Welcome to Bridgeport Academy, an elite boarding school in New York where glamorous rich kids don't let rules get in the way of a good time.
[ Based on the It Girl series by Cecily Von Ziegesar ]
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Aubrey was cutting across the sprawling lawn toward Richards when he saw a girl in a green dress smoking a cigarette and kicking her legs in the air. "Hey, sweetie!" she called. "Come dance with me."
Aubrey walked over and squinted in the light. It was Robyn. Was she trashed?
"Hey," he called out. As soon as he got closer, she lunged at him and buried her face in his neck. She smelled of fruit punch and cigarettes and that vanilla shampoo she always used. Aubrey felt a shudder run through him. Smelling Robyn's hair conjured up so many memories of last year.
She looked up at him with giant, watery eyes. "Aubrey. Hiiiii." That's when he got a whiff of her breath.
"Whoa." She was definitely trashed. "You drink the whole bottle yourself?"
Robyn righted herself and smiled. "I'm cool," she cooed. "Want some of my cig?"
"No, thanks."
Robyn shrugged and stuck it back in her mouth. "So listen," she slurred, running her long, manicured fingernails up and down his bare arm. "Why were you so mean to me after bio class yesterday?"
In the porch light, Aubrey could see little goosebumps on her bare legs. "About Chris and Kae? I was telling the truth."
"No, you weren't," she teased, tipsily touching his nose. "Nobody's stealing anybody away from me. I'm behind the whole thing."
Aubrey scowled. "No, Robyn. Kae likes him. They like each other."
Robyn giggled. "That's because I told them to like each other."
"Huh?"
"I told them to like each other." She covered her mouth and giggled. "Oops. That was supposed to be a secret."
Aubrey shook his head. "But Kae does like him. And he likes her."
"That's what they'd like you to believe!" Robyn yelled, and then covered her mouth. "Get it?" she slurred more quietly and broke into a goofy grin. "They're faking it so that I won't get in trouble for having Chris in my room!"
Aubrey stood back and thought for a moment. Yesterday in the quad, Kae had sounded way too genuine to be faking it. "And they both went along with this?"
"Yeah."
"Kae too?"
"Sure. Kae's cool." Robyn flicked the ash off her cigarette, but she was so drunk that it landed right on her big toe, blackening it.
Aubrey shook his head. He looked at Robyn, who, though hammered, seemed as if she'd been secretly crying in the girls' bathroom for hours. He wanted to cradle her and rock her to sleep.
"I mean, you'd flirt with another girl if I asked you to, wouldn't you?" she asked, slurring her words.
