ELLE’S POV
Sleep had eluded me all night, my mind replaying Noah's smug face as I pushed him away. When morning came with headache hammers pounding behind my eyes—the price of tequila courage and public humiliation.
"Elle, our cab is here," my mother called out from downstairs, her voice cutting through my mental fog.
"Coming!" I yelled back, grabbing my backpack and rushing down the stairs of our small two-bedroom apartment.
Mom was already at the door, her chef whites crisp and clean despite being worn and mended in several places. The dark circles under her eyes matched mine, though hers came from working double shifts, not from drunk karaoke disasters.
"You look terrible," she said, frowning as we hurried to the waiting cab. "Staying up all night studying again?"
I managed a weak smile. "Something like that."
We both jumped into the car, the driver already familiar with our routine—drop me off first at DE-Fountain Academy, then take Mom to Bellini's where she worked as a chef. During weekends, she ran a cleaning service with a small team, and sometimes I sometimes joined them. The irony of cleaning the homes of classmates who called me "Fluffy" wasn't lost on me.
"Remember, I'm working late tonight," Mom said, checking her watch. "There's leftover pasta in the fridge."
"I'll be fine," I assured her, though "fine" felt like a distant concept after last night.
When we got to school, I dropped a quick kiss on her cheek and waved goodbye. The familiar weight of dread settled in my stomach as I turned to face DE-Fountain's imposing brick facade. Just another day in paradise.
My phone suddenly erupted with notification sounds, startling me out of my self-pity. I fished it out of my pocket to find the screen flooded with messages from the school group chat. Steeling myself for the worst—memes about my drunken performance, perhaps—I opened it.
Instead, I found an announcement about a musical contest happening this Friday.
Professional judges, cash prize, potential recording contract with a local studio. My heart skipped a beat despite myself. Music has always been my escape, my secret talent.
"ANNUAL DE-FOUNTAIN MUSICAL SHOWCASE!" the banner screamed. "OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS. JUDGED BY INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS."
I stared at the screen, a dangerous flicker of interest warming my chest. I didn't realize where I was going until I bumped hard into someone, my phone flying from my hand.
"Whoa, careful there!"
I looked up to see Lucas, one of the few genuinely decent people at DE Fountain. Unlike most of the trust fund babies here, Lucas actually acknowledged my existence without making it a joke.
"Sorry," I mumbled, mortified. "Wasn't looking."
"No harm done." He smiled, bending down to retrieve my fallen phone. As he handed it back, his eyes caught the contest announcement still lighting up my screen. "You thinking of entering?"
I snorted. "Yeah, right."
"Why not? You've got an amazing voice."
I stared at him in surprise. "How would you know that?"
His cheeks reddened slightly. "I, uh, might have been at the masquerade ball last night. That song you performed was incredible."
"Thanks, but I've had enough public performances for a lifetime," I said, attempting to step around him.
Lucas moved to block my path, his expression earnest. "Seriously, Elle. You should enter. That song you wrote? It was powerful stuff."
"After making a fool of myself yesternight at the masquerade party, I wasn't sure I could do that," I admitted. "Besides, no one at DE-Fountain likes me, so there's no way I'd win if they were to vote."
"What are you scared of?" he challenged, his eyebrows raised.
"Nothing," I shot back automatically. "I'm just being realistic."
Lucas leaned closer, lowering his voice. "The judges are external, coming from different schools and the industry. This isn't a popularity contest—it's about talent. And you've got that in spades."
I felt a pang of interest tugging at me. Maybe...
"Why are you encouraging the help to join the contest, Lucas?" a sharp voice cut through our conversation.
Benita Aldridge appeared beside us, her perfect blonde hair cascading over shoulders that carried the weight of designer clothes with practiced ease. As Noah's ex-girlfriend and queen bee of DE-Fountain, she'd always treated me like something stuck to the bottom of her Louboutins.
"Don't call her that," Lucas said, his normally easygoing demeanor hardening.
"What? Everyone knows she cleans toilets for a living," Benita said with mock innocence.
"My mother runs a cleaning service," I corrected, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. "And there's nothing shameful about honest work."
Benita rolled her eyes. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, scholarship."
"Elle has more talent than half the people who'll enter that contest," Lucas argued, surprising me with his defense.
"Please," Benita scoffed. "She embarrassed herself enough last night. Are you encouraging her to do it again?"
I decided to leave then, as I was in no mood to argue with Benita this morning. My weekend had been bad enough without adding another confrontation to the mix.
"She dared not join, Lucas, so let the Fluffy Elle be," Benita called after me, her voice carrying down the hallway.
That halted me mid-step. Fluffy Elle.
I turned around slowly, seeing Benita watching me with a smirk. That daring smirk that said she knew exactly which buttons to push to make me back down.
Something shifted inside me. The same something that had propelled me onto that stage last night before Noah ripped my mask off.
For music, I have the voice. What they want is music, not my face or body. I might not fit their beauty standards, I might not have designer clothes or a trust fund, but I had a voice that even Lucas had noticed. A voice that had the crowd cheering before they realized who was behind the mask.
Before I knew it, I found myself saying, "I will join."
Lucas and Benita's eyes widened, matching expressions of shock that would have been comical under different circumstances.
"What did you say?" Benita asked, her perfectly glossed lips parting in surprise.
"I said I'll join," I repeated, louder this time, feeling a strange exhilaration coursing through my veins. "The musical contest. I'm in."