Here Lies Blair Campbell

Chapter one

​ ​

CHAPTER ONE

“‘The worst year of my life was when I turned sixteen and helped kidnap the most popular girl in school. In my defense, I was the No Balls Glory Girl, meaning whatever my friends suggested doing something, good or bad, no matter how much it went against my inner conscience, I always ended up agreeing. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve said yes to:

1. Skinny dipping in Izzy’s lake on a school night during freshman year

2. Agreeing to go joyriding with Izzy and her senior boyfriend sophomore year

3. Agreeing to be Kara’s punching dummy for kickboxing

You would think that k********g would be a definite on my no-no list. You would also think that k********g wouldn’t even dare cross my friends’ minds. But listen, my no-no list is pretty short when it comes to hanging out with my friends—in fact, when it comes to them, I don't think that my morals and standards really matter. And also, it wasn’t just k********g—it was the k********g of the most popular girl in school. And when a somewhat psychopath, a violent party girl, and an over-exaggerator are just a few examples from the group of idiots you call your friends, thoughts of k********g may or may not be the norm.

But it wasn’t necessarily the k********g of the most popular girl at school that made my life ultimate suckage, because that was pretty amusing in and of itself. Mainly because it was during the time that we were ignorant, and you know what they say- ignorance is bliss. It really is. We didn’t know what the hell we were doing, and we reveled in the fact that it was just so easy to do. Anything’s easy when you’re rich, I guess.

Everything changed, though, when-’”

A scream pierces the air.

Everyone stops what they’re doing and stares at the classroom door, waiting for Noah

Sharpe or Kara Simon, film and drama students respectively, to come in and confirm our usually correct suspicions: that someone is practicing their horror movie scream again. Last week, someone was practicing how to say ​Red Rum​ correctly—we didn’t even know there was a correct way to say that. We didn’t know a lot about acting or filming, but apparently it involved a lot of practicing things that didn’t usually need practicing, like screaming.

Someone yawns loudly. I look at Phoebe, one of my best friends, or, as she puts it I suppose, the ​No Balls Glory Girl, ​ and mouth, ​Izzy?

She shakes her head at me from across the room and mouths, ​Kara.

Mr. Claylock breathes in deeply and grips his desk, closing his eyes for a brief second. We wait in bated breath to see what happens- some of us even lean forward in our chairs. Today may be the day he utterly snaps and explodes into a million pieces.

“I will not go off,” he begins muttering underneath his breath. We all sit back in disappointment.

It’s Noah who rushes in, camera around his neck and papers in his hands. “Sorry, Mr. Claylock,” he says with a sheepish smile. “We’re doing a remake of ​The Shining​ and we’re practicing-”

“Your horror movie screams,” Mr. Claylock says with a sarcastic smile. “Like yesterday, and the day before, and the last three days before that. I’ve heard.”

Noah presses his lips together in a way that I know means that he’s trying to keep from laughing. “I’m sorry.”

“Right,” our creative writing teacher says. “Just like yesterday. Hey, why don’t you just leave a schedule with us regarding what you’re practicing, so my students and I can make sure and bring earmuffs tomorrow, okay?”

Mr. Claylock means for that to be condescending and fear-inducing, but Noah, ever the non-ruffled, cool and calm optimist, just grins and actually pulls out a piece of paper from the stack in his hand and hands it over. “Here you go. I just ​knew​ you’d ask me for one.”

Mr. Claylock grumbles and snatches it away from him, muttering something about how teenagers don’t know how to respect members of authority. Noah turns to leave, catching my eye in the process. He shoots me a smile before slipping out the door and back into the auditorium. I should be used to his smiles and winks and code words reserved especially for me, but I still feel myself blushing as he closes the door.

Our teacher grumbles something profane underneath his breath. He’s not the jerk teacher of South Valley Arts, or SVA as we like to call it,, but the only reason why people have taken to calling him laugh-worthy names is because his behavior has drastically changed since he was moved to the non-soundproofed classroom right next to the auditorium where the Theatre and Film students are. Gone is cheery, bright-eyed teacher who used to shout prompts for us out of the blue; in its place is an always annoyed grump who has taken to complaining about how his ears hurt now, like he’s an old man.

