GIRLS WHO GOSSIP!

🖤🩶🤍❤️

The girls had been waiting outside of the bathroom door. A bag of store-brand chips in Destiny's hands, and a pineapple sour strip hanging from Giselle's mouth. Their eyes widened when Lola stepped out, one towel wrapped around her hair, and another one around her body. "Jesus-" she gasped at her dormmates. "What's going on?"

"Deets." Destiny grinned. "Tell us everything."

Lola giggled and slipped a silk night gown on, a black one, while the other two took their seats on the redhead's bed like it's some kind of movie.

Giselle too, had been impatient, "Lols, come on!"

"It's like-" Lola checked the time before dropping herself on her bed, "five am! I have class in a couple hours, and I don't even know if I'm gonna be able to fall asleep!"

Her attempts at pushing the girls off were to no avail. Destiny threw a salt and vinegar chip in her mouth and snapped her brows together. "Girl be fuckin' for real! You just had sex and you talm 'bout classes?"

They laughed. Lola groaned and threw her head back on the pillow, sighing as she gave in slowly. "Fine, but like, I can't tell you everything."

"Why not?!" Giselle squealed around her sour strip, lips covered in sugar.

After Lola sneaked a chip out of Destiny's bag, "Because! That's like weird... and creepy." She crunched on the snack.

Destiny did the same. "No it ain't. I tell Gigi 'bout the sex I have."

"And I tell Des." Giselle added.

Lola puckered her lips and thought deeply. Her face flushed at the memories from two hours ago. How he held her, how his hands caressed her waist perfectly, and how hard he squeezed her thighs. She gulped, and the girls gave each other a look.

"Damn!" Destiny grinned suggestingly. "Was the dick that good?"

Giselle bursted into laughter. The end of her sour strip fell out of her agape mouth, and she fell off the bed. Her cackles echoed all throughout their story in the building. Destiny too, had joined her friend on the floor, slapping the carpet while trying to catch her breath over Giselle's continuous yelps.

"You two are evil!" Lola threw them a pillow and covered her red face with her duvet. She wanted to dive into the covers and disappear to a different universe.

Destiny wiped the tears on her waterline, coughing, "Whooo chile!" her laughter was close to a scream. Her shoulder had been smacked repeatedly by Giselle, who still could not get up. They had nearly choked on their spit, trying to pick each other up.

While Lola died on the bed, Giselle and Destiny died on the floor, stumbling as they crawled back on bed with tears in their eyes. "Lols I'm sorry!" Giselle tittered.

"Girl I'm sorry." Destiny added. "You was blushin' hard thinkin' 'bout sum, I just had to laugh." She explained as Lola slowly appeared out of the covers. Eyes glaring, teeth grazing shyly.

She scorned. "Rude."

Another wave of laughter hit Destiny, though this time it was short lived. She looked back at Giselle who was wiping her tears with the back of her hand, then back at Lola, "I'm dead."

"Do you want me to tell you everything or not?"

"Please do!" Giselle insisted.

A couple hundred sighs later, Lola did. She told them everything from the moment Jungkook picked her up at the gate, until the moment her carbonara got taken away. "It looked so good! And I couldn't even eat it!"

"You shoulda said fuck it." Destiny shrugged. "Why do men get to eat like pigs but women gotta take microscopic bites outta they food?"

The mood had simmered. Lola looked down, "Why is being a girl so fucking hard?" she sighed.

"It's not. Men just make it hard." Giselle uttered under her breath, though enough for the other two to hear. She was speaking from experience.

Humming, "Oh purr, you ate with that one." Destiny pointed.

Brooklyn was a busy place. Ambulance sirens passed by their college building every other minute. Although unsettling, it felt like home. Something everyone had gotten used to. Even on the thin line between night and morning, the borough was alive.

Shaking the feeling of utter despair, "Anyways. His ex was there too." Lola shivered.

"What?!" Both heads turned to the ginger, at once. Both pairs of eyes widened, brows raised, and jaws on the floor. Destiny held Lola's wrists, "Girl what?"

"Jungkook doesn't have an ex?" Giselle got on her knees, wobbling the mattress. Cold air blew in through the ajar window, curtains wavering.

Lola nodded at her friends. She licked her lips, the towel around her head fell down her back. She kicked it off her bed, "That's what Jungkook said too. But she said otherwise."

One look shared before hollering; "Who?!"

"Penelope." Lola pulled the freshly washed covers up to her shoulders, settling comfortably, and aching for even a second of sleep.

