On one hand, yay, Ivy was probably not going to die. On the other hand, being heroically saved by the boy who had ruined her entire life was basically the cruelest thing in the entire world. Maybe even crueler than death, if she really thought about it.
“Don’t call me Ivy girl,” she tried to say, because what right did he have to use his adorable boyfriendy nicknames after basically pushing her off a social cliff? But all that came out was a strange whistling noise. The machine had probably punctured her lung.
Thank God she hadn’t been caught under one of the big vending machines in the student foyer. It was just a half-size one that, until a week ago, when it was emptied for the summer, had been filled with all the healthy snacks no one ever bought anyway: $1.50 for some shitty rice crackers? No. Just no.
A few moments later, Ivy heard a click-clicking—the light, careful tread of girls. A lot of them. A whole pack.
She strained her neck around.
Freshmen. The type of girls that Ivy McWhellen would grind underneath her Louboutin heels and eat for Bitch Brunch.
They stared at her at first. At her dark hair with blond highlights tangled on the floor behind her. At her perfect little bag on the ground, with half its contents spilled out onto the dirty tile of the main lobby.
And then the front freshman—the smallest one—put her hand to her mouth.
That’s when the laughter started.
Slow, at first, with a pathetic, high-pitched little giggle, and then evolving rapidly into heaving laughter as it swept through the group.
Those stupid little freshpeople were laughing at Ivy McWhellen.
One of them raised a smartphone and snapped a picture.
This was not how the world was supposed to work.
Ivy wanted to kill them. She would ruin her manicure to do it, and there was hardly anything she would ruin her manicure for. But this was definitely worth another set of forty-dollar gel tips.
“Ivy!” Garrett’s stupid voice rang down the hallway. “Ivy, I found Janitor Epps. We’ll get you out of here.” He jogged up, like a Knight in Shining Lumberjack Clothes, and the old janitor lumbered a few steps behind, clearly not as concerned with Ivy’s well-being.
The janitor knelt down close to her. “Better not have messed up my machine,” he muttered, so close to her ear that she could smell the chewing tobacco on his breath.
Ivy wanted to punch him almost as bad as she wanted to get out, but not quite as bad as she wanted to kill the freshmen. Who cared about the machine? Ivy was dying here. The freshmen giggled louder, and Garrett turned to them.
“A little help, please,” he said.
Ivy didn’t have to crane her neck to know the girls were practically melting into puddles of goo just because Garrett, a senior, a cool, cute senior, spoke actual words to them. Suddenly, the little bitches were all Mother Teresa.
With Garrett and the janitor at the front of the machine (and said janitor standing at an angle where Ivy could see a suspicious stain near his crotch), they all started counting.
“One . . . two . . . three!” Garrett shouted, and together they all lifted until the machine was raised off of Ivy. She scrabbled frantically at the dirty tile until she was finally clear of the stupid machine, then continued to scuttle backward until her back was against the wall and she was clear across the room, breathing delicious lungfuls of air.
Garrett sat down beside her and handed her the little handbag.
“So,” he said. “Want to tell me who did this?”
Ivy shook her head. “Machine wasn’t secured,” she said, her voice tight with bitterness. “So dangerous. I should sue.”
“Oh, right,” Garrett said. “Vending machines just randomly collapse on top of people. Happens all the time. Think it was haunted?”
Ivy smiled a little, in spite of herself. Garrett was funny. That was why she’d liked him at first. “Something like that. I never should have played with that Ouija board.” She faked a shudder and pain lit up in her muscles. The machine had done more damage than she’d thought.
“So,” Garrett said. “I’m here for a summer art course. And you decided to drop by the local high school because . . . it’s such a grand place?”
Ivy didn’t want to tell him the truth: that her parents had forced her to take a stupid, stupid psych class for credit, just because they wanted her out of the house. That she hardly did anything since Garrett dumped her.
That she’d lost every friend and follower she thought she had.
“Signing up for the summer psych course,” she said. “I want to get a jump-start on college credit and they make you submit all this extra paperwork.” She smoothed her hair out of her face. It was half true. Really, it was probably the last thing she wanted to do with her summer.
“Cool,” Garrett said. “Is that the one that Dr. Stratford is teaching at night?”