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A Girl Called Malice
Aurelia B. Rowl
It’s not easy being the Queen Bee. Alice Taylor should know.You know that girl. The one that the whole school’s social life seems to revolve around. Alice used to be that girl until she decided to quit sixth form college. Suddenly her ‘friends’ aren’t so interested in following her around and her attention-grabbing behaviour is about to get her kicked out of home. With nowhere to go and no one to turn to, her world starts spiralling seriously out of control.Only new friend Zac Newton seems to believe in her. Lifeguard and poolside hottie, Zac is quite literally her lifesaver. But then, he’s never met ‘Malice’, her mean-girl alter ego, and Alice wants to keep it that way. She knows this is her last chance for a fresh start until her past catches up with her at the worst possible moment.As everything Alice has worked towards comes crashing down around her, she realises that the hardest thing of all is being yourself…
It’s not easy being the Queen Bee. Alice Taylor should know.
You know that girl. The one that the whole school’s social life seems to revolve around. Alice used to be that girl until she decided to quit sixth form college. Suddenly her ‘friends’ aren’t so interested in following her around and her attention-grabbing behaviour is about to get her kicked out of home. With nowhere to go and no one to turn to, her world starts spiralling seriously out of control.
Only new friend Zac Newton seems to believe in her. Lifeguard and poolside hottie, Zac is quite literally her lifesaver. But then, he’s never met ‘Malice’, her mean-girl alter ego, and Alice wants to keep it that way. She knows this is her last chance for a fresh start until her past catches up with her at the worst possible moment.
As everything Alice has worked towards comes crashing down around her, she realises that the hardest thing of all is being yourself…
A GIRL CALLED MALICE
Aurelia B. Rowl
www.CarinaUK.com (http://www.CarinaUK.com)
Also available by Aurelia B. Rowl:
Popping the cherry
AURELIA B. ROWL
lives on the edge of the Peak District in the UK with her very understanding husband, their two fantastic children, and their mad rescue mutt who doesn’t mind being used as a sounding post and source of inspiration. She regularly wows them all with her curious, hastily thrown together meals when she gets too caught up with her latest writing project…or five!…and she has developed the fine art of ignoring the housework.
Aurelia writes Young Adult/New Adult crossover fiction and contemporary romance. To find out more about Aurelia, or check out which project she’s working on right now, you can visit her website: www.aureliabrowl.com (http://www.aureliabrowl.com)
This is the book that didn’t want to be written but with a lead character like Alice, I should have expected nothing less. At times Alice had me wanting to pull my hair out, refusing to let me inside her head, but she finally learned to trust me and allowed me write her story.
As ever, humongous thanks must go to my husband for keeping everything going on the home front, ferrying the kids to school and everywhere else and for holding the fort, especially in the run up to deadline when I locked myself away to get the words on the page. I guess I should also thank my children for letting me get on without too many distractions but it’ll be a few years yet until they’re old enough to read this book.
Massive thanks go to my fabulous editor, Anna Baggaley, for your patience and support while I struggled to get Alice’s story on paper. Your feedback and guidance has been invaluable and your praise and encouragement has bolstered my confidence and helped me to produce a story that I am very proud to have written. But yeah—phew —I’m glad it’s all done now…until the next book in the series, of course.
Thanks also to my good friends Jo and Sara, for listening to me complain when things weren’t going as well as I’d hoped and for coming up with various ideas (i.e. bribes like advent calendars and Thornton’s chocolate) to keep me motivated.
Speaking of friends, my ABCs have been there for me at every stage and I appreciate you all immensely. A special mention must go to Debbie Wentlein, of I Heart YA Books—alpha reader extraordinaire—so please stop by her blog and Facebook page and tell her I sent you. Unknown to Debbie, I changed a character’s name during the latter stage of edits and I hope Debbie likes the surprise. And then there are my ‘Antics’ who pick up the baton and read the books I write and help to spread the word.
I’d also like to give a shout-out to my fellow Carina UK authors to say how amazing you all are, especially Katlyn Duncan, Kierney Scott and Kerry Barrett for your input during the first draft. Thanks to the power of social media, a bunch of us are turning into a pretty tight-knit group made up of incredibly talented writers, across several different genres, and it is my privilege to consider many of you as my friends.
