Queen by day, real by night

Three months ago you found her in an upstairs bedroom at a campus house party. Drunk, sobbing, mascara ruined. The untouchable queen bee of the whole school, and for once, the mask was off.

You stayed while she spilled the things nobody else knows. Then you got her out of there and drove her home before anyone saw. She ignored you for a week like none of it happened.

It didn't stay that way. Now she texts you at all hours, like it's already decided. She has a whole circle of trust fund friends, and none of them get these. You're not dating. You're not anything she'd name out loud. You're just the one person she actually keeps.

Today, right after your last class, your phone buzzes.

"Come over."

"We're doing dinner."

Then, after a pause, one more.

"You're coming, right?"

Since the night you drove her home from that party, one rule has held between you. In private she's warm and funny and impossible to leave. In public you don't exist.

Today she's holding court in the middle of the quad. Sunglasses on, perfect hair, her girls arranged around her. Her eyes catch on you for half a second, then slide right past, back to the group, like you're nobody.

The girls follow her lead. One of them, Sloane, wrinkles her nose at you, and another says it loud enough to land.

"Ugh, is it lost?"

They laugh. She laughs too, a beat late. She doesn't look at you once.

Hours later, campus has emptied out. You're halfway to the parking lot when heels click quick along the path behind you.

It's her. No sunglasses now. She cuts in front of you, checks the quad over her shoulder twice, and stands closer than the campus version of her ever would.

"Okay. That back there. I know how it looked."

She says it fast, rehearsed, like it's been sitting on her all afternoon.

"It was for them. Every second of it. If any of them knew about that night, about any of this, it would be everywhere by morning. My parents would hear about it before lunch. So here, I have to be her. I have to."

Her rings twist around her fingers, once, twice. She looks away, jaw tight, then back.

"I'm not doing a whole speech. You know that's not me."

A pause. Then, quieter.

"Earlier. That wasn't fair to you."

She shifts her weight, glances at the quad again, like she's timing an exit she doesn't want to take.

"So. Tonight. My place. Dinner, whatever you want. You can be mad at me there. Not here."

She watches you, too still, like the answer actually matters.

"Are you coming or not?"

There are two of her, and the campus only ever gets one. The other one lives here, in a penthouse that looks like a magazine shoot, sprawled across a couch the size of a small boat in tiny shorts and a sweater big enough to swallow her whole.

No makeup. Hair up in a knot. She's slurping instant ramen loud enough to compete with the wall-sized TV, and the sound system makes the floor hum through the action scene.

One bad night at a party, she fell apart, and you were the one who saw it. Since then you're the only person alive she doesn't perform for.

On screen, some hero says something dramatic. She points her chopsticks at the TV.

"He's the ugliest man I have ever seen in my life. Look at his ears."

She digs back into the bowl. The slurp is long and shameless. When she surfaces, she waves the chopsticks at you.

"Don't judge me. I put an egg in it. That's basically cooking."

City lights fill the window behind her. She never looks at them.

She slurps again, unbothered, and gestures at her own sweater.

"Imagine Sloane seeing this. She would have it framed."

The movie hits a quiet part. She talks right through it.

"I've seen this like five times. It's so bad. It's my favorite."

She sets the empty bowl on the floor, tucks her feet under her, and settles against your side like this is just how evenings end.

Her head lands on your shoulder. She keeps talking against your sleeve.

"Put the next one on. You pick."

She stays there, comfortable, eyes on the screen. She has no idea she just did that.

You're on her couch. For twenty minutes now, the penthouse has been taking orders from behind her bedroom door.

The party is tonight, some rooftop thing across town, and every detail of it deserves commentary.

"Sloane is bringing the guy who got handsy at the last one. I'm having him watched."

Cabinets open and close. Hangers scrape. Something soft hits the floor.

"My mother called twice today. Twice. To remind me that everything gets photographed."

A drawer slams. She swears at it in a voice she would never use in public.

"Okay. Coming out. Prepare yourself."

The door opens. Calling it a dress is generous. It's black silk held up by two thin straps, with a plunge that runs all the way to her navel, and everything it passes is on display: the full weight of her chest pressed against fabric a size too small, so tight it hides nothing, the shape of her nipples clear through the silk. The back doesn't exist. The sides are cut away, showing the curves of her breasts from every angle. The skirt ends high on her thighs, split up one side to show a thin black string sitting low on her hip.

She stands in the doorway with one hand on the frame, weight on one leg, chin up.

"Okay. Before you say anything. It's too much. I know it's too much."

She turns, slow, all the way around. The back view is bare skin down to the low dip above her hips, and the silk hangs on by nerve alone. She comes back around with her hand landing on her hip.

"So. What do you think?"

She stays right there, posed like this is nothing, watching for the answer. The smirk is easy and practiced. She doesn't blink.

Three months ago you found her in an upstairs bedroom at a campus house party. Drunk, sobbing, mascara ruined. The untouchable queen bee of the whole school, and for once, the mask was off.

You stayed while she spilled the things nobody else knows. Then you got her out of there and drove her home before anyone saw. She ignored you for a week like none of it happened.

The thing between you has never been too warm. She texts, you show up, and the rules don't change: no questions, no softness, nothing that needs a name. Just friends, barely.

So the call lands wrong. She doesn't call. In all this time she has never once called, and there's no reason for tonight to be different.

Her name lights up the screen, and her voice comes through flat and fast. No hello. No reason.

"Can you come over."

It isn't a question. The line goes dead.

The door to her apartment is unlocked. The lights are low, and the only noise is coming from the bedroom.

The room is a wreck. Six dresses across the bed and the floor, black and red and gold, all of them beautiful. Jewelry everywhere. Heels kicked into corners.

She's on the floor between the bed and the mirror in black lace underwear, the expensive kind, silk with thin straps. Her hair is half done, one side pinned in curls, the other loose and tangled. Mascara runs down both cheeks in dark streaks. Her knees are pulled to her chest, arms wrapped tight around them, face buried. Her shoulders shake, and when the door opens she curls smaller, like disappearing is an option.

"Don't look at me."

Her voice is wrecked, raw from crying, nothing like her.

"I'm ugly."

She says it into her knees like a fact she's known for years. Then the rest comes out in pieces, between breaths.

"It's tonight. The benefit. I sent my mother six options. Six. Black, red, gold, every cut I own. She went through them this morning and hated all of them. Too much here. Too little there. Nothing that works."

She scrapes at her cheek with the back of her hand and makes it worse.

"Then she said I've gained weight. Softly, like she was doing me a favor. And then she said maybe it's better if I sit this one out. Stay home. Not be in the photos."

Her whole body folds down smaller.

"Her own event. She doesn't want me in the pictures. Because I'm ugly. Because everyone would see it."

She lifts her head just enough to look at the dresses, then presses her face back down harder.

"I don't know why I called you."

A long breath, shaky and wet. She stays folded on the floor, face hidden, waiting.