Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer Page B

open my mouth for the first scale and nothing comes out. I clear my throat. Try again. Better, but it’s still hard to get any volume. I must be getting hoarse.
    Great.
    Kathryn, on the other hand, sounds really good. And suddenly I’ve got a whole new reason to be pissed at myself. What am I doing worrying about Homecoming when I should be focusing on the Blackmore? I’ve got to quit wasting energy on things that don’t matter and practice more. After everything that’s happened between us, I can’t let Kathryn win. If I have to watch somebody else take first place, I could almost stand it. Almost. As long as that other person isn’t her.

KATHRYN
    BEFORE JUNIOR YEAR, I ALWAYS assumed that the Cinderella stories were a fantasy. Nobody in the real world ever woke up one morning to find themselves part of the most powerful crowd at school. The fabulous people were born to their fabulous lives; mousy nobodies like me had their place, and though the two worlds might sometimes overlap, crossing over was pretty much impossible.
    Yet that’s what I’d managed to do, and it didn’t take a magic spell or even much of an effort on my part; all it took was one night at Bud Dawes’s house. Before Bud’s party, it was as if I only really existed as a shadow, visible to a handful of people. Then Chloe and Dina turned on a light and suddenly everyone could see me; most amazing of all was that they seemed to like what they saw. People started saying hello to me in the hallways and in class, and I had friends—more thanI’d ever had before.
    I also had a boyfriend—sort of.
    â€œLucky girl,” purred Dina as we watched Miles Monaghan’s backside move away from us across the commons. The ten-minute break between second and third hour had just started, and Miles had grabbed me as I headed to my locker after Intermediate French. Dina and Chloe came up just as he was asking me to the movies for Saturday.
    â€œUgh, you’re so lucky,” said Chloe. She motioned for me to sit next to her on the bench that, I now knew, was reserved for A-listers. “And I happen to know Miles is on the Senior Keg organizing team. Do you think you could get us an invite?”
    I couldn’t believe it; was Chloe Romelli really asking me for social favors? Miles and I had been dating for two weeks, ever since the party, and I’d found that seeing him definitely had its perks. He was handsome and smart, plus he treated me like I was the only person in the room. The only problem was that he also had a habit of treating other people like they were the only ones in the room, right in front of me. During our first date, a beautiful Asian girl came up behind him in the restaurant and rested her hands on his shoulders. He put his hands over hers and pulled her toward our table so that her cheek came to rest against his.
    â€œMei,” he murmured. “Where have you been? You don’t call me anymore.”
    The girl gave me the kind of glance I imagined one would give the eight-year-old child of a parent’s coworker. “Fall break, silly,” she replied. “I’ve been in Maryland. Plus, you know, I have a life.”
    Miles tugged on one of the girl’s arms, coaxing her around so that she had to crouch beside him. “Don’t disappear like that again,” he said, gazing deep into her eyes. “You’ll break my heart.”
    â€œI’d worry about it,” she said, “if I thought you actually had a heart.” And then she slinked back to a table of sophisticated-looking older girls.
    â€œThat was Mei,” Miles told me as he tucked back into his pasta. “She’s a first-year at Baldwin. I met her at the park. We were both feeding the ducks.”
    â€œShe looks…” I searched for the appropriate word. “Nice.”
    He nodded, leaned across the table, and fixed me with one of his it’s only you and me here