It’s honestly hilarious, but we don’t tell him that.

He slaps the schedule down on his desk after reading it over, and says, “They’re practicing horror movie screams for the rest of the week. Someone needs to write up that petition soon, Phoebe.”

Phoebe blushes and looks down at her hands; not because she thinks he’s attractive, like half the population of the art school thinks-( if only they knew how anal he was, maybe they wouldn’t think he’s so attractive)- but because now everyone is back to staring at her like they were just before the scream was heard.

Her story has been chosen for the National Writing Award Competition—NWA COMP, as most people call it—which is only offered to a select number of people throughout art schools across the country. Her biggest competition will be the Orange County School of the Arts (OCSA) as Mr. Claylock was saying earlier, and she will need to step up her game in order to win. But knowing Phoebe more than Mr. Claylock does, I know that she’ll be fine. With her writing skills and no practice right now, she could win second place. She’s that good.

“I’ll have you stay as long you like in the classroom after school hours to go over each other’s work and read some of the fiction writing books we have here,” Mr. Claylock is saying now to Phoebe and Nina Dyer, another girl who has been chosen from the junior class to participate in the NWA COMP. Nina looks terrified, as though she made a huge mistake even entering the competition. But Nina always looks terrified.

“As for the rest of you,” our teacher continues, “I want you to write a five page short story on this prompt.” He leans forward to click on his laptop, and our prompt shows up on the screen behind him: ​Every emotion a human feels becomes written on their skin. One day a girl is found with empty skin.

I see Phoebe’s face fall a little with disappointment- she loves the crazy writing prompts like this one, but she won’t have time to write a story for this. I, however, already have a million ideas racing through my brain, and I write them down before they can slip away.

“It’s due tomorrow!” Mr. Claylock shouts over the loud murmuring of the students. It’s our last class of the day at around 5 pm, and we’re all ready to go home. The class files out of the room and into the auditorium, where someone, probably Kara, is screaming ​Red Rum.

Phoebe stays behind in the classroom with Nina, so I walk with the rest of the class through the auditorium. Someone grabs my wrist and pulls me back into the crowd.

“Oof,” I say as I bump into people. I turn around and come face to face with Noah, who has a little smirk on his face as he leads me in the opposite direction.

“I’m trying to go home, Noah, not to your film lair,” I say with a huff.

“The Queen wants to see you, though.”

“Izzy?”

Noah stops and turns to me to roll his eyes. “No, Charlie. Blair Campbell, your best friend. Remember her?”

I smile and laugh. “Sorry.”

He lets go of my arm when Izzy comes into sight. We’ve known each other since freshman year, but Izzy has such a way of correctly reading into things—one look at him holding my arm and she’ll know something is going on between us. And once she gets over the shock, she’d punch my face out while reminding me in a scarily calm voice about how, no matter how attractive he is, I am not allowed to be dating her cousin.

Izzy is standing in the middle of the mini office they have in the back of the auditorium, dressed in some black overalls and combat boots as she goes over the script with Kara, one of our best friends, and Blair Campbell. Blair looks pissed, while Kara has the most disappointed look on her face. From the looks of it, I don’t want to get involved, but one look from Noah tells me I have to go over there, whether I like it or not. When Izzy says to do something, you do it.

I cautiously walk over to the three, standing in front of Izzy, waiting for her to lift her head from the script. As I come nearer, I can hear her speaking to them.

“You’ll have to re-audition for the part, you two,” she’s saying. “I know this is difficult for both of you, but just deal with it, okay?”

“Re-audition for what?” I ask, facing towards Kara.

She rolls her eyes at me, saying, “Blair thinks I was wrongly offered the role of-”

“No,” Blair interjects, leaning languidly against the wall and crossing her arms, “I don’t ​think,

Kara-”

Izzy snorts, head still bent over the script with a blue highlighter in hand. “That might explain

a lot.”

“I ​know​ you were wrongly offered the role,” Blair continues, ignoring the raven-haired girl’s

comment. “You, a ​queen​? It doesn’t work like that, sweetie.”

