Chapter Text
Eleanor knows: she isn’t a good person, necessarily. Definitely not by the typical definition of the word. Sometime between the threats and the actually hitting Drea with her car her brain figured that one out. She fucked people over, she went too far, she knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to go get it.
Eleanor Levetan is afraid.
Rewind. It’s September—Eleanor’s just settled into the first few weeks at Columbia; Drea’s downtown at NYU—
(“There are schools other than Yale, you know,” Eleanor says. Drea screams facedown into her pillow.)
—and everything’s going just fine. Her roommate is (relatively) normal, administration doesn’t know that she smuggled in Oscar Winner Olivia Colman yet, and Drea’s a train ride away.
No cars to be crashed.
Gabbi is…Gabbi is. Gabbi was a pipe dream, Eleanor has been led to assume. Gabbi was three excellent months of messy makeouts and sex on the balcony and not much else. Gabbi is not something that can traverse twelve hundred miles. She’s a senior, now, and overwhelmed with college apps and new new girls, and that’s fine. It was fun. They’re better off as friends.
They haven’t talked in three weeks. And five days.
Not that Eleanor’s counting.
Eleanor’s sitting at her desk, puzzling through her Econ reading, when her door bursts open with a screech.
“I don’t have any money!” she shrieks, brandishing her stylus in front of her like a broadsword.
“Well, that’s a lie,” Drea says (“How the fuck did you get in here,” mutters Eleanor), “it’s just me. We’re going out.”
“Is your phone broken? Are the cell towers down? Is the world ending?”
“Is your brain broken? Don’t go full doomsday on me now, Nora, I can’t weather this dark and dreary world without you.”
Eleanor snaps her laptop shut. “You know what I mean. Could you stop terrorizing the front desk people and just text me?”
Drea throws Eleanor’s own phone at her, rolling her eyes. “I did, bitch. Thirty-seven, ranging from nagging to desperate.” She starts shoving stuff in one of Eleanor’s tote bags, then stands triumphantly at the door. “Are you done fucking around, babe? Let’s go.”
Eleanor’s still scrolling. A new message dings through: 38. Hurry tf up
Drea quirks an eyebrow when Eleanor looks up. Then she winks and flounces out the door—that’s really the only word to describe the motion, flounces —and walks out into the hallway, gogo boots clicking on the tile. Eleanor shoves her phone in the back pocket of her jeans and runs after her.
They end up on a downtown train (the 1 or the 3 or something—Eleanor still can’t tell them all apart. Drea reads the subway map like the Sunday paper.) and hop off at some bougie-looking cafe. Drea orders a vanilla latte and a matcha, giving a silly little wave to the barista, and sits at one of the corner tables, looking at Eleanor expectantly.
“Don’t you have to, like, pay for things?” Eleanor whispers as she walks over. “Isn’t that how this whole thing works? Money for goods and services, etcetera?”
“I have a thing going with one of the baristas,” Drea says, winking at the barista behind the counter. “Drinks on him, and I edit his essays. He’s an engineering major, poor thing,” she says, sticking her bottom lip out. “Can’t write to save his life.”
The barista is staring across the counter at Drea as if there is an angelic choir surrounding their table, singing Celine Dion’s greatest hits.
“Just essays?” Eleanor asks.
“Just essays,” Drea smiles. “Although I am a free agent, as of…” she checks her watch, “four hours ago.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“I guess it just…” she trails off. “Just wasn’t working. Long distance, or whatever. I don’t think Russ is built for it. And it’s not like we had that much in common anyways.”
Eleanor feels strangely light.
“Plus,” and Drea leans over the table, “he was shit at giving head. Fell asleep one time, no lie, and he didn’t notice a thing.”
“No,” Eleanor says, and Drea nods, leaning back into her chair to let the barista set their drinks down.
Drea toasts with her latte, and Eleanor sips her matcha, and it’s—oat milk. Who knew to make it with oat milk? Did Drea tell him, during their “essay time”? Did the barista just clock her obvious Lesbian Energy and make some assumptions?
“Microaggression,” she mutters, and Drea just looks at her.
“So…” Eleanor says.
“So……” Drea repeats.
“So………why the fuck did you kidnap me and drag me here. What’s your deal? Or is this some post-breakup hysteria? Give me a read here, sweetheart, I need to know what I’m working with.”
