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starshua · 7 years

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fixation

k.sy x l.jh

word count; 2.4k

synopsis; Soonyoung spends a lot of time staring at Jihoon. Jihoon spends even more time pretending like he isn't doing the same thing.

✎ i started writing this on a whim without any clue as to its contents, characters, or conclusion. i hope you enjoy the mess that i came up with. big thanks to emmy @shuvee and kura @caratvocals for going over this before posting. you can also find this on ao3.

Soonyoung often wonders if meeting Jihoon was more destiny than chance.

Jihoon is everything Soonyoung has ever dreamed of. He may be less than five and a half feet of thinly veiled irritation, but he is more incredible than anyone can possibly understand. He’s kind, though he would never admit it, and cares so strongly it almost stuns Soonyoung. He’s passionate, overwhelmingly so, and pushes himself to do better than his best. He has so little regard for himself it would be almost damning if not for Soonyoung's watchful eye.

If you ask him, Soonyoung will deny the amount of time he spends staring at Jihoon. No, he claims, he hasn't noticed the disappearance of Jihoon's formerly bleached hair, nor has he ever paid any attention to the way Jihoon's laugh has grown less and less restrained as the years have progressed. He’ll feign ignorance even if one mentions the time Soonyoung sprinted down a flight of stairs just to catch the jacket that was about to fall from Jihoon’s grasp, or the time Soonyoung drove to Jihoon’s house at two in the morning to make sure the boy was actually asleep instead of pulling his fourth all-nighter in a row (and he was, which made Soonyoung just about lose what little sanity he still had left). No, he always says, I don’t pay particular attention to him. I do this for all of my friends.

To an extent, that’s true. Soonyoung is incredibly devoted to all the people he holds dear. Seokmin can’t even count on one hand the times that Soonyoung has caught Seokmin to hand him his forgotten backpack after class; Chan couldn’t even imagine a dance session without Soonyoung’s helpful advice; Wonwoo isn’t sure he would even have so many friends if it weren’t for Soonyoung’s friendly openness to the awkward, bookish new kid that couldn’t figure out how to say hello to anyone.

For most people, Soonyoung is a tremendously positive force. He recognizes this to an extent, but whenever anyone mentions that maybe, just maybe, he’s good for Jihoon, too, he rejects the idea before it’s even fully formed.

Maybe it's because Soonyoung doesn't know that Jihoon is fixated on him, too.

All of Jihoon's friends know—it'd be hard not to, really. Jihoon spends just about every day gazing off toward Soonyoung, trying (and failing) to be subtle about the direction his thoughts are drifting.

The boy they know now is hardly anything like the one that they met all those months ago. That change in him, they think, is because of Soonyoung.

In the beginning, Jihoon was decidedly antisocial. At first, they thought that he was just sort of an asshole, but after about a week of Soonyoung’s observation, he was labeled as “painfully awkward,” and the group made an effort to be more welcoming. Still, his introversion persisted, and the group had nearly given up on the boy. Soonyoung, though, had already decided that there was something in him worth pursuing.

His methods were not imitable. The others were gentler with Jihoon, but Soonyoung had apparently decided that going easy on the boy was not going to do much good. So, in typical Soonyoung fashion, he walked right up to Jihoon, stared the shorter male in the eye, and announced in a booming voice, “You’re an asshole.”

Jihoon had stared at Soonyoung incredulously before sputtering out, “I-I am not??”

Soonyoung had grinned at Jihoon and shrugged. “Prove it,” he had told the smaller, who appeared ready to punch Soonyoung right in the nose.

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” he had asked, irritation written all over his face.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Soonyoung had drawled. “Maybe be my friend?”

Jihoon had blinked once. Twice. Thrice. Soonyoung had held his hand out to Jihoon, who still couldn’t quite believe that this was really happening.

“…Why would I do that?” Jihoon had asked. It was a valid question, really, considering Soonyoung’s rudeness. Still, Soonyoung had smiled unabashedly and gestured to his friends, who were watching the scene with varying degrees of embarrassment written across their faces.

