Chapter Text
“Sucrette!” A deep, husky voice called, it belonged to Nathaniel, the class delegate. He had been nice enough to show her around the school her first few weeks here. This new school was filled with interesting people, for once she did not feel out of place seeing everyone else wear expressive clothes of their own. Wherever she looked, someone smiled warmly and strikes conversation without singling out her fashion attire. Every kind of person here was as unique as her, there were other goths, hippies, gorgeous bimbos, and especially artsy kids, uncle Sam's land really is land of the free. This high school is small in numbers, however it is very vast and every classroom is carefully detailed for each subject to be taught
However kind people were, there was a tiny group of girls who weren't as welcoming to her, as long as the three weeks she has studied at Sweet Amoris Highschool, Sucrette steered out of their way, unintentionally of course. Two gorgeous blondes and an elegant Chinese girl.
Nathaniel's smile beams at Sucrette as they both settled down inside the classroom. As collected as Nath is, he is helplessly clumsy socially speaking, taking a cue is like catching arrows in the dark for him. It is routine for him to carry her books everywhere and spend most of his time with her.
“Have you heard? We’re getting a whole unit dedicated to the gothic era in the medieval ages...” Sucrette's excitement betrayed her attempt at a whisper, the corners of her eyes wrinkled and her lips spread into a smile. However, her friend seemed to differ in opinion as he tries to keep himself split between paying attention and listening to Sucrette's childlike joy.
“Actually I did, you're going to enjoy that more than me though. I have no affinity for history as you do.” Nathaniel replied in a smiling whisper, he still loved seeing her excitement, even though he basically hated the subject. "Maybe you'll be the one helping me review for it."
A light chuckle erupts from Sucrette who's basically bouncing on her seat from excitement, earning a light smile from the guy. Actually, it was Nath the one to show her around the school on her first day, naturally they became friends.
As the bell rung, the two walked out of the classroom, Sucrette's hyperactivity now mellowed out after an extensive lecture on cynicism and moral puzzles. It was then when Nath remembered something he overheard.
“You really need to prepare for that calculus pop quiz I was hearing about in the teacher’s lounge. I have the textbook answers at home. If you're okay with it we can take a look at it… together.” Nathaniel warned absently darting his eyes across the halls, he was also balancing a stack of notebooks in his arms, they seemed to weigh him down a bit.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go over that… I want to study with you, lectures here are really something to dread.” Sucrette responded, she was biting back a yawn as her eyes darted to that honey blonde girl that kept eyeing her from afar. What was her name again?
“Ready Sucrette?” Nath asked.
She shook her head out of whatever trance she was in and quickly replied, “Right- yeah, are we taking the bus?”
“No, our chauffeur is picking us up, no need to worry.” Nathaniel chuckled as he shot her a warm smile, he was so overbearingly kind to her and actually worried about her too much for his own good. He directed her over to the entrance, a black SUV was waiting for them outside.
They really must have some kind of money… Sucrette wondered, what kind of family is this guy from, did everyone at this school have a chauffeur? Not to be rude, but the thought did cross her mind, Nath looked humble and well dressed however he did not look like the stereotypical noveau rich guy she had in mind.
“Sucrette?” Nathaniel asked, finally shaking her off of her thought trail. “Our ride is here, go inside.” He opened the door for her and sat next to her, his house wasn’t really far from here and the ride was quite short. After a parade of lavish and enormous mansions, the car stopped at a huge luxurious mansion, it was so beautiful up close. Sucrette’s mouth undeniably dropped, this mansion was taken right out of a celebrity magazine…
“Oh…my... god... This is so far from what I imagined rich people to be like…” Sucrette mumbled, she was entranced by this inmense mansion in font of her, Nathaniel couldn't help but laugh at her surprise.
“Come on, pick up your jaw, you’ll swallow a fly.” he chuckled, grabbing her wrist and pulling her towards the entrance.
