Playing Perfect

07. Danser

07. Danser

To Dance

"I can't believe it's already debutante season."

Alice glanced at Emily as they walked across the Library Lawn, Grace tagging alongside her. Being considerably shorter than both Alice and Emily, she had to practically jog to keep up. Her wavy brown hair whipped at her face as she desperately tried to hold onto her scarf and push her hair back all at once.

Heather walked a step behind the trio, her eyes glued to her phone as her nails clacked noisily against the screen. Heather De Silva, being the 'achievable' socialite of the group, seemed to attract a new boy each week and she was constantly on her phone, texting.

The air was chilly this morning, biting at Alice's skin. She was glad she wore her school jumper and knee-high socks today. A scarf wrapped around her neck in school colours, and she tugged it a little closer, burying her chin in it. She pushed her long, dark hair off her shoulder, held back with her usual thick white headband.

"Debutante?" Alice echoed. "I'm much more concerned about our trials coming up."

The trials were their final exams before graduating. While the HSC would make up most of their final grades after graduation—and therefore, ATARs, which were essential for university admission—trials were exactly what the name implied, a trial run.

And Alice needed to ace them.

"Trial are in over a month," Emily said with a snort. "I'm not even going to think about it until August hits. And in the meantime, I'll be thinking about dresses, and cute boys from St Jude's, and makeup!"

She twirled, bouncing up a few steps ahead of the rest of the girls. Her skirt spun around her and Alice laughed, rolling her eyes.

"Debutante is after trials, you know?"

"And?" Emily teased, raising a brow.

"And," Grace jumped in, her voice high pitched and squeaking. "I wish I could go."

"Sorry Grace." Heather smiled bitterly, still texting without looking up from her phone. "Only seniors allowed."

Grace pouted and Alice laughed.

"Don't worry, you're not missing out on anything."

"Not missing out?" Grace squealed, her cheeks red in the cool wind. "Ball gowns, and an orchestra, and champagne! I would die to go! Literally, die."

Alice smiled at her, not saying anything. That sounded like a regular weekend at the Travers mansion.

Despite the Winter Debutante Ball being solely for seniors of Sierra Grammar and their sister school St Jude's, Alice's parents hosted a yearly Christmas Debutante. Although, those were only debutantes in name—a way for her parents to distinguish it from other parties, to become even more the talk of the town.

This, however, would be her first time being presented. As if that made it any better. Alice had had more than enough Debutantes for a lifetime.

Uncomfortable dresses, people's eyes on you, boring music, stuffy conversation about your future that you had no say in—she would rather have a three-hour nap.

Really, the entire thing felt like auctioning off the best dressed piece of meat in the building, and Alice's parents would make sure that she would be it.

Worse, she'd already told her parents that Theo would be presenting her at the debutante, and ever since Theo had started becoming more distant lately, she was beginning to dread it.