Lady Lucia
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Westridge Academy, Part Five
🕑 Added 2025-01-17 03:11:41 +0000 UTCAfter the brief advisor meeting with Ms. Song, Amelia was sent back to class.
Focused as she had been on studying and looking ahead to the aptitude test at the end of the week, the one thing she hadn’t thought about was what the timeline would look like once she was done. Even if Amelia had aced every section, which she hadn’t, she couldn’t just snap her fingers and be an adult again. Ashley was presumably in class as well, and Amelia needed her to undo all of this in a way that wouldn’t screw her over in the process.
Well, it wasn’t as if another hour or two would kill her after she had been a mostly well behaved transfer student for a full week. Amelia would have to get through the morning, where she would hopefully be able to track down Ashley at lunch. Also, she was starving; the test had taken place over breakfast, and she hadn’t thought to grab a granola bar and/or a piece of fruit from the dining hall the night before. The only thing Amelia had consumed all day was the coffee that Ashley had treated her to, which probably did more harm than good during the test; while it helped to wake her up after a night of tossing and turning, she ended up feeling a little jittery by the time she reached the last few sections.
Amelia was particularly wired by the time she was sitting at her desk ten or fifteen minutes later. Since she hadn’t been allowed to bring anything with her when she left her room earlier, she needed to swing by the dorms and collect her usual armful of books and notes. Between the coffee and the conversation with Ashley she was looking ahead to, paying attention to the lesson was quite difficult; it took a considerable amount of effort to concentrate. A number of Westridge teachers made a habit of calling on girls who looked like they were spacing out or otherwise distracted, as a not so subtle technique to intimidate students into staying mentally engaged.
She was still Summer’s bitch. As Amelia had learned, making waves was a surefire way to get herself in trouble. Avoiding infractions was something else required to prove her maturity to Ashley, and pushing back when it came to Summer meant that the popular girl and her clique would twist the facts to make her look like the bad girl to any prefect or teacher that inquired.
During the week, however, the young blonde could only get away with so much. Summer made Amelia carry her books between classes and usually had her clean up for their table after dinner, but that was about it. All of Amelia’s free time was spent at tutoring sessions and then studying in her room at night. The previous weekend had been the real problem, when Summer got to flex her control at times when she and the others had nowhere to be.
The downside of not getting more time with Summer was that Amelia never got that burner phone that the girl had mentioned. Depending on Ashley’s reaction to how well her ‘little cousin’ did on the aptitude test, Amelia was still storing that possibility in the back of her mind. She just wanted to avoid Summer unless absolutely necessary, since the last time she had tried to work her way into the clique, she ended up streaking outside and totally humiliating herself in front of a large group of students and campus security.
After making it through the rest of the morning, Amelia had to resist telling Summer off and racing to the dining hall. Instead, she sucked it up and carried the popular girl’s things to lunch like usual. Just a little bit longer. As she and Summer’s group waited in line, Amelia scanned the crowded room for any signs of Ashley. Or Claire, maybe, though it would be more difficult to talk to her when the prefect and the mean girl were sisters.
This was the problem with matching uniforms. All Amelia could do was look for dark hair and hope for the best. But also, not be too obvious about her search, since she was stuck facing the way the rest of the line was.
As single-minded as Amelia currently was, she resigned herself to grabbing herself a tray of food and doing a more thorough sweep of the room on the way to whatever table Summer picked out for them. Just as she was about to sit down, Amelia finally spotted the girl who started this whole mess. Ashley was in line with Claire and a couple other girls that were vaguely familiar, all of whom were amused by something that one of them had said.
Being patient for just a little bit longer, as there wasn’t a good way to talk to Ashley about this in front of so many others, Amelia waited until the devious eighteen year old had filled up her tray before getting up and hurrying over to intercept her. Summer asked where she was going, but Amelia ignored her. “Ashley! Hey. Can we talk for a sec?”
“Can it wait, Millie? I was about to have lunch with my friends,” Ashley replied.
No. It couldn’t wait. Amelia had attended the boarding school as a student for a week. It was also Friday again, which meant she needed this sorted out by the end of the afternoon. She knew better than to do anything that would give Claire an opening to write her up, so she took a breath and said, “Please? It’s important.”
Ashley mirrored her with a sigh of her own. “Fine. Only because I’m the best cousin, ever.” She turned to her friends with a smile and a small eye roll. “Be back in a minute.”
She placed her tray down to reserve her seat at the table the girls had settled on, then took Amelia’s hand. Giving it a light squeeze, Ashley began walking her out of the dining hall and towards the courtyard so they could have a little privacy for the coming conversation.