Many thanks must go to the wonderful staff at The Venue at Wimberry Hill for allowing me to explore and include their beautiful premises in Alice’s story. I would never have believed such a place could exist had I not seen it with my own eyes; I only hope I have done the place justice.
And finally to you, the reader; thank you for giving me this chance to write the stories I love and for welcoming characters like Lena, Jake, Zac, Alice, Flick, Nathan and the rest of the crazy gang from Popping the Cherry into your lives. I hope you can learn to forgive Alice as you embark on her story in A Girl Called Malice…
To my husband, Al, for being my best friend;
to my sister, Julie, for being my first friend;
and to Leonie, Andrew, Jo, Sara and Shona, for being fabulous friends for life…
Contents
Cover (#u98c566fd-064a-5ce4-a64b-c0daadd4f0ba)
Blurb (#u3c30895f-ef08-57ad-9726-20e36735189e)
Title Page (#u788814cb-572c-50a4-848f-164354baa192)
Book List (#u68e89ede-d9d6-55bb-bd5f-2340db87a8eb)
Author Bio (#u174e4378-81f9-5fd7-a15b-ab28cfd8536d)
Acknowledgement (#ua70b617c-e9fa-5254-b5d2-73c611d19eb2)
Dedication (#u081b3693-73b1-5c33-82c3-156c731f36ad)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Soundtrack
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter one (#u9781faa0-6a70-56ec-8afd-d4a4e807019b)
Alone
Alice Taylor, you’re an idiot.
My one and only day off work all week yet I’d been up since the crack of dawn, unable to sleep after a night of tossing and turning. Summer was officially over and the first day of Year 13—Upper Sixth—had arrived. To quote Rizzo from Grease, it was my time to ‘rule the school’.
Except it isn’t.
Instead of strutting my stuff and causing chaos and mayhem in my wake, I was hiding out in my mum’s sleek-but-forgettable car like some crazy stalker because my own car was too noticeable. In a half-arsed attempt at a disguise, I’d pulled my hair back into a kill-me-now ponytail and wore over-sized sunglasses to hide my face and cover my bloodshot eyes. What the hell was I even doing there?
Torturing myself; that’s what.
Since there was nowhere else I wanted to be, I just sat there, with the window cranked down an inch to stop my breath from clouding the windscreen and blocking my view. One bus after another came and went, but then three girls stepped into view causing my empty stomach to lurch. Nina, Petra and Caroline had arrived on the scene and they looked magnificent, all tanned and glowing with health.
A twinge of regret rippled over me as I wished I could be with them. They took up our usual position next to the main double entrance. We’d claimed it as ‘our’ spot on the first day of Year 12, what with it being the ideal place to check everyone out as they made their way inside. Every day, we’d tear the dweebs to shreds with a look or a catty remark and, ideally, we’d make somebody cry before the first bell.
The absolute best way to start any term and to set the standard, we’d let everyone know who we were. Putting other people down gave me a back-handed boost, making me feel like I was better than them somehow and it soon became my coping mechanism, especially on the days I’d had a fight with Mum. Not that I’d ever admit why I’d done it, nor could I confide in anyone, which meant it was now up to Nina, Petra and Caroline to continue my tradition.
So why weren’t they?
Scratch that: it was obvious they were too busy looking for me. Their three heads turned this way and that, glancing at every car arriving in the car park and peering into the last wave of buses as they pulled up. It was pitiful how lost they looked without me and so they should, I was their leader after all.
No…I’d been their leader but not any more.
For a year they’d hung onto my every word and did whatever I told them to do. Back-up in numbers was always handy when your sole purpose at college was to offend everyone. I happened to be particularly talented at rubbing people up the wrong way and my last day in Year 12 was sure to go down in college folklore. I’d known even then that I was jacking in college but I really wanted to go out with a bang. How else would I be remembered otherwise?
I didn’t want to be just another faceless nobody, I got enough of that at home, and Virginia’s total and utter humiliation had been top of my wish list. When her pathetic Operation: Popping the Cherry shortlist had landed at my feet, the stupid bitch hadn’t even realised she’d given me the ammunition I needed for her downfall until it was too late.
