couldn’t stay here a moment longer. I started to push my way past the other students, hurrying as I desperately tried to get away.
Once I emerged from the crowd, I fled back down the corridor. I didn’t know where I was headed, only that I didn’t want to be anywhere near those stupid posters or Veronica’s gleeful expression. She hadn’t just enjoyed taking me down; she’d treasured every brutal second of it.
I raced around a corner and almost plowed straight into Cress and Anna who were coming out of the dining hall. I wobbled as I screeched to a halt, and Anna laughed as she went to steady me. “Where are you going so fast? Are your shoes on fire?”
The two girls were smiling until they caught sight of my expression. “Isobel, what’s wrong?” Cress reached out a hand to me.
I couldn’t look them in the eyes, and I took a quick step back as I shook my head. “It’s nothing,” I replied before I continued past them, keeping my head down as I made for the exit. I didn’t look back, and I hoped they didn’t follow. Everything written on those posters about me was true, and soon, Anna and Cress were going to know it too.
I waited until I got to my room before I allowed myself to break down. Sobs racked my body, and I curled up in a ball under the covers of my bed. I wished my mom could be here to console me, and that made the tears flow so much faster. I’d been so worried my friends here wouldn’t accept the real me I’d broken the biggest friendship rule there was—tell the truth. The real kicker was, I’d been planning to come clean with them about everything tonight. Not that it mattered now.
The bell rang to signal the start of classes, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I couldn’t face school right now. I was a mess. The shattered feeling inside me was just as bad as when Levi cheated on me. I hadn’t realized just how much my friends here had come to mean to me, but they’d already burrowed their way so deeply into my heart I wasn’t sure how I’d recover from losing them.
I heard the click of the door opening and someone move into the room, but I kept myself firmly hidden under the covers.
“Isobel?” Cress’s soft voice sounded from across the room.
I scrunched up my eyes, wishing I could disappear, but unfortunately, I was a complete Muggle without a lick of magic when I really needed it. Instead, I slowly pulled down the covers and turned to the door.
Cress was standing in the entrance, flanked by Anna and Lily. Their arms were filled with scrunched-up posters, and they were all looking at me with sympathy in their eyes.
“Are you okay?” Cress walked over to sit at the end of my bed while the other two girls sat on the bed across from us.
I was still struggling to form words, and I knew my appearance would tell what my voice could not—I was a wreck. My cheeks were still stained with tears, and I was sure my eyes were red. I wasn’t one of those girls who could look pretty when they cried. I usually looked like I’d been punched by the tissue box I was clutching.
“Veronica’s a stupid troll,” Anna said. “She gets pleasure in life from being horrible to people. What she did back there was just mean. But, don’t worry, we got rid of the posters.” She lifted a handful of the ripped and torn paper sheets to show me.
It was kind of the girls to do that, especially since they’d all just learned I’d been lying to them. But the damage had already been done. There was no erasing the fact that everyone knew the truth about me now. I nervously looked at my friends, trying to guess what they thought about it all. “You guys must hate me.”
“No!”
“Not at all.”
“Of course not.”
They all spoke at once and shook their heads.
“We are confused though,” Cress added. “Is what Veronica said true?”
My stomach was tied in knots as I considered how to explain it to them. “I didn’t intend to lie,” I started. “And despite what Veronica assumed, I’m not here on a scholarship. My dad wasn’t around when I was young. I just met him recently, and he’s the one who paid for me to be here.”
“So, the photos…” Lily said. She had a poster in her hand and was looking down at the first photo I’d seen—the one of me in my café uniform.
“Yeah, that’s me.” I took in a deep breath. “That photo is from my mom’s café. She doesn’t have a chain of luxury restaurants or anything like that. It’s just one struggling café by the beach. We never had much money, so I always helped her out by cleaning and waiting tables.”
“So, why didn’t you say anything?” Cress looked both confused and upset.
“I guess when I got here I already felt so out of place. I knew I didn’t belong. I might have felt better if I was here on scholarship because at least then I would have known I’d earned my place here. But being here because of a father I’d only just met and don’t really want anything to do with just didn’t feel right.”
