Chapter 3

"The birthday present I gave you last year, it's still in the dorm, right?"

I frowned, thinking for a moment before I remembered what she meant, that three-hundred-dollar Jellycat plush.

I nodded. "Yeah, still have it. Why?"

Selina hesitated, like the words were hard to get out.

"It's just, Daniela invited me to her birthday, and I don't want to spend money buying another gift. I noticed you never really use that plush, so I was wondering if you could give it back to me…"

I stared at her, thrown.

She must have felt it herself, because she rushed on, "Don't worry, though. When it's my birthday you won't have to get me anything back, we'll just call it even for this."

"I mean, your family went bankrupt, so you probably won't be able to afford anything decent anyway."

I didn't say a word. I got up, went to the wardrobe, and handed her the plush rabbit.

Selina turned it over in her hands a few times, checking it, and only let out a slow breath once she was satisfied it still looked new.

She tucked it carefully into a gift bag, then, playing at kindness, she started in on me. "Honestly, your family's broke now, you don't need to keep putting on those rich-girl airs. The reason Daniela can't stand you is that your family went under out of nowhere and threw off all her plans."

"Her family's comfortable enough, and she spent so long bowing and scraping to you, of course she resents it. If you let her order you around a few times, maybe she'd get over it."

Every line she said landed like a hammer, each word striking hard against my chest.

The dull ache and the sheer absurdity of it left me barely able to breathe. I looked at her, almost laughing. "And what do I get out of flattering her? Just for her to stop bullying me? Was I ever the one ordering her around? Wasn't it her, mooching my meals and my skincare, cashing in a favor off me every single time?"

"Or is her time so precious that buying me lunch once is worth ten thousand dollars in skincare?"

My sharp questions left Selina without a sound.

That mouth of hers, so quick and clever in debate club, couldn't produce a single word now.

Because her logic didn't hold up at all.

All that reasonable, fair, objective act was really just her trying to drag me into flattering Daniela alongside her, and getting a kick in at me while she was at it.

"I'm only giving you advice. You take good intentions for ill will."

She turned away and said nothing more.

In the days that followed, neither of them gave me a decent look.

In the dorm, we all treated each other like strangers.

And it stayed that way, right up until Daniela's birthday.

Daniela invited plenty of our classmates. Everyone but me.

There was a mocking little smile at the corner of her mouth. "I'm doing it for her own good, really. Wouldn't want her to have to buy a gift she can't afford."

And that night, her birthday night, while I was lying around in the dorm bored on my phone, Selina called me.