“Because I think all of my friends would also like to befriend a certain grumpy new classmate, but they lack the shamelessness that I possess, so progress has been slow and I’ve grown sick of waiting,” he had begun.

Jihoon had looked around at the sheepish faces of Soonyoung’s friends and remembered all of their attempts to talk to him over the past week or so.

“Oh,” he had said stupidly, because what else was he supposed to say? He had thought that they were just pitying the new kid.

Jihoon, as Soonyoung would discover, lacked a considerable amount of self-worth. He couldn’t fathom why, but he also couldn’t understand a word of what came out of their math teacher’s mouth, so the incomprehensibility didn’t surprise him. Still, he swore to do everything in his power to get Jihoon to see himself how Soonyoung did.

Soonyoung, Jihoon would discover, was relentlessly persistent. Their friendship, despite its odd foundations, quickly blossomed. They were an unlikely pair, really—Soonyoung was so outgoing, so reckless, and seemed altogether too chaotic. Jihoon was quite the opposite—he was quiet, thoughtful, and managed to put all of his feelings into the music he produced rather than in his actions. Now the music—that was something they were equally passionate about. They were creators, albeit with different mediums, and they were able to understand each other in ways they likely never would have without music.

Jihoon likes to watch Soonyoung dance. It’s mesmerizing, really; the way that boy moves should be considered an art form all on its own. Soonyoung is an art form, Jihoon thinks, though he’d deny it if anyone asked. No one will ask though. Despite his warming up, he’s still a force to be reckoned with, and he will undoubtedly kick anyone in the shin if they cross him. No one needs to ask anyway. The way Jihoon feels—it’s so evident it’s almost painful. The way Jihoon stares at Soonyoung when he’s really lost in the music—if love had a definite look, well, that’d be it.

Love is not something either boy is familiar with. This, too, is painfully obvious to just about anyone and everyone. Soonyoung is much better at expressing his affection through his actions, but when it comes to words…well, Chan would (and has) called the sight pathetic. Jihoon, as good as he is with words, can’t ever seem to get them past his throat. It’s gotten bad enough that, upon seeing the two together, Jeonghan will occasionally just sort of…scream. It’s incoherent and, honestly, a little concerning, but Seungcheol always tells them to pay it no mind as he gingerly pats his anguished friend’s back.

For all of Soonyoung’s rowdiness and energy, he thinks he could sit and watch Jihoon make music forever. At first, their friends tried to stop him from tagging along with Jihoon when he went to record something. How could Soonyoung, who can’t even sit still for more than five minutes, possibly be anything but a distraction?

They were surprised when Jihoon stopped them. They didn’t know, of course, that it wasn’t the first time Soonyoung had accompanied Jihoon to his studio. The first time had been an accident, really. Soonyoung had been tasked with bringing something or other to Jihoon after the latter had forgotten it at school and Mrs. Lee, who had been preoccupied, requested that Soonyoung bring it down to Jihoon himself.

What he saw there was something he’ll likely never forget. The sight was ordinary, sure, but with Soonyoung’s rose-colored vision, it was anything but. Jihoon, scribbling strings of artful phrases and mouthing countless more, bent over and so focused that, for a moment, Soonyoung could do nothing but stare. The younger had been so absorbed by his work that he hadn’t even been aware of Soonyoung’s presence, and Soonyoung, not willing to snap Jihoon out of his trance, closed the door and waited. He must have sat there for thirty minutes before Jihoon even bothered to look up. (It was worth it, he thinks, because Jihoon screeched in surprise and it was adorable hilarious.)

Since that time, Soonyoung has often found himself in Jihoon’s studio. He watches his friend silently pour out his heart and soul onto crinkled pages, unable to focus on anything but the way the younger looks as he worries his lip between his teeth and hums a tune all his own. It’s there that he starts to wonder if this is what love feels like. He hopes not because, gosh, is his heart supposed to sting? Is he supposed to feel so lonely as he sits just a few paces away? No, he decides, this isn’t what love should feel like.

