Page 121 of Swallow Your Sorries

“Knows what?” Aria asks.

“That I’m in love with him. You know? My brother’s best friend?”

Before Aria can rip out one of Stassi’s curlers, I hold up my offending pillow between both girls and they immediately recoil.

When I say I want to be friends, I mean all of us. We have nearly a year to go and by now I’d hoped the ice between the girls would’ve thawed.

The fluttering uniform blouse that Stassi gave me hanging on the window ledge gives me an idea of how to change the topic. I’d hand-washed it myself after a group of giggling girls spilt their then cold, hot chocolate on me in second period yesterday. They’d been the only ones to not get the memo through the grapevine yet I suppose. Still, I couldn’t bear to see the pitiful gazes of the laundry staff for the third time in a week, so I took matters into my own hands. But all the bleach gel and spot treatments were already wearing down the fabric to the point that it now looked thin and gauzy. So unlike the thick Egyptian cotton, it’d been two weeks ago. I desperately need a new one, but once again I’m reminded of my reality.

I need money.

I need a job.

Behind the tattered rag, the sun’s showing more of itself and Stassi’s digital clock reads six-forty-seven. On weekends, I could barely get up before nine. But today I have plans to go into town on the school’s trolley, and it leaves at nine a.m. sharp, returning to campus by eight for those who leave on a day pass. Most students didn’t. They had their parents sign weekly permission slips for them to‘go home’and spend time with the family. More like time at the nearest five-star hotel where they could all party and drink in peace with their parents halfway across the globe doing the same.

Aria and Stassi rarely stay on weekends, so typically I’m alone in the dorm from Friday night. What changed this weekend?

“You guys are pretty familiar with the town, right?” I ask. “The cafes and stuff?”

They both nod slowly, as if wondering where this is going.

“Do you remember seeing any help wanted signs around?”

Okay, a lame change of subject. Both girls probably didn’t bother to read any signs, including price tags, so‘help wanted’ads are a stretch. But it couldn’t hurt. Maybe their blue-blooded connections meant they had a random cousin or uncle who owned one of the bourgeois French restaurants in the historic quarter.

“No,” Aria says. “Why?”

“I need a job. Like yesterday.”

“Ew,” Stassi says, scrunching her brows. “Why?”

I glare at her and she smiles sheepishly. Sometimes Stassi has the awareness of wet lettuce.

“Sorry,” she mumbles before clearing her throat. “Scholarship slut, got it. I take it you don’t get an allowance?”

“My mom sends me what she can, which only adds up to about fifteen a month.”

She sends it roughly every two weeks for pocket money in case I catch the trolley into town, seeing as food on campus barring the coffee bar is free. I don’t have the heart to tell her that it isn’t enough to even buy a large frappe around these parts.

Stassi’s eyes grow wide. “That’s more than my father gives me. I only get twelve.”

Aria rolls her eyes and holds up her fingers. “She means one five nitwit, not fifteen hundred.”

I pale. “Your dad gives you twelvehundreda month?”

“No,” Stassi frowns. “A week. It used to be two thousand, but Zedd got it cut down last semester. He snitched that I snuck out to a pool party without him. We have this rule in my family that I can go so long as Zedd does.”

“What about this summer?” Aria lifts a brow. “Zedd had no clue where you were either.”

“I told you, I was with my mother,” Stassi says defensively.

Lips pressed into a hard line, Aria gets off the bed and flounces to her computer desk before powering on her laptop.

Despite my gentle prompting, Stassi hadn’t told Aria about her surgery yet, and the tension between them had only grown tighter. But I have bigger problems to worry about besides their petty drama. Problems that started withmonand ended withey.

Twelve hundred a week?My mind races. I knew these girls were rich, but just how rich boggles my mind and makes stars explode in front of me. Shaking them away, I grab my phone from beneath my pillow and scroll through the help-wanted ads posted online in our area. I’d fallen asleep with the tab still open last night.

“Part-time fry cook wanted,” I read aloud before saving the post. That sounds easy enough. I could flip burgers and deep-fry french fries. A little sponge under the sea seemed to love it.

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