“Oh, and ​you’re ​better fit to be a queen?” Kara snaps. “You can barely think for yourself,

forget a country.”

“Um, isn’t this a play?” I ask slowly, but neither of them are listening to me. Izzy looks up at

me and rolls her eyes as if to say, ​I know, right?

“And ​you​ can?” Blair provokes, clearly enjoying Kara’s anger. “You can’t even do your hair

without-”

“Guys!” Izzy shouts suddenly. They both fall silent and look at Izzy. “This is a ​play.​ Not a real

competition about who gets to be queen. You’re going to both audition against each other for the role of the queen. Whoever gets it, gets it, okay?” Izzy turns toward Blair and points at her. “No fights if Kara is queen again. Got it?”

Blair smiles, but the green flecks in her hazel eyes glint maliciously in the light, “Sounds good. We’ll see who’s the real queen.”

“It’s just a play,” Izzy reminds her in a warning tone, head bent over the script again, this time with a black sharpie. “You’re not actually a queen. Chill out. It’s not that important.”

But it kind of is. At least in theatre. Whoever is given the lead in the play, or the leading role of a short film they’re working on, they’re practically treated like a queen the whole time they’re filming. They just started a film about Princess Diana, but this time, she lives on to become a queen.

“Oh, and by the way, Kara,” Blair says, pushing herself off of the wall, “You would look like an utter troll​ with blond hair. Perhaps you should become my lady-in-waiting.” Kara’s jaw drops in

utter disgust and shock as Blair walks away, her heels clicking on the cold floor, and she touches her brown locks self-consciously.

Kara curses under her breath before turning to glare at Izzy.

Izzy looks up with a questioning look. “Why are you glaring at me?”

“I’m hoping you’ll spontaneously combust.”

“Violent,” Izzy says with a sly grin.

“Dammit, Izzy!” Kara stomps her foot on the floor. “This was going to be the performance of a

lifetime, and now ​Blair Freakin’ Campbell h​ as to come in here, sauntering in her stiletto heels, demanding a recasting. And you just sit here and let it happen?”

Izzy waves her away. “Not now, Kara. Just text me the details about how wretched your life is because you may not be a queen now.” She hands the script to a shell-shocked Kara, who stands there for a moment before marching off, shoving past Noah in the process. Knowing Kara, we wait for a minute to let her turn back and yell at Izzy, “If I don’t get this part again, I swear​ I’ll kill you in your sleep!”

Izzy lets out a full-blown laugh, saying, “Wake me up when you do! I wanna watch.”

Noah lets out a loud laugh, and I c***k a smile at this. “Why am I here, again?”

“Oh, I wanted you here just in case Kara blew a gasket and decided to punch Blair in the

face.”

I give her a look. “And you can’t do that yourself? I could be at home by now, Izzy.”

She shrugs. “You’re the pro, babe. You know what will happen if I tried to break up a fight.” Yeah, she would probably make it worse. But really? It takes one time for me to break up a fight between Kara and Blair, and suddenly I’m the go-to girl.

It happened in freshman year, but instead of the theatre, it was in the cafeteria. It was really

Kara’s fault. She’s always been the overdramatic one, ready to hold a funeral over a broken nail, unlike Blair, who keeps calm and cool through everything. The fight—if that’s what you could call it, because really, it was pretty one-sided—was over a small little bump. No joke. All Kara did was bump into Blair on the first day of freshman year in the cafeteria. Okay, yes, anyone would make a scene if bright red cherry jubilee was spilled right down the middle of their white camisole. But—and I still can’t believe I had agreed with her—as Blair stated critically after the incident, “What kind of i***t are you to wear white to school?”

Kara had made such a big deal about it- first, she gasped so loud in this shrill, squeaky voice, staring at the cherry dessert sliding down her shirt. She then proceeded to narrow her eyes and look slowly at Blair, whose expression was one of mild amusement. She then said slowly, “What the hell did you just do?”

“Well, I think I just spilled cherry jubilee on you.”

Kara began waving her arms around, saying in a borderline insane tone, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say you spilled cherry jubilee on me, and I’m going to ask you again: What the hell did you just do?!”