Gasps spilled out of their mouths. A sort of bothered demeanor oozing out of the them, Destiny hissed; "The fox-eyed, blonde bitch? She's back?"

"Fuck!" Giselle broke down upon Lola's nodding. It was as thought the two had been told something tragic. Maybe to them, the return of Penelope was tragic.

"Why her ass back?" Destiny's pierced brow raised suspiciously. She kissed her teeth and laid down. "She finna get smacked..."

There were a couple ideas Lola had, but curiosity had managed to overpower all of it. "Wait, why?" She questioned.

A long minute passed before anyone said anything. It was Giselle's stuttering that cut through. "She's just- ugh, she's just a fucking bitch!"

Humming in agreement, "Exactly." Destiny nodded. Finger in the air, as if to emphasize her friends words. "She the head bitch of all the bitches. Like, she will fuck you up over some boy who don't want her."

"It's a long story." Giselle explained. It was. They had spent only a year with whom they currently deem their enemy. Lola's forehead started to crease. How long could it possibly be? Giselle read her like a magazine and searched for the right words. "Just- her and Jungkook had like a one-time thing, and then she just claimed him as hers."

"Ratchet bitch." Destiny cussed under her breath as the memories of freshman year roamed her mind again. "She messed with damn near all of us."

"Messed, how?" Lola queried.

The two girls looked at each other. Not a single word was uttered, yet they had an entire conversation with their eyes. Destiny's brows lowered as Giselle's raised.

Chuckling softly, Lola stretched an arm in between their faces, waving up and now. "Hellooo? You two know I'm here, right?"

"Lols," Giselle started, "uhm-"

"Jungkook and Penelope fucked once but her raggedy ass was too delusional so she thought they was datin' so JK ignored her, then he met this other girl named Margot and he was kinda feelin' her but Penelope got jealous and spread a nasty rumour about Margot, so that poor girl had to leave for another college." Destiny cut her off.

She said it all it one breath... Or two. The point was, Lola had not expected to hear another girl's name in the process. Penelope was enough of a surprise, and now Margot?

"Margot?"

Nodding, "She moved to Queens. That's what we heard." Destiny shrugged defeatedly.

"Jungkook never talked to Penelope after that." Giselle added.

They told it like a fairy tale, though there were no fairies, and the only thing close to a tail were the questions following.

Lola pursed her lips and uttered the first one that came to mind. "So... What was the rumour?"

Sighs. Even more sighs. Destiny took upon herself, shame pouring out of her lips as if she was the one to spread the rumour. "That she has an STD."

It seemed to Lola, that last year was hell for them. Destiny and Giselle did love to overdramatize everything, though this felt too real to Lola. When she saw the look on Penelope's face, she knew that girl was capable of many things.

The lengths she was willing to go, people she was willing to sacrifice for a mere boy who couldn't care less about her feelings. It was clear. All of it was written on Penelope's forehead like it was what she was born to do. She existed for Jungkook.

Lola did not want to be like that. At least not as desperately. She still could not think about the way he filled her up. His body crushing hers.

She wanted to yell. Scream. At the top of her lungs. What was it about a boy that could turn girls against each other. Was it the sex? The body, his muscles? His eyes, how earthquakes happened within them, and how his black hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, how his eyes shut tightly, and mouth opened widely. The way he whimpered, and moaned, and manhandled her every inch-

"Fuck." Lola shook her thoughts away. She wasn't a good feminist either. Usually, she would never be on her knees this fast, this willingly. She licked her lips and cleared her throat. "That's fucked up."

Nothing Lola said was necessarily wrong, they were just not complete. It was fucked up of Penelope to spread a rumour about Margot, yet Lola could not help but imagine herself doing it. She would probably think she was right. Isn't that what anger and jealousy do? Make you think you are right for being evil, because you have your reasons?

Lola knew a thing or two about evil. She knew how it operated. First, it colonized your brain, and then your heart. An important distinction between evil and bad is the commitment. She asked herself the same question, over and over. Is it your thoughts that define you, or your actions?

To Lola, it was her actions. She had done evil things in the past, but had never thought of actually doing them. The time had come, and she had suddenly found herself in mud, digging soil with her own hands. According to her mantra, she must be evil.

"It is." Giselle hummed in agreement.

It had startled Lola out of her mind. Sometimes she could get trapped inside of it, like a maze.

"So yeah, that's why Margot changed schools. We don't even know if she's gonna be at homecoming."