Love, he imagines, feels like Jihoon’s lips on his, hands intertwined, and hearts beating as one.

He wonders if Jihoon feels the same. All of their friends think so (yes, all of them, even Chan, who deems the concept of Soonyoung being in love to be gross), but that’s not enough to ease Soonyoung’s nervous heart. He tries to figure it out on his own, but Jihoon is unreadable. Soonyoung can feel the discomfort his outrageous displays of affection bring, so he stops. He can’t tell if Jihoon is thankful or not.

Jihoon doesn’t know what to do, what to think, what to feel. He doesn’t know if he’s ready to fall in love with someone, though he supposes that doesn’t really matter since he’s already fallen. But can he express it? He doesn’t think so. Neither does Joshua, who has tried his utmost to help Jihoon express affection without a grimace. Seokmin is more optimistic, but he also still believes that fairies are real, so Jihoon takes his friend’s hopefulness with a grain of salt.

Soonyoung’s feelings are another thing that Jihoon just can’t quite believe in. Wonwoo has told Jihoon about a million times that Soonyoung is painfully infatuated with him, but Jihoon can’t trust it. Why would anyone like him, much less love him? He can’t even begin to fathom why, but when he glances up and catches Soonyoung staring for the sixth time that afternoon, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, the fondness in his gaze is real.

It’s going to take a lot for Soonyoung to confess to Jihoon. Minghao, for one, is exasperated and would love nothing more than for the two to get together so he can stop being greeted with lovesick eyes every time he asks his friend for a pen. He devises a plan (though Junhui begs him not to) and suddenly Soonyoung and Jihoon are locked in a closet during a stupid party and, thankfully, it’s too dark for either boy to see the other’s cheeks flushing increasingly red.

Soonyoung is the first to speak. He’s nervous and stuttering and, god, have his hands ever been this clammy before? He rambles for a long time about how lame the party is and how dumb their friends are for not noticing that they’re stuck in this cramped closet. The chatter is starting to annoy Jihoon, who can’t for the life of him focus on anything else besides how soft Soonyoung’s lips look and how he wants nothing more than to just reach over and—

No, he tells himself, he is not going to kiss Soonyoung—not until that stupid idiot shuts the hell up so Jihoon can actually focus on what he wants to say when he confesses. But Soonyoung doesn’t shut up—of course he doesn’t, Jihoon grumbles—and with each meaningless, stuttered addition Jihoon loses a bit more of his cool.

“You know what?” he interrupts. Soonyoung, mouth still open mid-complaint, shakes his head. “Fuck this.”

Against his better judgment, Jihoon kisses Soonyoung. He throws all caution out the window and grabs the older by the collar of his stupid shirt and presses their mouths together and Soonyoung groans in surprise (oh christ, Jihoon thinks, that’s hot, why is he so attractive) before responding eagerly.

The kiss is a mess, Jihoon thinks, and a closet in Minghao’s house during a trashy high school party is just about the farthest place from where he wanted his first kiss with Soonyoung to be, but it’s already happening and the sounds Soonyoung is making are enough to make everything feel better than okay.

Soonyoung pours his heart out—how he feels about Jihoon, what he wants them to become, how beautiful and irreplaceable Jihoon is to him, how fast his heart is beating right now (and it’s true; Jihoon can feel it)—as he holds Jihoon’s face between his hands in that dingy closet, the taste of Jihoon’s lips still on his tongue.

When their friends finally open that closet door, they’re almost reluctant to leave. They do, though, because Seungkwan convinced everybody to chip in for a pizza, and because Minghao has been waggling his eyebrows at Soonyoung for an uncomfortable amount of time.