Blair looked Kara straight in the eye and repeated herself. “I spilled cherry jubilee on you.”

Kara had said in an almost evil tone, “Oh my god, I’m going to ​kill​ you. This is my ​favorite cami.”

I forget what Blair said next, but it was something so evil, cruel, and vile—according to Kara, at least—that she slapped Blair across the face so hard Blair’s head whipped back. I had to run in between them after the third slap across each other’s face before they could move on to hair pulling.

According to Kara, I saved her a third trip to the nail salon, and maybe public humiliation, as though she hadn’t started the fight at all.

You would think that I would have deemed Kara evil and cruel- who slaps a girl for accidentally spilling cherry jubilee on a white cami? I mean, I didn’t even know of her existence up until the fight. But mind you, I had already met Blair Campbell earlier that morning, and in my mind, no one could be worse than Blair Campbell. Nothing, not even the fight that Kara had definitely started, would change that.

It is a well-known fact that Blair Campbell has been the most popular girl at SVA since school started, maybe even before. She’s practically popular throughout the whole city. Someway, somehow, everyone knows who she is. Unlike most popular girls, Blair has never viewed herself as someone who’s the center of the world just because she’s pretty. Her family comes from old money and inherited businesses throughout California, so it’s more as though she’s always been on a different level than the rest of the students at the school, and everyone, including herself, knows it.

Not that Izzy and I knew anything at that time. We had both moved to the neighbourhood right before freshman year was supposed to begin, right next door to each other. To be honest, it was an interest in Noah on my part that had prompted me to even walk over to where she was. It took about three minutes for me to realize that Noah was not interested in fresh-out-of-eighth grade girls in the slightest- he leaned towards video games and hot sophomore girls- and so I moved on from him and befriended Izzy. We bonded over the love for chocolate, art, and obscure music.

When the first day of school came around, we silently walked to school too nervous to speak. We stopped at the entrance, not because we were scared to walk in and officially start our lives as high schoolers, but because ​she​ was there.

She was a red-headed freshman girl, dressed in a tight black dress and heels, with dark red lipstick on and a whole entourage surrounding her to complete the look. The first thing that came to my mind was, ​Oh my god, the queen of the school is here. What the hell do I do?

I looked over at Izzy to see if she was having the same crisis as I was, but she looked cool and calm. She strode up the stairs with me following behind her like a little puppy, and she stopped right in front of Blair. “Excuse me,” she said.

Blair’s whole "posse" turned to look at her with a look of expectation. Blair stepped forward, looking almost bored as she stared down at us, but her words came out as almost threatening. “Who the hell are you?”

“Izzy Garcia,” Izzy responded smoothly. “And you are?”

Blair gave a soft laugh, as did the rest of her posse. Coming from her posse it sounded almost amusing, but coming from her... even that ​laugh​ commanded some sort of respect. She looked down on us with an unflinching gaze, leaning towards us as though she was about to tell us a secret. A little smile played at her lips as she saw us lean backwards due to her proximity. “You want to know who I am?”

I nodded, but I don’t know what Izzy did- I was too preoccupied with staring at this girl. Was she, like, a princess of some sort? A famous model I hadn’t heard of?

Blair tilted her head, and said to us, “I’m Blair Campbell.”

And that’s when the magic ended, the suspense fell short of a revelation. She was just a normal girl. I frowned at her, while Izzy wrinkled her brow. “Who?”

There had to have been at least a full minute of silence- even the onlookers were silent, waiting in bated breath as the scene unfolded. Blair narrowed her eyes after a moment and said, “You really have no idea who I am?”

Izzy gave a short, condescending laugh. “Are you stupid or something? Did the confused looks and blank stares not answer anything for you?”

It was in that moment, after Izzy said that and Blair’s face turned almost blank, that I knew that Izzy would become one of my best friends. She wasn’t going to be like some of the kids I had heard about in books or movies—the girl who was immediately sucked into the social food chain and popularity. She didn’t need that anyways, not then and definitely not now. She has always known how to make people give her what she wants, and that’s enough. Izzy may not be Blair Campbell, but everyone’s still at her beck and call, even the Queen herself.