I blew out a breath before I continued with the messy truth. “I had a really bad falling-out with my friends back home at the end of last year. They all ditched me after one of them stole my boyfriend, and I’ve had a really hard time getting over that. When I met you guys and you accepted me so quickly and easily, I didn’t want to do anything to mess that up. And then when I saw how Veronica treated Lily at Luther’s party on the first night of school, I was scared that was how everyone at this school felt about people less privileged than them.”
“You thought we’d ditch you?” Cress asked.
I shook my head, shame pinking my cheeks. “I didn’t know what to think. I’ve been shunned and abandoned by friends for far less, and I really like you guys. I think I was just scared of how you’d react. I’m not embarrassed of how I grew up. I’m actually so proud. My mom is the most amazing person, and I’m so lucky to have her. I made a mistake keeping all that from you guys, and I’m sorry I wasn’t more honest. I understand if you don’t want to be friends with me anymore…”
The girls all had a mixture of concern and sadness on their faces.
Cress was the first one to break the silence as she leaned in close and pulled me in for a hug. “Of course, we still want to be friends with you.” She squeezed me tightly before pulling back. “I’m just hurt that you’d think I’d ever consider not being friends with you just because of where you’re from.”
“Yeah, bitch, what were you thinking?” Anna asked, also coming over to give me a hug. “I told you I’d still be friends with you even if you were a social leper. I don’t know how I could have been any clearer.”
I let out a small laugh. These girls didn’t know how much it meant to me to hear that. Especially when my friends back home had all abandoned me.
Lily still hovered in the background, and as I looked at her, she gave me a sad smile. “If I’d known there were some people here who would treat me like they do, I probably would have lied about my scholarship too,” she murmured. “Veronica’s not the only one. I don’t blame you for wanting to avoid that. I really wish you had trusted me though. I, of all people, would have understood.”
“I’m sorry, Lily.”
She walked over and took my hands in hers. “I know. And I’m sorry for not standing up for you out in the corridor like you stood up for me. I was caught by surprise. Not that it’s any excuse, but it took me a moment to get my head around things. I get it now.”
“You were right not to stand up for me,” I said. “Veronica wasn’t that far from the truth.”
“Still, you didn’t deserve to be treated that way, no matter what the truth was.”
“Yeah, that was vindictive, even for Veronica,” Anna added. “I hope she wakes up tomorrow with a face full of pimples.”
“Mmm, big throbbing ones with oozing white heads,” Cress agreed.
“The type that can’t be covered with makeup no matter how hard you try.” Anna sounded far too excited by the thought.
My friends were so understanding, and it made me regret not being honest from the start. And now, not only did everyone know the truth, but I’d been painted as a liar to the whole school.
“Do you think everyone here hates me?” I asked.
“No one will hate you for this,” Lily said.
“And I think you’ll find that the people who matter really won’t care,” Cress added. “They just might be surprised you felt the need to keep it from them.”
I swallowed as another rush of guilt shot through me. “I really am sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.” Cress said. “We understand, and we still love you.”
“Do you think Veronica did this because you stood up to her about calling me Charity?” Lily wondered.
“Maybe.”
Anna snorted. “That won’t have helped, but I think this has more to do with the fact you’re going on a date with Noah. She’s trying to sabotage you.”
“You’re going on a date with Noah?” Lily gasped.
“He asked me out on Saturday.” I nodded. “Do you really think Veronica would do that?”
“Ah, yeah,” Anna said.
“That’s definitely the reason,” Cress agreed.
The more important question was whether Noah would care. I hadn’t had a chance to think about how he’d react to seeing Veronica’s posters. The night he asked me out, he told me one of the main reasons he was drawn to me was my honesty. We hadn’t even gone on one date yet, and already that was proving to be false.
“Try not to let what Veronica’s done get to you,” Cress said. “You know you still have us, no matter what.”
“Yeah, don’t let the bitches get you down,” Anna agreed.
I gave them a warm smile and nodded. “Can I give you guys another hug?”
The three of them didn’t hesitate as they rushed in and crushed me between them, and I laughed as they smothered me. Veronica might have been trying to sabotage me, but when it came to my friends, it felt like the truth had actually set me free.