Lola had been waiting for it. Homecoming. It was something she only watched on other people's stories, and Tiktoks. Now it was almost time, yet Lola wasn't sure if she wanted to go after hearing it all. Penelope was definitely going to be there, and she was definitely going to make it hell on earth if Lola went with Jungkook.

Destiny licked her fingers and crumbled the top of her chip bag before securing it with a hair clip. "I don't think she will. She was pissed at Penelope, like why would she wanna see that raggedy ass face again?"

"Mhm." Giselle hummed.

Destiny pointed a stern finger at Lola, "Just stay away from that hoe and you good."

It was needles. "She's already seen me with Jungkook. What if I'm her new enemy?" Lola questioned. She would be lying if she said she wasn't scared, even just a little bit.

"Yeah..." Destiny scorned. "Ion really trust JK either though. Don't wanna like, ruin the vibe, but he just ignores the girls he been with. That's what he did to Penelope, so if he does the same to you, girl, don't be surprised."

Lola shrugged it off. She did not want it to be true. To change the subject; "Penelope looked like she wanted to kill me." She stated.

Giselle chuckled, "Wouldn't put it past her."

"And she told me I shouldn't wear red because my hair is already too much."

A simultaneous gasp was heard. "Excuse me?!" Destiny brought a hand to her chest. So did Giselle, speechless. "No the fuck she didn't??"

"I know." Lola laughed, though her jaw clenched thinking of the moment again. "I wanted to grab her by the hair and drag her across the floor."

"You shoulda!" Destiny, now on her feet, punched the inside of her palm to motion a metaphorical beating she wanted to give Penelope. "Like this! That bitch!" Once she took her seat again, "Whatever. Can't waist my time on that sewer rat."

Cackling, "Remember the time she tried to drown me in the pool?" Giselle asked.

The two girls bursted into laughter, and Lola felt left out. "Wait what? Why?"

Giselle shrugged. "She's good friends with my sister, but for some reason never liked me. Then she just tried to drown me in the pool on the fifth floor."

"If I wasn't there she woulda lowkey killed yo' ass." Destiny forced through chortles and claps. "That's why she hate me too. I ain't never let her bullshit slide. Last year, she gave me a buncha crap 'cause I told her to hide that big ass fivehead, so I just hate her back."

They continued laughing, while Lola sat baffled. These stories they were telling, it all stemmed from an internal hate for women, though she could not deny it. Men hate women, but women hate them just as much.

"Well," Lola laughed it off and stood on her feet to plug in the hair dryer. "she's back so, you're gonna have to see that fivehead again."

Sobs bubbling in her mouth, Destiny pretended to cry. She buried her face in her palms, hitching over-dramatically, "Ion think I can handle it girl, I got megalophobia."

The three bursted into laughter. Their voices were heard in the next room, and the room after that. While Lola held her tummy, tearing up, trying to catch her breath, the other two threw themselves on and off the bed. Soon, their laughs were silent, and their faces wet. For the first time in a long time, Lola had laughed this hard. Maybe this is what girlhood was. Being a girl, and laughing with other girls.

Hours after simmering down, they had gone to sleep. Of course, Lola could not. She was tired, but her brain kept her up. Eyes wide open, a sigh escaping every other second. She wanted to cry.

It was time for class, anyways. Lola had started getting ready when Destiny started waking. She checked her phone first thing, jumping out of her bed. "Oh my fucking god?!"

Startled, "Jesus!" Lola gasped. Her teeth clamped on the toothbrush in her mouth.

Giselle had been scared awake. Her eyes shot open, "What the fuck Des?!" Voice still croaky.

On her phone screen was a message from a giveaway organizer. "I just won five tickets to Camila's concert at Barclays!"

"Camila Cabello?!" Giselle rose to her feet.

The three of them hovered over the phone as Destiny scrolled further. "Yup! I entered a giveaway just 'cause! Damn if I knew I woulda used my luck somewhere else!"

While Destiny scorned, -and Lola went on with the brushing of her teeth- Giselle's brow raised. "Des? Isn't Penelope like a huge Camila fan?"

Intrigued, "Where you goin' with this?" Destiny questioned. She was all ears, and all eyes.

"So... She'll definitely be there."

"Mhm."

Giselle's eyes fell on the redhead rinsing her mouth. "Lols? I hope you got time after class."

"Why?" The ginger questioned.

Destiny too, had been curious.

"We're gonna get you a red dress." The smirk on Giselle's face turned all kinds of gears in the other two's heads.

Destiny, wide-mouthed, "Oh you bad, Gigi!" Tittered.

🖤🩶🤍❤️