Like now. Izzy raises her voice and yells across the auditorium just as Blair is about to walk out, and Blair immediately turns to come back to Izzy. It might be the voice, really, that enables people to just obey, or turn to it, or even show respect to whom the voice belongs. It’s loud and powerful, commanding respect.

When Blair approaches her, Izzy asks, “Your party is still tonight, right?”

“I never cancel a party, Isabella-“

“Don’t ever call me that again. I’ll be there at ten.”

“Why so late?” Blair crosses her arms and does her signature pose—one leg out and bent, arms folded, back straight, and smirk on her face.

“I have to fix your script, Campbell. What do you think?” Izzy waves her away. “Don’t even

answer that. Get out of here before I make you run lines.”

I turn to Izzy. “A party? On a Wednesday night?

That’s a bit...” I trail off, but Noah finishes

my sentence for me.

“Going hard,” he says, eyebrows raised. “We have school tomorrow, and the next day. Not to

mention conservatory.”

Izzy gives him a blank stare. “I’m not your daughter, Noah. Or your little sister-“

“Yeah. You’re my little cousin-“

“By a ​year, ​Noah. Don’t push it. You’re still in the same grade as I am, and in case you

haven’t noticed, I’m doing way better than you are.”

Noah rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “You’re just an overachiever, Izzy. I’m doing great. But

guess what? Even overachievers can get hangovers that prevent them from achieving great things in their life.”

Izzy smiles and throws the script at him. “Shut up.”

Noah throws it back. “Never.”

I sigh loudly and give Izzy a look. “I’m leaving.” She salutes me, and I turn to go, giving Noah

a small smile before walking away. Outside I see another girl from our group, Ally Bell, with Astrid Hale.

It’s a weird feeling, seeing Astrid talk to Ally. Her whole personality is just, unexplainably enigmatic and at the same time, perfectly predictable. Nevertheless, that queasy feeling in my stomach, that gut feeling deep down inside of me is telling me something’s missing. A piece of this gigantic and complex puzzle. And I get the feeling Astrid has it. The one girl who we give the time of day, mainly because she knows everything about everyone. She’s manipulative. And no one knows it, which is why I’m sure of it. Somehow, someway, she figures out everyone’s secrets. This is also why she isn’t necessarily part of our group—even we keep secrets from each other.

She’s extremely bubbly and bouncy, so it’s expected that she hangs out with Kara a lot, but believe it or not, it’s Ally with whom she’s closest. This is actually a relief to me, because Ally isn’t like the rest of us—talkative with a bit of an attitude. Instead, she sits quietly on the side, observing and keeping everything to herself.

Ally sticks out like a sore thumb with all of the art students. She’s a dancer, so the time she spends after school is at the studio. She does classical dance, but because she’s Ally, she’s insisted that she doesn’t wear pink like the rest of them, so her whole dance wardrobe is black. She even had to dye her ballet flats black because they weren’t sold like that.

Her dress choices for dance already tells people exactly what they don’t want to hear: she’s different, and not in a good way.

She’s extremely quiet and never shows any emotion. Her face is almost ​always​ a blank slate. In the past four years here, only one person has seen her c***k a smile, and that was her boyfriend, Justin Lazzarino, on the day he spilled sauce on his shirt at work. Because of the lack of diversity in emotion, some people think she’s a sociopath.

All I remember thinking when I saw her on the first day of school was, “Wait, hardcore emos still exist?” Unlike Kara, who had been wearing all white, Ally was wearing all black from head to toe. Her head was up most of the time, eyes flitting around like she was trying to see everything before her attention had to be turned elsewhere.. I was too busy trying to figure her out to notice that she was my biology lab partner for the entire year. I tried talking to her the first day, but she just stared at me like I was some kind of fool.

That’s the funny thing about Ally—she can simply look at you and cause all of these emotions to rush over you like a tsunami. She can wrinkle her brow and you’ll wonder what’s on your face, why you didn’t wear that other shirt that you thought was cute, and if you look like a joke overall. Most of the time she keeps her face blank—not like Blair’s, who has a blank expression in respect to being in control. Ally’s face is blank in the sense that she may or may no have any feelings. But we know this isn’t true, because she turns into a whole other person when she dances. A ​beautiful p​erson , emotions and all.