Drea swipes her bangs out of her face (and that’s still new, those two small strands expanded into more of a curtain bang look , framing her face perfectly) and glares back at Eleanor. “Not hysterics.” And, surprisingly silent, she pulls a bright pink flier out of her purse, leaving it on the table for Eleanor to unfold.
Hate Men? it reads. Been fucked over before? Too busy to do it yourself? Then, below: LET US DO YOUR REVENGE. Prices vary. And Drea’s number and email below that.
It’s a good flier, Eleanor has to admit. Fonts all go together. Nice graphics. But–
“What the fuck?” she says.
Drea levels her with a Look. It’s the one that says I know what the hell I’m doing here, so zip it. (Drea has a lot of Looks). “We’re back in business.”
“Who the fuck is ‘we,’ Drea,” Eleanor says.
“Come on, Nora, it’ll be fun. Like the good old days.”
“When we hated each other and came extremely close to absolutely ruining each others’ lives? Yeah, had a great time, ten out of ten, would do again.” Eleanor stares at Drea, who seems to have lost it completely. “You’re serious?”
“I’m broke,” Drea says. “And I don’t want to work some minimum wage job, I know how terrible people are to service workers. My essay reading abilities only go so far–I’m gonna have to pay for something sometime.”
Eleanor finds herself bouncing her leg under the table. “So…”
“So,” Drea says, “we’re getting back in. Very organized, all above board, no other women. Only men, and really shitty ones. It’s in the fine print.” She sips her latte and gives Eleanor another Look, but this one says: C’mon, Nora, in that voice she can never quite ignore. “We’re good at this. We ruined several people’s lives last year, and nearly our own, and that was all for free! Imagine what we can do with a monetary incentive.”
Eleanor is bouncing her leg so hard it might fall off. She can never deny Drea when she gets like this–when she begs to go downtown and walk around Times Square, even though Eleanor hates it there; when she bursts into her room and drags her off to adventures unknown; when she introduces the latest unhinged scheme in their revenge plot.
And so, as though possessed by the spirit of bad decisions, Eleanor levels with Drea’s Look across the table. “We’ll need contracts. Money upfront. Probably some kind of ground rules, so we avoid going too–”
“You’re in?” Drea interrupts.
“Yeah,” Eleanor breathes, low and quiet. “I guess I’m in.” And Drea sits back in her chair, smiling close-lipped at Eleanor like she’s just been given the world, and–
God-fucking-damn it.
So, that’s how it’s gonna be. Eleanor, who is not only not a good person, but may have just been upgraded to “worst of all time,” wants to reach across this stupid tiny table and kiss that rotten smile off Drea’s face. She wants to do things worse than that, hold hands and smile and skip through the city streets and shit, with the girl whose life she almost ruined, to the girl who did ruin her life.
That’s the feeling in the pit of her stomach when she looks at Drea from the passenger side; that’s the lightheaded feeling she gets when their fingers brush. God, she used to be smarter than this, more self-aware at least. And now she’s got a stupid crush on the most popular girl in school–the one stupid girl she’s afraid to do anything about.
(Not like that–she and Drea had a long talk after graduation, Drea actually apologized, and Eleanor forgave her. It’s really in the past, now. Drea’s changed.)
It’s just–it’s Drea. They’re back on good terms, and Eleanor hates her roommate (she lied, earlier, her roommate is fucking bonkers), and she has no one else in this city but Drea. No one gets her like Drea; it’s probably trauma bonding, but oh well. It works.
Drea’s talking about their first potential clients, gesticulating wildly, apparently unaware of Eleanor’s ongoing crisis. Eleanor’s still in the trenches of the aforementioned crisis. Drea, of all people? Not her normal, nice girlfriend who she left in Miami? Not some hot rich Columbia heiress?
“So?” Drea asks, eyes bright. Eleanor can only nod. “Really?” Drea says, and Eleanor nods again, feeling puppetlike. What has she agreed to? Only time (Drea) shall tell.
“Okay, I’ll give her a call and let you know,” Drea says, standing and putting her mug on a passing barista’s tray. “First client, babe! See you later.” And she kisses Eleanor on the cheek (Jesus fucking Christ) before whisking herself out of the cafe, leaving Eleanor with nothing but questions. Who the hell is their client? Why did she agree to this? Which of those godforsaken trains does she need to take to get back home?
“Take the 1! The red one!” Drea yells on her way out the door, and Eleanor puts her head in her hands.