They leave early (though not before each boy is whisked away by their respective closest friends and begged for details), hand in hand, and spend the night on Soonyoung’s roof, hearts bared open and chests heaving. They talk about everything and nothing under the cover of night; it feels like eternity and infinity and destiny all wrapped into one. It’s overwhelming, Soonyoung thinks, but it feels fantastic.

Eventually, the night turns chilly and neither boy thinks that freezing to death under the beautiful sky is worth more than the other’s embrace, they climb into Soonyoung’s room and try to calm their rapidly beating hearts.

They explore each other that night. Jihoon discovers Soonyoung tastes like hope and green tea; Soonyoung discovers that Jihoon tends to whine and grasp weakly at Soonyoung’s wrists when the younger is about to reach his limit. Jihoon learns that Soonyoung likes to bury his face in Jihoon’s neck because he relishes in the sound of the smaller’s moans in his ear; Soonyoung figures out that his (and Jihoon’s) favorite place to leave hickeys is Jihoon’s inner thigh because, god, is he sensitive there.

They fall asleep with limbs tangled and skin flush against skin. The feeling is new, but neither is willing to shy away from it—not when it feels so good.

Waking up with Jihoon in his arms is something Soonyoung didn’t know he’d love so much. Nothing has ever felt more right to Soonyoung than the way Jihoon fits in his embrace. He tries not to get sappy all by himself, but with the boy he loves more than anything curled up against him, how could he be anything other than emotional?

Soonyoung doesn’t have to wonder anymore. As Jihoon’s gentle breaths fan against his bare chest, Soonyoung decides that meeting Jihoon was much more than just chance. Their initial encounter, the undeniable mutual fixation, their falling in love—that, Soonyoung believes, was destiny.

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dailynewswebsite · 4 years

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Happiest Season is the first LGBTQ+ Christmas movie from a major Hollywood studio and it’s receiving criticism – is it fair?

From Happiest Season to Booksmart, the movie trade is popping a nook relating to LGBTQ+ illustration Sony Photos

When the collective again catalogue of a movie’s solid and crew contains stars like Kristen Stewart, Schitt’s Creek’s Dan Levy and GLOW’s Alison Brie, you realize there’ll be a ready-made viewers ready in anticipation, regardless of the theme.

Make it a “heart-warming Christmas story” and also you get Hulu’s “greatest viewership for any authentic movie” attracting “extra new subscribers than another earlier function title”. However Clea DuVall’s Happiest Season, is slightly totally different in that it’s the very first LGBTQ+ vacation film from a significant Hollywood studio.

Despite 2020’s COVID-shaped dent in cinema releases – Happiest Season was diverted on-line due to the pandemic – the yr caps an unprecedented decade for LGBTQ+ illustration on display screen. From the Oscar-winning Moonlight to the critically acclaimed coming of age comedy Booksmart, movie is definitely turning a nook.

On-line and off, ‘tis the season for brand new views on Christmas, too. Netflix is following up 2019’s Let It Snow with A New York Christmas Marriage ceremony. The web site Etsy centres a homosexual couple in its 2020 Christmas advert. And Hallmark and Lifetime each launch their first homosexual Christmas movies this yr.

Popping out at Christmas

Unsurprisingly, Happiest Season’s central seasonal premise isn’t fully new. A lady invitations her companion dwelling to her tight-knit household. There are some awkward conversations about separate bedrooms, and later the revelation of a secret.

Learn extra: Movie has so much to study from TV relating to LGBT illustration

Despite its potential for beautiful camp, the vacation film has been foremost amongst genres for confining LGBTQ+ illustration to the homosexual greatest pal or sibling. Love Really minimize its would-be lesbian storyline and emerged a largely white and straight-washed Christmas story that feminists have beloved to hate ever since.

Movies, like ‘However I’m a Cheerleader’ managed to make a traumatic homosexual conversion remedy storyline each humorous and heartwarming. rawf8/Shutterstock

Happiest Season acknowledges the style’s simple heteronormativity by making a spectacle of it. However there’s a paradox on the coronary heart of DuVall’s bid to make a romcom premised on the painful means of popping out. A literal “trapped within the closet” gag will definitely get understanding laughs, however isn’t it slightly near the bone?

