Popular 1: Corrupting The New Girl

Sabina Rouge wanders the streets, eyes sweeping for one particular address. A textbook in another girl’s arms collides with her shoulder. Books tumble. Avi Love yelps, mortified. Sabina starts talking before Avi can flee. Music, novels, makeup palettes—within minutes the stranger feels like a map to a city neither has walked yet. Sabina mentions the new ring in her eyebrow, the clothes balled in a suitcase back at her parents’ place; she turned eighteen only days before the movers arrived. When she asks Avi to point the way to the library, Avi hesitates, certain popularity has a zero-sum price. Sabina shrugs. Reputation isn’t currency she’s learned to value. They spend the next fortnight on avi’s bedroom floor, dog-eared pages spread like fan blades, fingers occasionally brushing when a highlighter passes between them. Then the coffee shop door opens and three girls fill the doorway like a blockade: Jillian Janson center stage, Aria Lee and Aidra Fox flanking, glossed mouths curved into matching arcs. Jillian’s stare catches Sabina the way a coin finds the slot, and she smiles. "Let us repaint you." Sabina glances at Avi whose knuckles whiten around her mug, then back at the trio. The word yes slips out before she weighs it. Two days later, foundation sealed, lashes weighted, hair steamed into obedient curves, Sabina watches Jillian tug Aria by the waist, kissing her right there on the boutique sofa. Aidra’s hand slips under Sabina’s newly hemmed skirt. Sabina’s pulse stutters, mind pulling up Avi’s sad smile, yet her own knees part anyway, already learning how to trade silence for belonging.