Within a few steps, they were already inside, the cold bright lights made everything look pristine as they were welcomed inside. Nath's smile was warmer than the whole place. As he closed the door behind them he welcomed her into their living room, a kind of proud yet humble smile as he watches her look around. This house was spacious and injected a sense of uneasiness and uncanny pressure, especially since it seemed to have various constructivist paintings and decor. It was all so rigid and well organized, the air conditioner whispered against her almost like a warning instilling shivers down her spine. Walking together, she admired how the walls were painted with almost indistinguishable white color variations that contrasted very much with the dark granite on the floor.
She couldn’t help but notice how his place lacked the homely feelings, not a single picture of a family here, not even a diploma in sight. They finally reached the corridor that led to his study room, the sharp walls boxed her right into the room. With a sigh, Sucrette finally relaxed, ever since she got here she felt some strange pressure like someone watching her waiting to prick her finger on a loom. It was hard imagining someone even living here, the bright lights and harsh corners made this seem more like a stage than a home. Nathaniel seemed to notice her uneasiness and turned on the study’s lights, these lights were much warmer and cozier than the ones at the entrance.
“So… uhm? You’re liking my house?” he sputtered, fixing his tie.
“It’s… definitely not like the marxist communes I read about, that’s for sure.” she chuckled, finally settling down on a chair next to him. A curious brow rose as Nathaniel giggled at Sucrette’s comment, his warm chuckle hugged the warm walls in the room. After brushing off the previous comment, he pulled out a sturdy and thick textbook from under the table. The textbook Nathaniel had mentioned was huge and heavy, hopefully they would have enough time to review the basics by dinner.
As last the two reached the first two lesson chapters they decided on a stretch break, their backs were stiff and tensed from slouching over the book. Sucrette raised her arms in the air and leaned back on the wooden chair, a tired sigh was uttered from the very back of her mind.
“God, my back is killing me, do I look like a shrimp yet?” Sucrette groaned, her eyes watered a bit before taking a big yawn. In a haphazard attempt, she stood up from the chair taking a few steps around the tall room. While Nathaniel lazily smiled and stretched in his seat, facing the opposite way.
Amber closed the front door behind her and let her designer bag dangle around her forearm before tossing it on the dinner table. She looked around the main entrance and looked for any signs of life in the barren sanatorium like walls. Her heels drummed every step as she walked into the narrow hallway that led to the studio, her confident strut was soon replaced by a cautious one as she heard Nathaniel talking to himself about some niche mathematical topic. To be fair, Amber usually refrains from spying on her brother, he was too much of a bore to have any social life outside of school. That's why her lips pursed and brows raised instinctively in accordance, he hadn't waited for her at the exit so clearly he was in a rush to get home. As she got closer, a faint voice, a much contrasting melodic tone started to talk back to Nathaniel's nerdy speech about derivatives. Usually when he brought friends (nonexistent) over he had the decency to announce better yet refrain from taking them here. Just who did he bring into her house?
Why doesn't he calculate his chances of dying a virgin at 40 instead
Approaching the stranger voice, she stopped her tracks and leaned against the wall. Considering as much as she loves making him miserable, being caught snooping like this would hurt her 'asking Nath favors' card. The blonde cautiously continued towards the door and leaned forward with her arms protectively crossed over her chest. After seeing him follow this chick around like a puppy, she figured Nath had finally gotten the balls to invite that goody witch shoes over. To Amber, this meant she had to catch her reveal something juicy to talk about with Li and Charlotte, after all the bird nested weirdo is starting to become everyone's new attraction around the school. Amber crept up on the doorway to the study room, her body pressed to the wall, she was trying to silently open the door.
Just who in their right mind dares to wear an all black-satin-funeral-fit in August?
Amber chuckled to herself as she was peeking into the room they were in, as is the door silently cracked open enough for her to creep a side of her face inside, her eye examined the room, seeing a chair and Nath next to each other by the big office desk her dad kept. Her brother stood up and walked towards the whiteboard on the side of the room, the walking spirit halloween gift card followed next to him writing a formula on the board. I roll my eyes and look at the desk, a black frilly tote bag sprawled all over the floor, it's contents matching the owner. Examining from afar, one can tell she had a hairbrush, a ciggie box and a black liner.