Jamie Babbit’s However I’m a Cheerleader – starring DuVall herself – managed to make a traumatic homosexual conversion remedy storyline each humorous and heartwarming. However a really specific set of expectations appears to be levelled on the vacation film, which isn’t nearly its seasonal setting (famously, Die Laborious is counted out) however its “spirit”.

New Queer Cinema

Queer movie and media makers who’ve ventured into this territory have usually chosen to disclose its contradictions and exclusions. In Desiree Akhavan’s Applicable Behaviour, Persian New 12 months is the setting for Akhavan’s protagonist Shirin to return out to her mom – or somewhat to attempt to fail.

Lena Waithe’s Emmy-nominated “Thanksgiving” episode on Grasp of None makes use of the cyclical nature of vacation celebrations to acknowledge that popping out is one thing that occurs over and over. And Pose’s Christmas episode embraces the long-held queer notion – for a lot of, by necessity – that a very powerful household is your chosen one. Evidently, none of those examples match the invoice for these on the hunt for an LGBTQ+ vacation film.

Happiest Season is a landmark movie for LGBTQ+ illustration, but it surely leaves different norms untouched. Sony Photos

How do you make a heart-warmer that takes its queer characters significantly and acknowledges that Christmas isn’t essentially joyful for everybody? DuVall calls Happiest Season a “common story from a brand new perspective”. However such claims have at all times created battle for queer administrators desirous to enchantment each to a subculture and to the mainstream.

The New Queer Cinema movementin the 1990s addressed this battle head on, exploring the necessity to signify the complexity of sexuality somewhat than tying it up in completely happy endings.

After I train this specific episode of queer cinema historical past, epitomised by bother makers who refused to enroll to acceptable narratives of LGBTQ+ love and romance, college students usually ask what’s incorrect with so-called optimistic representations that remember LGBTQ+ identification. In any case, we will’t take completely happy endings for LGBTQ+ characters without any consideration. Not so way back, they have been truly banned.

And but, “LGBTQ+ illustration” nonetheless usually stands in for “white and middle-class lesbian and homosexual illustration”, even below a brand new banner of inclusivity. Happiest Season is a landmark movie for LGBTQ+ illustration, sure, but it surely leaves different norms untouched. Sexuality intersects with gender, race and sophistication – on and off display screen. The whiteness and wealth of the protagonists won’t be commented on throughout the movie itself, however that doesn’t imply they don’t matter.

So is the issue that the movie remembers an all-too-familiar trauma, or that it makes all of it OK ultimately? That it’s prepared to acknowledge the difficulties of queer life, or that it smooths them over? That it tells one model of an LGBTQ+ Christmas story, or that it presents that story as “common”? Maybe the actual downside is {that a} burden of illustration means a single movie should declare to be “doing all of it”.

However on social media, the place a movie’s life is prolonged nicely past its personal operating time, queer commentary is lifting the burden. Re-imagining characters’ romantic destinies, discovering unlikely pairings and selling peripheral characters to stardom has lengthy been a part of the pleasure of fan tradition.

Twitter is alive with sizzling takes. Movies tagged “#HappiestSeason” on TikTok have been considered 40 million occasions and counting. You possibly can at all times rely on marginalised audiences to search out methods to confront the requirements and shortfalls of dominant tradition.

Clara Bradbury-Rance doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that will profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/happiest-season-is-the-first-lgbtq-christmas-movie-from-a-major-hollywood-studio-and-its-receiving-criticism-is-it-fair/ via https://growthnews.in

#Growth News

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thesassybooskter · 5 years

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GOOD GIRLS LIE by J. T. Ellison: Excerpt & Spotlight

AVAILABLE DECEMBER 31ST 2019/ MIRA

Goode girls don’t lie…

Perched atop a hill in the tiny town of Marchburg, Virginia, The Goode School is a prestigious prep school known as a Silent Ivy. The boarding school of choice for daughters of the rich and influential, it accepts only the best and the brightest. Its elite status, long-held traditions and honor code are ideal for preparing exceptional young women for brilliant futures at Ivy League universities and beyond. But a stranger has come to Goode, and this ivy has turned poisonous.