But the fact that no one can get anything out of Ally is exactly why I’m so comfortable with Astrid being around her. And if Astrid let anything she had spill to Ally, it would never get out.

As I approach them, I hear snippets of a one-sided conversation. Astrid. “So I was at the agency over the weekend, and my boss came up to me and I thought I was gonna get promoted, you know? I mean, I’ve been doing ​amazing​-”

Ally looks pained, and a subtle flash of relief goes across her face when she spots me. She nods at me, and Astrid’s blond hair whips around, her blue eyes widening in- excitement? “Hey, Charlie! How’s it going?”

I smile at her and lean in for a hug. “I’m taking a nap when I get home.” Asking her how she’s doing is the polite thing to do, but that would initiate a two hour monologue on how she’s doing.

We all love Astrid in one way or another, but there’s only so much of a person that someone can take.

I look over at Ally, who looks like she’s trying to sink into her the baggy clothes she wears over her dance clothes.. “Alright there?” I ask.

She nods and says, “I’m just waiting for Justin.”

“Dinner again?” I stare down at her, but she stares right back.

“I’ll be at Phoebe’s on time,” she reassures me.

Every Wednesday we get together at Phoebe’s for studying and dinner. Her mom makes the

best dinners, and since Phoebe is an only child, it’s the perfect place to hang out without any siblings bothering us.

Astrid, whose arm is still slung around my shoulder, nudges me playfully and says, “Oooh, any good gossip?”

I slowly remove her arm from around my shoulder

and give her a fake smile. “Not tonight.”

Before she can respond, Justin Lazzarino’s car comes into view and skids to a halt in front of the school entrance. He rolls down a window and yells out, “Let’s go, babe!” Music blasts from his speakers, loud enough that I can feel the bass through the pavement.

Ally waves goodbye to us and practically skips to Justin’s car; they share a kiss before driving off.

“Dinner, huh?” Astrid says in a conspiratorial tone.

I ignore her—I know what she’s trying to do—but she has a point. Knowing Justin and his reputation, they’re probably going to do anything but dinner—or maybe they are. Justin has a way of keeping everyone guessing, and I guess that’s what the pair have in common with each other.

No one really knows how or why they’re attracted to each other. Justin is the “bad boy” with an old school Mercedes, leather jackets, baseball caps, and cigarettes—it’s like he’s straight out of one of those nineties movies. He goes to Riverside High, the public high school just a few miles away. He works at the local diner, which is where Ally met him last year.

Despite this bad boy persona, however, he’s very unpredictable in his behavior. Some days he comes here like he did just now, and other times he comes walking, a suit on with roses in his arms. Some days he’s quiet; others, he’s loud. But no matter what his behavior is, he is definitely, hopelessly in love with Ally.

And Justin is good for Ally—full of life and laughter and brightness, the total opposite of her. And he undoubtedly respects her—Astrid, being Astrid, has been ignored by him on countless occasions, no doubt because of what Ally has said about her.

Izzy and Noah walk up, interrupting my train of thought. “Phoebe’s?” she asks, eyebrows raised.

She’s pulling her hair back into a ponytail, blatantly ignoring Astrid.

I nod and say, “Yes,” grateful for a diversion. I give Astrid a little wave, but she’s distracted by whatever’s on her phone.

As we walk to the parking lot, Izzy turns to me and says, “Noah gave me a ride, so he’s coming with us to Phoebe’s.” Seeing my frown, she smiles and says, “Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch, Charlie. You know how far home is from here-” Well yeah, I did, considering I had to take the bus ​and​ the train to school when neither Izzy, Noah, or I had a license. “No use in having him drive back and forth.”

I still frown—she knows Kara lives a block away from us and could drive us home afterwards. She drove me to school today since my brother, Alex, decided to steal my car keys and hide them somewhere in the house. But I don’t question her.

As we get into Noah’s car, I catch him looking at me, trying to send me a message with his eyes through the rearview mirror. He looks sort of afraid, like Izzy may know more than she’s letting on. I shake my head and close the door. Izzy wouldn’t know anything about us—not now, not ever.