I stared blankly. The girls stared back.

There were three of them, sitting at a table not far away from me: a dark-haired, intellectual-looking beauty; a cute, curvy ginger; and in the middle, tall and striking, a blonde who wouldn't look out of place on the cover of a fashion magazine. This very blonde was the one who was now making aggressive eye contact with me, smiling warmly as she motioned for me to come over.

At least, it looked like she meant me. Except, if I knew anything about girls like that, she definitely didn't. At least, not seriously. I hadn't met any girls like her before, but I knew the stories: the gorgeous, popular queen bees who pretended to be nice to the regular girl, only to turn around and make fun of them for believing they had actually wanted to be friends.

Except, I had read the books. I knew girls like this would only ever invite me to join them as a joke, and I wasn't going to walk into that trap. Besides, I already had people to eat lunch with, anyway.

So, since I couldn't find Dan or Sunday yet, I sat down at an empty table at the very back of the cafeteria and hoped my new friends would show up soon.

"Don't you know it's rude to turn down an invitation?"

A shadow fell over me. Startled, I looked up to find myself face to face with the very blonde who had just tried to wave me over.

On instinct I sat up straight, pulling away my tray and awkwardly trying to hide the amount of food I had loaded onto it. Then I glanced into the direction where she was supposed to be sitting. Nope, she wasn't with her friends anymore. It wasn't my imagination; she had really sat down, lunch tray and all, at my empty table on the other side of the cafeteria.

"Sorry, um," I managed out, adrenaline spiking while I racked my brains for an answer that wouldn't get me in trouble with what could only be one of the most popular girls of the school. "I didn't realize you meant me."

"You didn't? Girl, I was literally making eye contact with you." With long, delicate fingers she picked a single French fry off her plate and put it into her perfectly peach-pink mouth. "Who did you think I meant?"

I squirmed under her gaze. She was even prettier up close, I thought, and that only made her all the more intimidating. It was hard to think with those electric blue eyes resting on me, her full lips pulled into an amused, expectant smile, her elegant eyebrows forming perfect curious arches in her defined, angular face. She didn't even seem to blink. She just sat there, perfectly still, waiting for me to produce a coherent answer.

"Well…" To be honest, I wasn't sure either. "I don't know. Someone behind me?"

Wrong answer. The girl laughed. "There was literally no one behind you," she said with a flippant gesture. "I was trying to talk to you. Are you eating lunch with anyone yet?"

This time, thankfully, I had a good response. "Actually, yeah," I replied, hoping and praying Sunday and Dan would show up soon. Where were they, anyway? "I'm just waiting for them to get here, so…"

The girl looked around, then she shrugged. "I can wait with you," she decided. "What's your name, by the way? I don't think I've seen you around before."

Unable to hold her gaze, I looked down. "I'm Pearl," I said. "I'm new here, so, yeah…"

"Pearl!" she repeated. "Like the ones on your hair? That's so cute!" Smiling, she ran a finger over one of the pearl hair ties holding my pigtails, but her voice didn't reveal if she was being genuine or sarcastic. "I'm Felicia. It's so nice to meet you, Pearl!"

"Felicia," I muttered. A pretty name for a pretty girl, I thought and mustered up a smile. "Nice to meet you too?"

"Great! Now that we know each other, you should totally join us." Felicia rose from her chair. "Louie and Chelsea are waiting for me to come back."

I hesitated. "But my friends—"

"If they complain, you can tell them I kidnapped you or whatever." She picked up her tray. "Are you coming or not?"

I didn't move. My brain had officially run out of ideas, but I really, really, really didn't want to follow her into this obvious, obvious trap.

Felicia paused. Sat back down. Propping herself up on her elbow, she leaned forward across the table, eyeing me closely in every sense of the word.

Swallowing, I shied away, trying to regain at least some amount of personal space. "What?" I asked with a nervous laugh.

Felicia furrowed her brow ever so slightly. "Are you, like, scared of us or something?"

Bullseye. I laughed again, but this time it came out shrill and hysterical. "What? Of course not!" I babbled, barely knowing what I was saying anymore. "I mean, why should I be scared of you guys, right? That would be…"

"'Cause if you're scared, don't worry. It's not like we bite or anything." Standing up again, Felicia grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me up with her. "Come on, it's literally just for today. My friends are waiting."

Helpless, I gathered my tray and followed her like a lost duckling across the cafeteria. In passing I caught Sunday's eye, who gave me a look of total confusion, but the only thing I could do was shrug helplessly and hope she'd understand. Felicia slid back into her seat between the other two girls, and I awkwardly sat down across from them.