"Smoking eh?" Amber whispered not really to herself.
The once confident spy backed away and leaned on the doorknob, a dreadful sweat drop threatening her laminated brows.
Sucrette walked by the table and paced around the room until a small murmur prompted her head shoot in that direction. She cautiously loomed over to the direction, avoiding the field of vision of the possible peeping tom. Her tense face matched with a curious glance at the door, patiently waiting for another sound or sign of life even.
Widened eyes and attentive brows were alerted to Sucrette’s face, “Hey, Nathaniel…? Do you guys have pets?” Sucrette questioned, before approaching and hovering her hand on the cold knob.
Nathaniel’s head shot to where she was and cocked his eyebrow. “My mom is allergic, she can't stand animals.”
I can't seem to pin where that ghastly fashion wreck is, the door almost closed on itself and spooked me.
Amber’s thoughts were getting impatient, until she finally huffed in annoyance and pushed the door further open. Like in totally spies, she proceeded to crouch as she leaned on the door to the study room, on the other hand, Sucrette shot her gaze back to the door and aggressively pulled at the door knob.
Without warning, Amber had rolled forward into the room, mumbling a string of curses and whatnot, she fell face first into the maroon carpet and groaned angrily. The lionesses' eyes shot up to the woman in front. The two girls looked at each other in silent confusion, as the ceiling fan purred with cold gushes of air, the soon silent room was replaced by one of their nervous laughter.
“Where you spying on us?" Sucrette mumbled, taking a step back. "you probably shouldn't consider the CIA by the way.” she chuckled, stretching out her hands towards the blonde who’s messily sprawled onto the carpet floor. In matter of seconds, Amber’s face was a scarlet color, her pupils rolled like a pair of marbles as she mumbled curses around while clenching her fists. It looked more like a toddler tantrum than an actually soon-to-be adult fuming. At this point there had been irreparable damage done to the blonde's immensely huge ego.
Sucrette looked down on her in confusion, hand still dangling in the air reaching out for Amber. "I don't need your help." She smacked her hand out of her face and tried to stand back up miserably, the heel of her shoe bending against her wishes.
“Okay if you say so." Sucrette's hand retracted however her smile did not. "If you're going to spy, then at least don't giggle like some maniac behind the door." A teasing tone and smirk erupted as Sucrette crouched down to meet Amber. At the same time, lioness here huffed, quickly brushing off herself, proud and loud she stood up, miserably clashing foreheads with the goth in front. Their shared surprise caused both to grunt and jump back, almost like a silent comedy poor idiots ended up kneeling onto the ground as they looked at each other. It felt as if everything turned upside down and as the two girls held their heads, Amber's lip twitched upwards, itching to betray its owners countenance. On the other hand, Sucrette chuckled and let her eyebrow question the strange encounter, all the while their hands barely brushing against one another.
Nathaniel’s nervous laugh erupted and changed the atmosphere of the room, seeing the two girls clash against one another was uncomfortable enough. The two girls sat there on the ground for a moment as Sucrette seemed to be enjoying herself, but Amber's brows furrowed and quickly pulled her hand back.
"Looks like you've met my younger sister, Amber." He chided, his shoulders square and rigid as he's walking towards you, taking one tense arm out of his pocket, offering a hand to get up. The calm and confident struts he took contradicted his innermost emotions, for one his rock stern face changed to embarrassment mixed with annoyance. The girls looked at each other before looking back at Nathaniel, who sighed and wrinkled his face to stitch his brows together.
"A charming girl huh?"
"Don't mind her, I'm sure there's a reason for this." Nathaniel pinched his nose bridge and looked away with a frown on his face.
"Is that so?" Sucrette chuckled covering her mouth with one hand, now looking towards the most interesting person in the room, one who was still dusting herself off the floor.
Amber's face flushed resembling a deep carmine color and pushed in between their conversation fiercely. True to herself, her chin up and proud, spoke loudly, "God I'm not some poor lost soul, stop looking at me." She swatted at the air furiously with her upturned nose pointing to the ceiling like always.
