Page 12 of Breaking Ophelia
As I settle, the silence shifts. I feel it ripple from the dais outward. Caius hasn’t moved, but his gaze is dark, pinning me in place. I pretend not to notice, focusing instead on the napkin, the way the thread at the edge is already coming undone. Cheap polyester, not linen.
The tables slowly fill in waves—first the legacy kids, all groomed and gleaming in their school jackets, then the lessers, then the scholarship cases. You can see it in the haircuts, in the shoes, in the way they fold themselves into chairs at my table like they’re afraid to break the upholstery.
Someone giggles behind a hand. Someone else mutters, “Debt girl,” not even bothering to lower their voice. I breathe slow, in for four, out for eight. My hands go flat on the table, knuckles white, but at least they aren’t shaking.
The servers file in, gliding two by two, their robes so dark blue they look black until they pass under a torch. They don’t look at the students, not even the ones who try to trip them or drop trash into their apron pockets. At my table, they set down a plate with a single scoop of mashed potatoes and a fist-sized cutlet of something fried, no garnish. Across the aisle, a girl with a sapphire ring on her pinkie gets a rack of lamb. She stabs it with a fork and lets the juices bleed onto her plate.
I don’t look up, not even when the skin at the back of my neck crawls from being watched. If I meet their gaze, I’ll give them what they want: a reaction.
The boy at the end of my bench nudges his friend and points. “Looks like she gets the peasant special,” he says. He’s not wrong.
I want to eat, but my throat is a clenched fist. I focus on my food, carving it into perfect pieces, then arranging them in a neat circle. I tell myself I’m building a barricade, not stalling.
From the front, Colton speaks. The noise in the room softens a notch.
“Scholarship case sits with the other losers. Fitting for someone wearing the clothes someone’s dead grandma wore.” His voice is raspy, deep, no real contempt, just the delivery of a fact. He wants me to respond.
I don’t.
But Rhett, of course, can’t resist. “Maybe her family couldn’t afford new clothes. Maybe they rent them out by the hour down at whatever flea market she grew up in.” He leans forward, elbows splayed, like he wants to inhale the humiliation.
I wait for the laugh track, but even here, not everyone is up for open bullying on the first night. The room fills with the tense, carbonated silence of an audience waiting to see if the freak will bite.
I’m not a freak. I’m just very, very alone.
Julian tips his glass toward me, an ironic toast. I imagine his words before he says them, and sure enough: “To the brave, the bright, the utterly unremarkable. May you last longer than the last one.”
Colton is staring, not at my face, but at my hands. I fold them into my lap, then immediately regret it. It’s a tell. I move them back to the table, picking up the fork and knife, and start eating even though the taste is glue and salt.
It’s not the food that makes me gag, but the attention.
Bam yawns, loud and genuine. “Are we done? Can I go beat the shit out of someone now?”
Caius doesn’t answer. He just watches. A full minute passes before he finally moves—a slow lean back, arms folded, one boot angled against the rung of the table. I feel his eyes track every twitch of my face.
I chew. Swallow. My jaw hurts.
Then, without warning, he gives Colton a look. A twitch of the eyelid, so small you’d miss it if you weren’t staring as hard as I am.
Colton stands. He doesn’t raise his voice, but the quality of the silence changes around him, so every word lands clear.
“I believe our new arrival is supposed to be grateful to her benefactors,” he announces. “Tradition demands it.”
There is a script, I realize, and I’m only just now catching up to my line.
My fork is cold in my hand. I don’t want to play, but I also don’t want to lose before the first act.
Colton points at me with a single, precise finger. “Up.”
The table blurs at the edges, but I rise anyway. My legs are steady. I hope they can’t see the way my toes curl inside my boots.
He gestures to the center aisle. “There, on the bench.”
I cross the room, every eye on me. The whisper current gets louder.
She’s going to do it?
She has to, right?
