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Group projects were always a hassle. Especially when Miss Mendeleiev was doing them, because she didn’t seem to give even one iota of a minuscule fraction of a solitary fig about how the students she grouped together would… work out. Or rather, it seemed like she did, but in a way that would annoy people as much as possible.
This time was a real doozy. She – she, Lila Rossi – had been put in a group with Alya Césaire and Chloé Bourgeois. It was a true masterpiece, because technically speaking, everyone in the group had reason to hate everyone else independently. Lila hated Chloé because Chloé was an absolute fucking bitch; she hated Alya for her fawning obsession over Scarlet Lady. Alya hated Chloé because Chloé was a bully who specifically targetted Alya’s best friend; she hated Lila for lying about her connections to – and then, for hating – Scarlet Lady. And Chloé hated both of them because, well, she was an absolute fucking bitch.
Well… Lila had never actually hated Alya as such. She just had a reason to. But in fact, Lila greatly enjoyed Alya’s company right now. Alya was driven, and she was funny, and she was honest. In particular, Alya hated Chloé – and was coming around to hating Scarlet Lady – in a way that was driven, and funny, and honest. And Lila would never think herself above communal hatred.
“So what are we doing?” she asked, easing in. “Who’s got what?”
“Well,” replied Alya, “we’ve got to do the calculations, get the ingredients, arrange a time with Miss Mendeleiev for the school lab, do the experiment and take photographs, create the presentation, and then do the presentation. Sounds doable enough, if everyone chips in.”
They looked at each other. Then they looked over at Chloé, who was sat at the far end of the table, ignoring them in favour of her mobile phone as she chewed on a piece of gum.
“Sounds like it’s not doable, then, Al.”
Alya pouted, folding her arms. “Why did we have to get her on our group?”
“Hate to tell you this, but I think Miss Mendeleiev hates us,” said Lila, barely able to keep a straight face. “She hates the whole class.”
“Marinette got to be with Alix and Nino!”
“She hates Nino, so she put him in a group that’ll make him feel inadequate. Seriously, they’re going to blow every other presentation out of the water, and Nino will only need to stand there and look pretty.”
It was kind of cute, seeing Alya upset. Not in and of itself, but just the way she expressed it – it felt so genuine. Lila had been on the receiving end of that upset for a while, and it was honestly a little bit scary, because you could really sense the displeasure in a way you wouldn’t with someone who was more meek or soft-spoken; Alya would absolutely let you know when something was wrong, but she would do it in a very Alya way. A curl of the lips and a turn of the colour in the cheeks, and a sharpness in the eyes, and with words so pointed you could do a fondue with them.
It was actually a little bit pleasant, in a way, when it wasn’t aimed in Lila’s direction. To just observe her emotions and the thoughts she let float to the surface. The fact that it was aimed at their common object of distaste, Chloé, made it just a little bit more satisfying.
“Hey, Bourgeois, how about turning your phone off and coming over to help us?” Lila said, chin on the palm of her hand. “Alya and me are gonna need your help for this.”
Chloé’s reaction came in sequences, like a Rube Goldberg of turds. She popped her chewing gum bubble, put her phone on the table, uncrossed her legs, crossed them in the other direction, then turned her neck to give Lila a deadpan stare. And then she said: “Why would I help you? You’re both awful.”
Honestly, if Chloé wasn’t such a grade-A jerk, Lila would have had to give her props for the theatrics. As it stood, though, it carried the same vibe as an old man coming in with a skateboard slung over his shoulders and his cap put on backwards, saying ‘How do you do, fellow kids?’ What Lila meant was, Chloé was trying to play a big game. What Lila meant was, she wasn’t doing it right.
What Lila meant was, she could beat Chloé on sarkiness with her sarkiest limbs tied behind her back.
“You know, Chloé, I’ve changed my mind,” she said, voice buttery and sweet. “I think the one who needs help here is you.”
“I don’t have to listen to a word you say, Lie-la.”
“Funny how you keep doing it, though.”
“Agh!” shouted Chloé, and swiped her phone off the table. “Have fun failing without me!” she said, got up, and stomped off towards the library exit.
“Have fun failing without any friends whatsoever,” Lila called after her. It wasn’t her best comeback, but it was satisfying to say out loud nonetheless. Not to mention, it was true.
They watched Chloé leave until the door slammed shut behind her. Then Alya sighed, and Lila watched her deflate into her seat.
“God, she’s so exhausting.”
“Tell me about it,” said Lila, grinning.
“You handle her so well. I would have just shouted at her until I was the one worn out.”
It probably didn’t reflect well on Lila that she enjoyed seeing all these things in Alya: the hatred for Chloé, the frustration on her lips, the exhaustion in her stare. She wondered, just briefly, what Alya might look like if she were sad or tired, but didn’t pursue the thought. After all, Lila wasn’t a monster. She was just… her own species of bitch.