"As if... I'm not explaining myself to you. I came here to see who you are." she raised her voice as she fixed her hair with a hand on her hip, as she finished accommodating her appearance she finally rose a finger and pointing it around in accusation. "
It was a whole show, seeing this bombshell blonde recover herself so quickly and effortlessly from the ground, as feisty and spunky as she is was she loud. She kept on spewing whatever she could muster, in Nathaniel's ears it was all nonesense anyway. She always found a way to embarrass him, that's why he was the one to always stop her midtrack, he raised his arm and softly shook Amber's shoulder, a girl once confident who looked embarrassingly to the ground.
"Aghh....Amber, why do you think yelling will make this situation less embarrassing... what where you doing anyway...?" Nathaniel spoke sternly in a low monotonous voice, his raspy voice explained how tired he is of the current outbursts his sister is used to displaying.
The rosy cheeks Amber so desperately tried to brush off had turned even redder, yet somehow it motivated her back to confidence. Her shoulders relaxed yet somehow stiffened, the blonde was truly an enigma, always an unexpected combination of flavors. She looked at him, shook his hand off and glared at him with the most interesting combination of annoyance and defiance.
"You're escalating this more than it needed it to. What fool are you making of yourself tonight...tsk." She smiled reassuringly, now holding his shoulder in the same demeaning way he did her. "It doesn't matter what I was doing, what matters here is what Mary Shelley here is doing in our study room unannounced." Amber pinched the bridge of her nose and sternly faced to the black haired one in the room. "I'm sorry about Nath's awful manners, he's supposed to introduce and announce every guest that walks inside. I'm sure you've realized how he has a knack for deflecting his poor social skills on me."
The feathery and cloying voice spoke into Sucrette's ear with fervor and innocence, even Nathaniel's shoulders softened and bought every word his sister spoke. Broken out of shocking stupor, Sucrette's engines are trying to piece together what just happened and how easily it was turned around by this strategic girl. The sudden 360 spin in attitude took even her brother by surprise, but kept quiet knowing another utterance and he'd be destined for death. As Nathaniel internally questioned Amber's intentions, she politely smiled and confirmed every one of his doubts off. Meanwhile poor Sucrette stood there in confusion whether to side with the bombshell beauty pagent babe or Nath, a tough choice that had no middle ground nor good outcome.
"I see, so it seems we should introduce eachother correctly then. I'll start." A suave attempt at world peace, who'd knew she'd be caught between sibling fights. "I'm Sucrette Lynn Dolce, your classmate if you haven't noticed. And you are?" Sucrette spoke with a hint of unease, the soft yet curious tone behind her words targeted at Amber's stronghold.
"I'm sure you're in awe at the situation, he apologizes, I'm Amber Carello, of course Carello as in the famous architect or the fashion designer." Amber smirked and stretched her slim manicured hand towards the other girl. This encounter differed in contrast to every other Sucrette's ever had, as no one seemed to mention the pompous self proclaimed celebrity at school. A grin tugged at her face and gladly grabbed the dangling hand, softly tugging her towards herself with a customary greeting of her home country, leaning to kiss her cheek. The unexpected display left Amber visibly taken aback, her initial confidence giving way to disgust and aversion. The mentioned gasped and roughly pushes Sucrette away, with a slight scoff of indignation she spat cruelly at the girl.
"What prompts you to do just that? I know for one you're a weirdo, but one of them gays too?" Amber snapped as she grit her teeth and retracted her hand as she looked threateningly at her brother who looked just as shocked.
The room fell silent and everyone seemed to point and stare at Sucrette, how guilty was she really? She fell into the same kind of surprise as Nathaniel who's expression unreadable yet uncomfortable. Her embarrassment pooled in her stomach as she felt her legs instinctively taking a few steps backwards, the pair both looked at her intensely. A few words were uttered under Sucrette's breath as her arms raised up to her shoulders as an apology and her palms faced towards the other two blondes.
