Chapter 3 — An Entire Entourage of Fancy Cars Pulls Up.

Eliana's POV

Just at that moment, I propped up in the car where I laid down, as it just occurred to me that I was sleeping and had a terrible dream which I just woke up from.

Breathing so heavily and looking almost scared.

I pressed my back against the car seat and just stayed there for a second with my hand flat against my chest, waiting for my heart to calm down and remember that it lived in a body, not a racetrack. The morning light was already bleeding through the windscreen in thin pale strips and I blinked against it, trying to pull myself back to reality.

That was when I was reminded of the scary dream that I just had.

I couldn't put myself together because even though it was all a dream, somehow I could feel that there was some real connection. Like it hadn't fully let go of me yet. Like some part of it was still sitting in my chest, watching me from the inside.

"That dream again?" I thought to myself.

It was the same two faces. The same corridor. The same feeling of something being decided about me without my input. I reached up without thinking and touched the sides of my neck at both sides, right where they had dipped their teeth.

"Who are those two guys?" I said quietly, my fingers still resting there.

But I wasn't even feeling any sort of pain or whatsoever. Just skin. Normal, unmarked skin. Which should have been a relief.

Somehow it wasn't.

I dropped my hand and told myself to stop being dramatic. It was a dream. Dreams felt real sometimes and so, that was literally the whole thing about dreams. It didn't mean anything. It definitely didn't mean anything.

I was still working on convincing myself of that when I heard a banging knock on my car's windscreen.

I startled so hard my elbow hit the door handle and I let out a sound that was not my most dignified moment. Before I could even properly react, the person on the other side slid the windscreen open.

"Good morning, Eliana." 

It was the school's janitor; Mr. Silas, peering in at me with that same patient and unbothered expression he always had, like finding a teenage girl asleep in a car in the school parking lot was just a completely normal part of his morning routine.

At this point, for him, it probably was.

"Good morning, Mr. Silas." I replied, and then reached for the blanket I'd used to cover myself and started folding it over, mostly just to have something to do with my hands.

"It took you a while to wake up." He said, and then demonstrated slightly in a little gesture toward the school building. "Come on, you got to go. I opened up the locker room. Why don't you wash up before the other students arrive, alright?"

I nodded, already reaching for my bag. "Thank you, I'll…"

And then it hit me.

That was when it occurred to my mind, and so I asked rhetorically. "Wait. What time is it?" Then I looked over to the small digital display on the dashboard and saw the time.

7:24 AM.

"Crap!" I screamed out even before I knew what I did for real.

The word was already in the air before I could pull it back and Mr. Silas just blinked at me, completely unbothered, which I appreciated because I did not have time to be embarrassed right now. I was already moving, digging through my bag, pulling out my shower things with the kind of frantic energy that only came from running severely late.

"Uh, yeah, thank you, Mr. Silas." I said hastily, stuffing everything into a bag so fast that my toothbrush almost went in without its cap.

"You are a lifesaver indeed." I added immediately, and then ran off to the bathroom in my pajamas.

That was my fastest bath as far as I could remember. I think I set some kind of personal record. No time to be proud of it though because I was already calculating in my head ... wash, dress, put my hair together, and be in class before first period.

And don't let anyone see you coming from the direction of the locker room because you need to look like you slept in a bed like a normal person.

You know, for a while that was the usual morning checklist for me.

Before we go further though, I think you need to know me. Because we will be going on this long ride together, and the earlier we get acquainted with how it all started, the better.

‘I am Eliana Cross. Once, I was the Cross heiress. But then, Dad vanished some day and Mum slipped into a coma. I had to sell everything to pay for her medical bills. Now I live out of my car and take a shower at the school locker room. My biggest secret is still safe. I guess that by now you must be wondering why I kept it a secret. You know, here at Bentley High School; the country's most elite high school … money, status, and power reign supreme. Case in point, the high school food chain. I used to be at the top.’

At this point, I was already at the shelves picking my things as I was done with my bath, dressed in my school uniform, hair pulled together just enough to look intentional. The other students were already filtering in around me … voices, locker doors, the smell of expensive perfume that could even cost more than my weekly food budget.

I kept my head down and moved like I had somewhere to be. Which I did. I always did.

Just then, I had a quick flashback of when I used to be at the top for real.

‘Richest family. Cheer captain. A quarterback boyfriend who was always all over me. And even the same Sara that finds every opportunity to harass me now … the same Sara who showed up in my dream doing exactly that, was once always licking my ass just to be friends with me. Honestly, I have lost that spot and I have accepted and made peace with my fate because it was one of those things and life moves on regardless of one's circumstances. After all, the world doesn't revolve around me. But then, it's a good thing that I haven't lost my top spot in academics, because that was one thing no one could take from me.’

‘But now, Sara Owen has my crew, the cheer captain title, and my ex-boyfriend too. I guess your worst nightmares always end up coming true, huh?’

I let the thought pass through and kept it moving. I didn't have the luxury of standing around drowning in the past. That was a rich girl's problem — having enough time and safety to feel sorry for yourself. I had a schedule to keep and appearances to maintain and exactly zero room for self-pity before 8 AM.

I was already back to reality because I wouldn't be lost in the past or any form of illusion forever.

I shut my locker, swung my bag over my shoulder, and started heading toward the corridor.

"Guys!"

A voice cut sharp and loud through the usual locker room noise and I turned automatically like everyone else did. One of the girls … I didn't even know her name as she was one of those students who existed in the background of school life until they had news to deliver. She was waving both arms like she was flagging down a plane, her face doing something that could only be described as uncontainable.

"An entire entourage of fancy cars just pulled up at the school gate and they are driving in right now!"

The excitement on her face was really out of this world and needed to be studied, for real.

Half the locker room stopped what they were doing. Someone dropped a hairbrush. I watched three separate girls immediately reach for their phones.

She continued regardless. "And with the look of things, I think it's a new transfer student! They must be filthy rich!" She went on to scream out in excitement and then left at that moment.

And just like that … like she'd pulled a string that was attached to all of them — the rest of the students followed in suite. Footsteps, chatter, the whole wave of them moving toward the corridor to see whatever she'd just described, phones already raised and ready.

I stayed where I was and watched them go.

Then leaned back slightly against the locker behind me and crossed my arms, because I genuinely did not have the energy for this today. New money walking through Bentley High's gates always did this to people … turned them into a live studio audience, falling over themselves to get a look. I never understood it. I used to be the one they looked at, once upon a time, and even then I never quite got the appeal of making such a spectacle over someone's arrival.

‘What idiots would transfer into this hellhole of an elite school in the middle of the session,’ I thought to myself instantly.