Banish Me

Beauty With Brains

“Where is the party?”

“Tommy’s house. It’s about fifteen minutes away from the school,” Bren said, glancing over his shoulder at me. “He lives in the new rich neighborhood.”

“Is there an old rich neighborhood?” I joked.

Gwen popped her gum and finished texting someone. “Yep. There’s the old, middle, new…” She looked at me and smiled. “The town is mostly made up of rich people.”

“I didn’t notice.”

She bumped my shoulder. The guys were sitting up front, mostly talking about football stats and next week’s game. Gwen was periodically texting to one of her anonymous friends. Which left me staring out the window and trying to memorize the way we’d come. It wasn’t on purpose, not really. It was just habit.

Gwen was right though. It was easy to spot when the old rich neighborhood ended and the newer one started. The houses went from the two story, sprawling grounds with huge trees variety to three or more stories with multiple garages and no tree cover.

It was horrible.

The only upside was the minimum possibility of ghosts. Hopefully I wouldn’t have any creepy feeling. Then again manicured lawns tended to make my skin crawl anyways.

When I started to see cars lining the street, I knew we were getting close. And then of course, I started getting nervous. It was then I remembered I hated crowds, how I could possibly forget something like that, I don’t know. I just did.

My feeling of unease got worse as Bren found a parking spot and we all piled out of the car.

“Cass…” Gwen held out her hand for my jacket. “Gimme.”

My eyes went wide and I started shaking my head.

“Come on. That was the deal.”

I glared at her over the car. Peter was leaning against the passenger side, his hands resting on the roof looking completely amused. Bren was in a mirrored position, his eyes darting back and forth between his girlfriend and me. It appeared no one was in a rush to get inside except Gwen.

“Come on,” she said. “Give it up.”

I rolled my eyes. “I hate you.”

Bren chuckled next to me. “Be nice.”

I pulled the zipper down and with one last pleading look at Gwen, who just shook her head, I took off my jacket and tossed it at her.

“Happy?”

No one really said anything, not even Gwen who was grinning. I glanced at Bren who I thought should’ve seen this coming. But apparently not because he was staring at me, his eyes completely huge.

“What?” I snapped. “She dressed me.”

Gwen busted out laughing, resting her forehead on top of the car. I wasn’t even brave enough to look at Peter yet. I really didn’t want to see the dumbfounded look on his face like Bren’s. He shouldn’t be surprised at all since he’d seen me with my shirt off before. But he was a guy. More skin than usual always caught their attention.

“I told you she was hiding a perfect figure and a set of legs.” Gwen rounded the car, bumping my shoulder playfully, and took Bren’s hand. “You can snap out of it now. She’s basically your sister.”

Bren cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

I covered my eyes with one of my hands and tried to cool the blush that was now coloring my cheeks like strawberries.