"Um, hi," I offered with an awkward smile and wave. Maybe, I thought, trying to be nice would make this whole situation a little less bad.

The dark-haired girl didn't make a response; she only regarded me with sharp, unreadable black eyes. The ginger, meanwhile, gave me a good-natured smile. "Hello," she replied, drawing out the word a little.

"See? I told you she'd come over," Felicia told her friends. "Guys, this is Pearl. Be nice to her, she's new here."

Both girls giggled in a way that promised nothing good. "Pearl, this is Chelsea," Felicia continued, turning back to me as she motioned to the brunette. "And this is Louie."

"Nice to meet you," said the ginger she had pointed to. "You're new here, so you're a freshman, right?" She looked surprised. "I didn't expect that, you look older."

I let out a nervous laugh. "I'm not a freshman," I answered. "I'm a junior, actually. I just moved here over the summer."

"So you're in the same grade as us! That's awesome," Felicia said with a smile that blurred the line between honesty and sarcasm. "Where did you move from?"

I looked down, wishing I had a more interesting story to offer. "Not that far," I admitted. "Just the countryside."

"Wow! For real?" Louie answered, wide-eyed. "I've never met anybody from the countryside! Are your parents cousins?"

"Louie!" Felicia and Chelsea chided in unison, just as I let out a startled laugh.

She blinked again. "Did I say something wrong?"

"You don't just ask people that," Chelsea hissed. "It's super rude!"

But I only laughed. "Don't worry, it's no big deal," I answered. "My parents aren't related. People don't really marry their cousins anymore, not even in the middle of nowhere."

"Oh." Louie's eyes grew round with understanding. "But you did live on a farm, right? With cows and horses and stuff?"

Chelsea turned away in obvious embarrassment. I tried not to laugh again. "Sorry, no," I said. "We just lived in a regular house. My dad managed the local supermarket."

Louie pouted. "But what's the point of living on the countryside if you can't have cows and horses?"

"They didn't, that's why they left, silly," Chelsea deadpanned. "What do you think?"

"Oh! That makes sense."

Shaking her head at both of them, Felicia cracked a smile as she faced me again. "You're probably wondering," she said, "why we invited you to have lunch with us."

Whatever tension had left my body while talking with Louie returned to my body full force. "Um, yeah," I admitted. "Why?"

"I saw you talking to Brandon Prince earlier."

Felicia leaned forward again, her icy blue eyes observing every detail of my reaction. I inched back in my seat, suddenly feeling less like an invited guest and more like a defendant facing the judge and prosecution.

Except…I had no idea what she was actually talking about.

"Me?" I asked, and then, "Who's Brandon Prince?"

Eyeing me closely, she pursed her lips before relaxing a little. "She doesn't look like she's lying," she said in an undertone to Chelsea. Towards me she added, "So he didn't tell you his name. That's good."

I only stared at her in complete and utter confusion, trying and failing to follow her train of thought.

"I'm sorry," I said, "but what exactly are you talking about?"

"Brandon Prince. The guy who saved you on the stairs," Felicia replied with a roll of her eyes, and my face heated up at once. "Oh, so now you know who I mean! He's so hot, isn't he?"

He was, but this felt like a trick question. "I…I guess?"

"He totally is. And his personality, isn't he, like, so swoony?"

Yes. Yes, he was.

"I…don't know," I replied. "I only talked to him for one minute and then he left."

"Let me tell you something."

Felicia was all up in my face again. And this time, she wasn't smiling.

"I've known Brandon Prince for a while," she hissed across the table. "I know what he does to girls. But let me tell you, he is not hot and he is not swoony. Brandon Prince is the absolute worst."

Our brief encounter on the staircase instantly flashed back through my head. Brandon catching me, calling me princess. Warning me with a smirk to be careful in the future.

Just for a second, I really had felt like a princess. I had felt like all the heroines of my favorite novels that I so badly wished I could be like.

"Okay," I said quietly, not knowing what else to say.

"Okay! That's all." Getting out of my space, Felicia put on an abrupt smile. "Just…do yourself a favor and don't try to go after him. Deal?"

I didn't like this suggestion. At all.

But if I agreed here, what did I have to lose? Brandon would never seriously go after someone like me, awkward and unstylish and too chubby to be cool.

So, reluctantly, I nodded. "Okay," I said again. "Thank you?"

"You're welcome." Felicia's smile seemed to grow a little more genuine, but the eternal icy undertone still hadn't disappeared. "Anyway, isn't it time you go back to your friends? They must think you ditched them or something."

Dazed, I gathered my lunch tray and made my way back to Sunday and Dan, still trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.