Adored (22 page)

A
s the room spun around her, Jenny pushed through the crowd, desperately searching for her black wool Banana Republic peacoat. It wasn’t where she left it, and she wasn’t about to freeze her limbs off walking home without it. She must have picked up a dozen black peacoats only to discover that they belonged to someone else. She felt sweaty and humiliated—everywhere she turned, people were staring at their phones, giggling, or asking her really embarrassing questions, like
Can I see your bra again?
and
Where are your bunny pajamas?
All she wanted to do now was find her coat, slink to her room unseen, curl up under her baby-soft quilt, and never come out again.

Heath Ferro sat in a giant leather rocking chair in the corner. The line of girls waiting to sit in his lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas had only a few drunken stragglers in it. “J-bear!” he cried out, drunkenly, when Jenny brushed past him. “Come ask Santa for a sexy negligee. Anything’s better than those flannels you wear.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. She spotted the open door of a hall closet, and remembered Kaitlin offering to hang up her coat. She wasn’t even mad at the freshman girls anymore. She deserved what they’d done to her after spending the last two weeks prancing around like she was the star of her own reality series. What had she been thinking? She didn’t even
like
reality TV.

“Jenny Humphrey!” someone screeched. Even though the last thing she wanted was for someone else to tell her she looked terrible in the morning, Jenny couldn’t help whirling around.

To her surprise, it was Tinsley Carmichael who’d called out to her. She stood on top of a coffee table, looking fabulously elegant in a canary yellow cocktail dress with a sweetheart neckline. On one side of her was Brett, her bright red hair looking dramatic against her pale skin and dark purple dress, and on the other, Callie, whose loose blond curls hung around her head, making her look like some kind of sun goddess. Jenny immediately thought of the Three Graces, the figures in Greek mythology who represented beauty, charm, and elegance.

Jenny felt her cheeks flush. All eyes were on her, or at least, it felt that way, and she swore the room got quieter as everyone strained to hear what Tinsley would say to her. “What?” she asked shakily, kind of hoping it would be the end of everything. Was Tinsley about to put the icing on the cake and tell her she had no place at this school and she might as well crawl back to loserdom—or join the chess club or something? Brett and Callie were too good for her, too. Jenny should have known better and stuck with the dorky, safe people like Yvonne Stidder from the very beginning.

Tinsley tossed her dark mane of hair over her shoulder. Then she reached her hand down, a thick platinum cuff sliding down her wrist. “Get your cute little butt up here.”

Jenny just stood there, her cherry-ChapSticked mouth slightly open. She felt like time had stopped, the way it did in a nightmare—or a dream. Tinsley Carmichael, who’d been a bitch to her all week, was inviting Jenny in front of the whole world… to dance with the cool kids? Jenny’s feet felt like they were glued to the floor. She would have stayed there, if Brett hadn’t hopped down, her bare feet landing gracefully on the carpet. She grabbed Jenny’s wrist and tugged her toward the table. Jenny could practically feel the tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m sorry I blew off your party.”

“Whatever. It sucked.” Brett laughed, a carefree look in her almond-shaped green eyes that Jenny hadn’t seen in a long time. “But that means you have to make up for it now.” She pushed Jenny toward the table, and Callie and Tinsley moved aside to make room.

Jenny took a deep breath just as the first notes of the AC/DC song “You Shook Me All Night Long” came on. She felt eyes on her as she hopped up on the table with the three most glamorous girls in school.
Her friends
. Tinsley bumped her hip against hers, and Callie gave her a wink, as if to say,
Yeah, you looked like a total dork in that video but we still love ya
. Jenny’s head whirled, and as she started to move her body to the music, the blood pulsing through her veins, she felt like a new person. Or maybe just the person she’d always been.

After all, who needed a fan club when you had great friends?

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