The Seduction Game novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Charity Bag
Camille hands the new scholarship girl a bag of donated clothes in front of the quad and Aileen answers her; that night she overhears Camille order Nash to make her fall in love and be gone by Founders' Day.
The first thing Camille Aldridge ever said to me was "Oh, you must be the charity case."
She said it from the top of the chapel steps, in front of maybe two hundred people.
It was move-in day at Ellsworth Academy, and I was standing on the gravel with a duffel bag and a milk crate of textbooks.
My mother's Corolla was still ticking behind me, one door held shut with a bungee cord.
I had been on campus nine minutes.
Camille came down the steps like they were hers, which in a way they were.
Her father chaired the board, and her name was carved on the library.
She was blond, pressed, and smiling, and every head on the lawn turned to follow her.
She held out a canvas bag with a tag stapled to the handle.
"For you," she said. "Gently used. Our family drive collects them every year."
The tag read DONATION: SCHOLARSHIP STUDENT, SIZE UNKNOWN.
Somebody behind her laughed.
A boy lifted his phone to film it.
My face went hot, and I let it for a moment.
Then I thought about my mother on her knees scrubbing a bank lobby at two in the morning so I could stand on this gravel.
I took the bag.
"Thank you," I said, loud enough for the whole lawn. "That's generous."
Camille's smile widened, waiting for me to cry.
I unhooked the tag and turned it over.
"The stitching on this tote says Aldridge Foundation, so I'm guessing the tax receipt goes to your father."
I held the tag up where the boy with the phone could see it.
"Your drive collects clothes in a bag that's already stamped for the write-off. That's efficient. Do you want me to sign something?"
Nobody laughed this time.
A girl near the front put her hand over her mouth, and I could not tell if she was horrified or trying not to grin.
Camille's smile stayed exactly where it was, which was how I knew I'd hurt her.
"You'll fit in so well here," she said softly.
She walked away, and the crowd closed behind her.
I picked up my duffel.
My hands were shaking, and I hated that, so I held the straps tighter.
"That was incredible," said a voice at my elbow.
It belonged to a girl with red curls and a paint-stained cardigan, who was eating a granola bar.
"I'm Hattie," she said. "We're roommates. Don't worry, nobody else wanted me either."
She took my milk crate without asking.
"Come on. I'll show you the back stairs. Everyone who wants to survive this place learns the back stairs first."
Ellsworth had been founded in 1881, and my room smelled like it.
Cold radiators, old wood, a window that looked over the lake and the stone boathouse with its black, burned roof.
I was eighteen years old and the first person in my family to leave the state of Pennsylvania on purpose.
I had won the Ellsworth Fellowship by scoring first in the state on a three-hour exam.
One full ride, one student per year, and my mother had cried so hard when the letter came that she had to sit on the kitchen floor.
I was not going to lose it to a girl with a tote bag.
At ten that night I went looking for the library, because Hattie had said it stayed open until midnight for seniors.
She had also said the quickest way was through the east stairwell.
The stairwell was dark, and I almost walked right into the voices.
"Three weeks," a girl said.
It was Camille.
I knew it from the way she said it, light and sweet.
I stopped with one foot on the step.
"She's poor, she's lonely, and she thinks she's smarter than everyone in this building," Camille went on. "Make her fall in love with you."
A boy's voice answered, low and a little bored.
"And then?"
"Then she's in your dorm after curfew with a stolen exam in her bag, and the Dean finds her there. She's expelled, her scholarship is revoked, and her mother owes the school every dollar of the tuition."
I stopped breathing.
"She'll be gone by Founders' Day," said Camille. "Make her fall for you, Nash."
There was a long pause.
Somebody flicked a lighter and shut it again.
"Done," said the boy.
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