"I'm... Sorry. I..." For once, Sucrette stuttered and carefully thought her words, she shook her head defensively and looked at Amber and Nathaniel with a sorry yet confused look. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. It's just how we greet people where I'm from."
Her apology hung in the air, tinged with confusion and remorse as she looked at Amber, hoping for understanding amid the tension that now enveloped the room.
"Is that so? Where do you come from then?" Amber spat with quite the animosity, yet at the same time felt quite fearful of this stranger as she swallowed dryly.
"I'm from Honduras... That's how we greet, I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable like that." Sucrette sighed, rubbing her palm on her fore head in never ending circles.
"Shut up, hawaiians definitely don't greet like that, I visited Honolulu for summer vacations for 2 years straight-"
"Honduras is a central American country."
"What? No it's not"
"Yes it is."
The girls looked at each other with shared confusion, their brows rose up at the same time as they longingly stared. Sucrette wasn't sure whether Amber was genuinely stupid, or just playing dumb for making a fuss over this.
"So you're from Kansas?" Amber grumbled as she crossed her arms and stared at her up and down.
"What?" Sucrette stuttered, her once confidence faltered as she also crossed her arms to brace herself for the future.
"The central states? God do you know geography?"
"How dense can you get? For one I know more than you." she scoffed with a quick eyeroll, bending the opposite knee as she placed her hand on her hip.
"You're not helping your case you weirdo."
Meanwhile the two argued, Nathaniel was standing there awkwardly, hesitating between interfering or just plain ignoring them. She definitely failed social studies in middle school... Amber is embarrassing the whole family at this point... there's no way he can interfere here. Is there? This grand power struggle was irritating just to watch, and somehow they were both even, not even Nath would front Amber for such a trivial and stupid thing as geography. She may be school stupid, but she wasn't people stupid at all.
"....Honduras is in Central America, like Guatemala? El Salvador? Close to Mexico?"
"Oh! Mexico? If you were mexican why didn't you say so. You don't sound mexican." She held a finger to her lip, thinking briefly before returning "Mexicans don't greet like that do they?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" The flat tone in Sucrette's voice raised many questions in her head, one of them being if Amber was a MAGA zombie at some point, but easily discarded knowing she's too petty to dislike someone for their ethnicity, she just dislikes people because they're people.
"Not like that! I meant--" Amber blurted out putting her hands palms up, defensively trying to prove her innocence. The peach blush dusted on her face and the glistening eyes of guilt pinned Sucrette to an imaginary corner. "I'm not racist..... Don't look at me like that either."
"Racist?" At this point she bit her lip in attempt to stifle an upcoming laugh, "What? Like what?"
"You know what I mean, you know? let's leave this behind us." her abrupt grunt quickly shoos away her last sentence, uttering the following "I'll forgive you."
The two girls looked at each other with certain caution, almost like two stray cats meeting their territorial markings. Amber's glossy mouth gaped tentatively, at a loss for words she looks to the floor and holds her temple as if she's afraid of her head falling off.
Nathaniel on the other hand, was found afar, sitting down on the study desk, texting his friends about how Amber is totally cockblocking him and making a fool out of herself by being so ignorant geography wise. After this he'd surely berate her about how to treat guests and be less...her. He sighed and placed his phone down, looking at the two girls behind his shoulder, like a totally unbothered king, he jotted down some notes on his notepad and lazily scribbed over a heart over and over.
"...."
"Amber." She pressed for the mentioned's response, taking a step forward, her furrowed brow and gaze pushing once more for an answer. "That's not how apologies work."
Amber finally mustered, "Fine. Forgive and forget."
"You sure are an interesting one."
"Don't get any ideas, we're soooo not friends." With a roll of her eyes, the blonde smiled, but not just any friendly smile, she smiled in a strange nervous way, in a long pause of silence, she adds "Want to stay for dinner?"
With a faint smile tinged with curiosity, Sucrette finally untensed her shoulders and looked at her meaningly. The two shared a quiet second, and another, and another of just staring into each other's eyes. These bitches gay asf tho.