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I was poor Had beenhere Every bit of e I had at the ers

But they rong about one thing

I wasn’t fucking trash

Huffing a weak laugh, I patted the side of my backpack where’d I’d stuffed iven me

“I just got a platinuood”

Leah’s lips pursed into an O “Da out for a test drive Here, let ive you my number”

We exchanged numbers at the door before I watched her bounce away She really was glass-half-full about everything—so that probably should have irritated me but didn’t I liked her optimistic attitude It made me feel a little less pessimistic about life at the moment

Besides, she was pretty much my only friend in the whole school at the moment

Once she was out of sight, I trudged up the stairs to my dorm roo, and when I was done, the closet still looked woefully bare It actuallywith Leah I hadn’t enjoyed clothes shopping in forever, since it usuallywhether whatever I wanted to buy orth more than food or other household necessities—and ht a week later

Sowith so it wasn’t a trade-off for so I needed

I dumped my textbooks on the desk in my bedroolanced out of theThe Princes strolled across the laard their dor with such confident purpose that people simply melted out of the way for

theh the water with a feral grace, threatening to rip the liot in their way

Unable to helplass It was hard to believe they were real, and I found , see thees

All four of the I watched as they talked intensely, their expressions tight as if they were in deep conversation

Did it have to do with the argument in the stairwell? What the hell had that been about, anyway?