In a world where appearances are everything, as long as students pretend to follow the rules, no one questions the cruelties of the secret societies or the dubious behavior of the privileged young women who expect to get away with murder. But when a popular student is found dead, the truth cannot be ignored. Rumors suggest she was struggling with a secret that drove her to suicide.

But look closely…because there are truths and there are lies, and then there is everything that really happened.

J.T. Ellison’s pulse-pounding new novel examines the tenuous bonds of friendship, the power of lies and the desperate lengths people will go to to protect their secrets.

Buy Online: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Apple Books

Add to Goodreads

Excerpt

THE WARNING

The room next to ours looks exactly the same, like it’s out of a sleek, modern hotel. The “something” Piper offers is a black satin sheath with a black lace overlay. Simple. Elegant. An Audrey Hepburn movie costume. She hands it over, the price tag still dangling from the collar. Rents can be paid with such a sum.

“You can keep it. I have another almost identical,” Piper says.

I demur and hand it back. “Thanks. I’ll take my chances with the dean.”

Piper shrugs and hangs the dress back up in the wooden wardrobe. “Suit yourself. If you keep your robe tight, maybe she won’t notice. It’ll be in your wardrobe with your uniform skirts—standard issue, everyone gets them. The seniors’ stoles are black with a white stripe, we lowly sophomores are blue. Freshmen are red—they stand out, trust me, I felt like I had a target on my back all last year—and juniors are dark green. Graduation stoles are different, multicolored based on your area of study, just like a college. I’m ready for the black-and-white stoles, they’re so much easier to match. Our blue—” she pulls the stole out of her gown; it is a sickly pewter blue and doesn’t work with her coloring at all “—is a pain, I look terrible in it. Though you can imagine how I clashed with the red last year. You will need to get some dressy clothes, though, we have a lot of formal events.”

She closes the wardrobe and faces me, looking me up and down with cool, inscrutable blue eyes. She would look severe if it weren’t for the freckles. They ruin the seriousness of her demeanor. She will always look like a girl, not a woman, even when she’s fifty.

“You might as well stick to black. It goes with everything, looks good under the robes, and your coloring is perfect for it.”

“Black. Right.” The color of mourning. I’ve been in black a lot recently.

“I’ll take you shopping if you want. There’s a nice little boutique around the corner. Next to the laundry, which is part of the restaurant where we eat on the weekend, Jacob’s Ladder. It has a pool table, too. It’s not exactly couture, but they’ll have a skirt or two that will work. What else do you need to know? Oh, stay away from the handyman. He’s a creeper. And remember not to walk alone along the back path through Selden Arboretum if you take the shortcut.” Her voice has taken on the warning edge I’ve already heard several times this afternoon.

“Not another ‘I won’t graduate’ legend?”

“Oh, no. The arboretum is haunted.”

“Haunted. A path? Ludicrous.”

“Seriously. It cuts through the woods, and a girl was murdered there.”

“How horrible. When?”

“Ten years ago. That’s when Dean Westhaven—the current Dean Westhaven, I mean—took over from her mother. It’s why she’s so young. She was only twenty-five when it happened. The board sent Westhaven the elder packing over the bad PR. The student, Ellie Robertson, she was the heir to some massive New England fortune, I don’t remember whose. Her dad has serious pull and, after the whole incident, got the dean removed.”

“The incident? That’s a mild word for a murder.”

