Page 84 of Swallow Your Sorries

The girls gasp and giggle again.

“Why would Gant want some big pussy bitch? It doesn’t even fit in her leotard,” Boots, or ratherKesia, says blatantly staring at my crotch. She’d been the second one in the hall to dump her food tray on me. “He’s had the top girls in our year. Including me just this summer.”

My stomach sours and roils at the thought of Gant with Kesia, of all people, though I have no idea why. They’re equally heinous and yet a delusion I didn’t even know I had, consumes me.

The delusion that Gant was, is, only obsessed with me because that’s all I’ve seen in my time at Beaulieu. But that’s ridiculous. There was a before me and there will be an after me the moment he gets bored. Like he said, I’m just his little doll, and dolls always get shelved at one point or another.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he liked such a cunt. He is a dick, after all.

I mean, he clearly has questionable tastes. He likes me, and he thinks I killed his mother, so…

But Gant doesn’tlikeme. He wants to fuck me and throw me away just like he has Kesia because I’ve never heard him mutter so much as an acknowledgement in her direction.

In fact, Stassi and Aria aside, I haven’t seen Gant talk toanygirls.

He’s too busy fucking with me.

For now.

Kesia smiles smugly, tossing her platinum blonde ponytail. “Gant would never stoop so low. He has standards.”

Rin eyes me up and down. “So did Beaulieu. Gant or no Gant, they still let her in.”

“What are you saying?” Kesia lifts a brow.

“It seems like standards are slowly becoming a thing of the past.”

Kesia snorts. “Well, if Gant knows what’s good for him and his noble reputation, he’ll keep his dick away from the peasants.”

The wavy-haired girl sneers in agreement. “There’s no way I’m following a king that gets on his knees to worship trash. I don’t care if he is an Auclair.”

Rin looks thoughtful. “Uprisings over bitches aren’t as uncommon as you’d think.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” Kesia says, shaking her head. “There are more girls than boys in our year. He knows how that’ll turn out. He isn’t stupid.”

“But he has a dick,” Rin mutters. “And it always thinks for itself.”

I think that’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard Rin say. Or at least the most useful.

So his minions think their lord and saviour is so far above me? Maybe I should show them the stark reality. Gant Auclair wants me, regardless of his twisted reasoning.

Say something.

Anything.

Don’t let them just talk shit like you aren’t standing right here.

But as Rin sweeps her silky hair up into a bun, exposing her long elegant neck, and Kesia begins to stretch her perfectly arched feet on the barre, no witty reply comes to mind. Just burning embarrassment and humiliation as I tug hopelessly on the leotard’s neckline and gaze down at my feet.

The only reason I still have my pointe shoes is because I’d been resewing on the detaching ribbons when my bag went missing. That’s the only positive because there’s no way I’d be able to shove my feet into Aria’s spare slippers like I’d done with my body in her leotard.

As the ballet instructor enters the room, however, thoughts of my attire drift to the wayside as the class begins.

It’s the same instructor who’d whispered into Ms Cardot’s ear in the theatre. She’s tall and willowy and not a day over seventy-five. Despite her age and cane, though, she walks with a regalness that only a ballerina can possess.

“So,” she says dramatically. “We’re back and with no time to waste.”

Polite laughter echoes around the room, camouflaging the sound of her clicking cane as she makes her way to the front of the studio.

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