Prologue
Natalia takes a shaky breath as she stands in the centre of the hallway, feeling her eyes burning and wetting. She blinks the tears away, refusing to cry in front of the classmates that once revered her — she knows that cruelty is an aphrodisiac for people her age, and she refuses to give whoever did this the satisfaction.
She snatches one of the stapled booklets out of a nearby freshman's hands, who flinches. Natalia Montrose: An Exposé in bold stares up at her accusingly, and a quick flick through the booklet confirms what she already knew. Her diary that contains grizzly details of her various illicit affairs — mostly with older men — has been photocopied and handed out to her entire school.
"Who the fuck gave you this?" Natalia hisses at the freshman whose booklet she took, and the girl in question swallows nervously.
"It— it was Chevon," The freshman stutters, taking slow steps back like a beetle trying to wiggle free from the maw of a venus fly trap.
Natalia's blood runs cold. Of course. Chevon, her supposed best friend, was the only person who Natalia had told about the journal. She tears the booklet in two and shoves it back at the freshman, who stumbles at the force.
Amongst the sounds of whispers and pages flicking, she hears the sound of Chevon's heels against the tiled floor of the hallway. Natalia steadies herself, straightening her spine and steeling her facial expression before turning around to face the girl.
Chevon stops in front of Natalia with a callous smirk, holding a stack of the booklets that have been spread around the school.
"Why?" Natalia asks, a barely conceivable shake to her voice. Chevon had been her confidant since freshman year, and she had been Chevon's. They have had each other's backs through thick and thin, and the possibility of her betrayal never even crossed her mind.
"Why?" Chevon repeats incredulously. Her biting scoff cuts throughout the now silent hallway, their classmates intently watching their interaction. "Because you're a whore, Nat! You thought I wouldn't find out about you sleeping with my brother? My fucking brother?"
"I was going to tell you," Natalia says, her voice low.
"Like fuck you were."
"I was!" Natalia says, taking a step forward. "It was a drunken mistake, okay?"
"You had two months to tell me and you never did!" Chevon hisses. "Face it: you're just a self-serving slut who desperately searches for affection from men because she never received it from Mommy and Daddy."
Natalia shoves Chevon, gritting her teeth. Chevon staggers back, surprised, as their classmates join the circle that somehow always forms like a wall around a high school conflict. Chevon drops the stack of papers as she stumbles, and the copies of Natalia's diary scatter throughout the hallway in an avalanche of ink and panic.
"You bitch!" Chevon screeches, regaining her balance and launching herself forward, grabbing a fistful of Natalia's hair and landing a clumsy punch to her left eye.
Natalia retaliates, elbowing Chevon in the stomach, and she lets go of Natalia with a pained wheeze. The brunette immediately slaps Chevon in the face, the sound barely audible above the clamour of students.
Chevon lunges at her but is restrained by a teacher, and Natalia feels herself being firmly grabbed by her arm, pulled away from her former best friend and the booklet filled hallway.
She looks up to see the hardened facial expression of her principal, his rectangular glasses slightly crooked from his struggle to push through the crowds to get to the commotion.
As her peers stare at her with disgust while she is tugged towards his office, Natalia knows that this is the last time she will see these halls.