“The school’s verbiage. They’re always in publicity mode. Ellie had been complaining to anyone who would listen, the dean, school security, teachers, about a townie who was stalking her and the dean didn’t do anything about it. One night, late, the guy followed her home from the laundry and killed her behind the dorms. Raped her, too. There are varying stories about the damage he did to her face, but supposedly, he carved out her eyes and took them home with him. They found them on his mantel. Really freaky shit.”

An intense shiver goes down my spine. “I’ll say.”

“So seriously, you never walk the arboretum path alone. Even if it’s not haunted, it’s creepy and not safe. It’s outside the walls.” This last is said with such earnestness I simply nod.

“Outside the walls equals not safe alone. Got it.” “And stay out of the attics. They’re totally haunted. Supposedly, one of the secret societies found several sets of infants’ bones up there a few years ago, in between the ceiling and the wall. I don’t know what they were doing there.”

“The society?”

“The bones. They were probably the children of some of the girls who lived here, stillborns and the like. You’d think they’d bury them, the graveyard is actually pretty cool.”

“Brilliant. Haunted attics with infant bones in the walls. This sounds like a stellar place.”

“Well, Goode is old, and when you get old, you get weird. Oh, I almost forgot, be careful in the tunnels.”

“The tunnels?”

“There was an Underground Railroad through here. You know what that is, right?”

“Vaguely. To do with slavery, yes?”

“We were a safe haven from the plantations down South to the free North. Pretty cool. The grounds are littered with tunnels and old cottages, but they’re totally off-limits. They’re dangerous, and most of them have collapsed in on themselves.”

“Where would I find one?”

“I don’t know, actually. I’ve only been told to stay away.”

The deep, resonating peal of a very old bell shudders through the building, making me jump nearly out of my skin.

Piper intones, “For whom the bell tolls… Don’t worry, Ash. You’ll get used to it. Even when the hauntings happen, the bells toll and chase away the ghosts. They don’t like the noise.”

She smiles, and I feel a spark of hope. She might be a friend, eventually.

“I can’t imagine why not. It’s unbelievably loud.”

“It’s really not to chase away ghosts. It’s so we never try to use not hearing the bell as an excuse for being late.”

“Right. Brilliant.”

Camille sticks her head in the door. “Are you two coming? You heard the bells, we’re going to be late. Ash, why haven’t you changed yet? Hurry! I don’t want JPs on my first day!”

“JPs?”

“Judicial points. It’s like demerits. Get five and you’re stuck in Saturday school. Hurry!”

Mum’s voice rings in my head. Pride goeth before the fall…

“Hey, Piper? Thanks for the warning, and the offer of the dress. I would appreciate borrowing it. But just for today, until I get some of my own.”

“Sure thing,” Piper says, handing it over. I run back to the room, strip, and throw the dress over my head, careful to make sure the price tag is tucked into the collar. I fully intend to hand it back after dinner, though I should probably have it cleaned. The trainers I’m wearing will not do. I have a pair of black flats tucked away in my bag, shoved into the shafts of my beat-up Dr. Martens. I dig through the bag; the boots are at the bottom. The second dong of the bell shakes the building, and by the third, I’m out in the hall, fully clothed, gowned, and shod, and we are racing down the stairs with the rest of the stragglers, out the back of Main Hall toward the chapel.

About J. T. Ellison

J.T. Ellison began her career as a presidential appointee in the White House, where a nuclear physicist taught her how to obsess over travel itineraries and make a seriously good pot of Earl Grey, spawning both her love of loose leaf and a desire for control of her own destiny. Jaded by the political climate in D.C., she made her way back to her first love, creative writing. More than 20 novels later, she is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with thrillers published in 27 countries and 15 languages. She is also the EMMY-award winning cohost of A WORD ON WORDS, a literary interview TV show. She lives in Nashville with her husband and two small gray minions, known as cats in some cultures. She thinks they’re furry aliens.

Website | Twitter | Facebook

GOOD GIRLS LIE by J. T. Ellison: Excerpt & Spotlight was originally published on The Sassy Bookster

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