Bittersweet, that last day at college just so happened to be my finest moment to date: the day I’d finally knocked the virtuous Virginia off her pedestal and brought her squeaky-clean reputation crashing down around her. Virginia wasn’t her real name of course; it was just the nickname I’d come up with for Valentina, another girl in my year on account of her being a virgin and a regular goody-two-shoes.
At least that’s the image she portrayed, but according to two of her exes, Damian and Hayden, she was a total cock-tease, yet she had the nerve to call me a slut. It was no wonder they’d both come looking for me. You wouldn’t catch me getting a guy all hot and bothered and then withholding the goods. Far from it. As guys went, I’d had worse. In fact, Hayden and I now had a bit of a ‘friends-with-benefits’ thing going on; aside from the fact we weren’t actually friends and neither did I want to be.
Judging from Virginia’s total no-show, I could take some comfort that I wasn’t the only one whose sixth form college education was over. Pity it wasn’t enough to take the edge off the bitter aftertaste left in my mouth. I looked back at my friends among the swarms of losers and total nobodies in their bland uniform of jeans and tees and got my second twinge of regret in as many seconds. I should have been over there, adding a much-needed dose of glamour, not hiding out.
Petra’s gaze turned in my direction and forced me to duck even lower into my seat. Through the open window, the sounds of the first warning bell reached my ears and tugged on my resolve. All I had to do was show up for class and no one would be any the wiser. Well, aside from the fact I looked a mess and had a job these days.
Nina, Petra and Caroline shared a glance, then Caroline checked her phone but if there was any message there, it wasn’t from me. I could see her fingers moving as she typed something and my phone buzzed less than ten seconds later. Straight to the point, her text simply read,
‘Where R U?’
I started typing a reply but my fingers stilled when the words failed to come. Guilt crawled the length of my arms and made my skin prickle as if an army of ants was marching all over me. They were my only friends. They’d be gutted, or worse…What if they hated me for leaving them in the lurch? I should have told them I was quitting as soon as I’d made the decision but something had held me back.
When I did finally decide to tell them, they’d practically disappeared. I barely saw them over the summer holidays to the extent they didn’t realise I worked full time. Some friends. How exactly was I supposed to inform them that I was dropping out of college if they didn’t keep in touch?
Music blared from nearby and I lifted my gaze from my phone to see where it was coming from. A little black car drove into the car park and pulled up alongside me. Whoever it was had a decent taste in music and I couldn’t help looking across to see who was driving. I regretted it instantly when a familiar face came into view. The music shut off the instant Virginia cut the engine. She’d shown up for college after all.
Perfect.
Thankfully, she was too busy gathering up her stuff to notice me staring. For how long though? Little Miss Perfect was going to have to walk right by me and I couldn’t afford to be noticed, not when I was alone and in no fit state of mind for that sort of confrontation. Left with no other option, I flattened myself against the passenger seat and counted to thirty before I risked a peek over the dashboard.
Certain the coast was clear, I sat up fully and spotted Virginia on college ground as she headed straight towards Nina, Petra and Caroline, who straightened as Virginia approached. Nina, Petra and Caroline’s lips moved and their sneers were awesome but their words seemed to fall on deaf ears. Virginia sauntered past them with her head held high. The smug cow. Talk about rubbing salt into the wound. She had no right to be smiling, looking all happy while I was slowly dying inside, and she definitely had no right to walk past my girls as if they weren’t there.
At least I knew what to write in my reply to Caroline now. I snatched up my phone from where it had fallen into the footwell and typed, ‘You’re on your own this time, girls, I’m done with college. Give ‘Virginia’ hell for me’ then I hit send before I could change my mind.
Time slowed as I waited for their reactions. Acutely aware of my racing heartbeat, I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel in time with the pounding rhythm. I knew the exact moment my text arrived because Caroline immediately stopped scouring the grounds for me and stared at her phone. My pulse spiked and I sucked in deep breaths through my nose, keeping my mouth shut for fear of being sick.
This is it…my reckoning.
Of all the scenarios I’d envisaged, the one thing I hadn’t anticipated was the slow grin which spread across Caroline’s face. She quickly handed her phone to Nina whose jaw plopped open as she lifted her gaze, almost looking right at me. A flicker of emotion—sorrow, or disappointment, maybe even concern—swept across Nina’s elfin features but then it vanished, replaced by a broad smile.
So much for being gutted.