She guessed it was part of spending such a long time lying to save face. It had made her hypervigilant towards others, because she needed to figure out who to be careful around. Who was going to catch her lies straight away, and who was going to believe pretty much anything she told them, and those who wavered between the two depending on the topic and the time of day.
And paying attention to those things meant she was also paying attention to people’s emotions. The way they expressed things, and the things they expressed, and the things they tried to hide away from expression entirely. And she learned to see who was genuine, and who else was a liar.
Alya was gullible, in a sense. Maybe it would be correct to say she was gullible in certain very specific ways, but perceptive and shrewd in others. But she wasn’t a liar, and could probably never truly be one, because she wore her heart not just on her sleeves but like a tattoo on her wrist. In the past, Lila had appreciated that type of person a lot, because they were easy to manipulate.
These days, she was finding a new appreciation for that type of person through Alya.
“You know, Al, I could teach you a trick or two. Give you a quick course in ruining Chloé.”
Alya covered her mouth to hide a grin that she must have thought unseemly, fool that she was. “I don’t think I could ever pull off what you do.”
“True. I’m exceptional.” Lila did some theatrics of her own, throwing her hair over her shoulders, lifting her chin haughtily. “But you could learn. You got the guts for it. Hell, you got Scarlet Lady pretty good in that interview on Chamack’s show the other day.”
“You got her better than me!”
“I only called in because you did it first.”
“Okay, okay,” Alya sat up now, elbows on the table, fully animated. “But who’s worse? Her, or Chloé?”
Lila laughed. “I can hardly tell them apart. They’re both absolute fucking bitches.”
Alya wrinkled her nose. “Can we workshop that?”
“AFBs. Library friendly version. Anyway, it’s not like it’s not true.”
They looked at each other for a little while. Then, they both snorted their way into laughter. “Yeah, okay, they’re both AFBs,” says Alya. “But that sounds a little too dorky.”
“I’m okay with just calling them cu-”
“You are not,” Alya interrupts, having anticipated Lila’s next swear. “Not that… You know. I mean.”
They were in tune, Lila noted with no uncertain joy. It was just that Alya didn’t like the specific wording. And wording can be changed a lot without changing the inherent meaning. ‘Group project’ can also be ‘gossip session with a goal at the end’. ‘Absolute fucking bitch’ can be turned into ‘gritty dipshit’, or if you don’t want to swear, um, probably something. And ‘I love you’, well, that could become…
“Honestly, I think you could be the queen of this whole school. Knock Chloé off her throne. She’s like Prince John in Robin Hood, and you could be – well, Robin Hood. Except he becomes king at the end.”
“You know what we do to royalty in France, right?”
“Whatever it is you do, I hope we’ll do it to Chloé,” said Lila, knowing well what Alya meant, and also knowing the joke was a little over the edge.
But Alya seemed to take it well, giggling a little bit with her hand over her mouth again. Let me see your teeth, thought Lila. Let me see your whole face. I like looking at it.
“I mean it, though,” Lila said with a shrug. “You’re sharper than you let on. You don’t need to take nix of nada from anyone. Least of all her.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah.”
Not that Alya needed to change. Lila was satisfied knowing her as she was now. They could pack bond over their dislike for Chloé, and Nadja Chamack, and Miss Bustier, and Scarlet Lady, and whoever else pissed one of them off. Lila wasn’t picky. She enjoyed the activity in and of itself, as long as it was cathartic, and as long as she could do it with someone she liked. She did it with Alix and Sabrina, after all.
Hell, she even enjoyed doing it with Marinette from time to time, and Marinette was wet as a dissolved noodle. Pleasant and kind, but without Alya’s edge.
Lila supposed it was catty, in a way. But it really wasn’t about dunking on people – that was just the pretext. What mattered was doing it together. And she wanted to do it together with Alya. She wanted to do a lot of things together with Alya, if she could have the chance to.
Alya smiled at her, prettily. “Thanks, Lila.”
“Any time.”
Maybe Miss Mendeleiev didn’t hate them. Maybe she put this group together for Lila’s sake. Yeah. She probably didn’t, but Lila wasn’t going to let that stop her from imagining.
“So… should we get started?”
“Well, we’re going to fail anyway, aren’t we?” said Lila, shrugging again.
Alya scoffed, though. “Nonsense. The two of us can make it just fine on our own. Hey – if we work hard enough, we can beat M’s group.”
Lila raised her eyebrows, a little taken aback. “You think so?”
“I know we can.”
“Well, if you say so.” She smirked. “What should we call our group, though?”
Alya seemed to give it a little bit of thought. “The AFBs,” she said eventually.
“Hey, you’re not at all an absolute f-”
“You neither. But we are absolutely fabulous babes.”
“Oh.” It was Lila’s turn now to cover her mouth as she giggled. “You’re darn right we are. I’m in. Let’s do this.”
Yeah, Alya was already where she needed to be.
All Lila needed, was to get closer.