Westridge Academy, Part Three

Amelia was barely awake.

Like a lot of other Westridge girls, she set her alarm for 7 AM. It gave her a reasonable amount of time to shower, put on her uniform, and grab a quick bite in the dining hall before her first class of the day. Amelia had gotten as far as turning off her alarm and tossing off her covers when Ashley knocked.

“Ugh . . . ” Amelia groaned to herself. She had never really been a morning person. While she always got up right when her alarm went off, rather than snoozing it like some people did, that didn’t mean she liked getting up early. That was why she preferred showering to start the day, as she usually felt more awake and refreshed by the end of it.

The private dorm room she had been given made the whole schoolgirl experience more tolerable, as it would have been both a little sketchy and incredibly awkward to share a room with a teenager. Most of the students had roommates; Ashley clearly used her front office access to set Amelia up with a space that was normally reserved for girls that had a unique circumstance where having their own room was better.

Of course, it wasn’t really private when both Ashley and Claire had a key. She couldn’t really complain about Claire, as pretty much all the prefects had a master key for emergencies and to help out girls who accidentally locked themselves out, though Claire was the only prefect who knocked once and proceeded to let herself in until Amelia proved she could do her own morning routine. However, it really didn’t make sense for Ashley to have such access; being ‘cousins’ wasn’t a good enough reason.

This was obviously not a normal boarding school situation, so Ashley had been able to keep a key for herself as easily as she had been able to register Amelia as a transfer student. “Coming in!” she announced. Without any more warning than that, she unlocked the door and slipped inside.

“Wait!” Amelia exclaimed. Her sleepwear consisted of underwear and a loose tank top, as that’s all she really had. Outside of her uniform and the plain panties/cami she wore underneath, she had only been given a small collection of tank tops for the evenings. Since sleeping in a dress shirt would be uncomfortable, and sleeping topless wasn’t appropriate for a girl ‘her age,’ this was what Ashley had settled on. Amelia suspected the real reason was that trying to leave campus would be a lot more difficult if she didn’t have any regular clothes.

Ashley giggled as she took in the sight of Amelia sitting on the edge of the bed. Legs completely bare save for the simple white panties, chest practically nonexistent underneath the not so flattering tank top, and a serious case of bedhead that would normally be fixed with a shower upon waking up. “Millie, we’re cousins,” she said, “You realize I’ve seen you in less than this, right?”

True. At the end of her first day at the academy, they had a whole conversation while Amelia was wearing nothing but a towel after the shower she had been convinced to take after being informed that she was stuck on campus due to it being after curfew. Though that didn’t necessarily make it easier this time around, especially when it was quite literally a rude awakening.

Knowing better than to argue, as she didn’t want to rock the boat when she was so close to the test she had been waiting for, Amelia just mumbled, “Whatever.”

She got up, heading to her closet to grab a clean skirt. Hopefully she’d still have time to shower; for now, she just wanted to cover up in a way that didn’t blatantly look like she was embarrassed to be seen like this. Doing her best to be efficient without looking desperate or rushed, Amelia pulled the plaid garment on as she waited for Ashley to get into why she was there in the first place.

“I thought you might want a big girl drink on such a big day,” Ashley said. She held up a disposable cup from the school’s coffee cart, complete with a to-go lid on it.

Amelia had assumed the drink had been Ashley’s, until now. She was simultaneously tempted and suspicious. Only the high school girls were allowed to purchase coffee. Something about not wanting to get the younger students unnecessarily hooked too early. It was probably more about keeping the well paying parents happy than anything else, as tuition brought in more money than coffee sales. Unlike the dining hall, which was ‘free,’ girls that wanted coffee had to buy it.

While Amelia very much missed her daily caffeine, however, she assumed there would be strings with anything Ashley offered her. That, or she was paranoid, since Ashley was low key intimidating while also clever enough to trick her into being a boarding school student.

Sensing her hesitation, Ashley shrugged. “I can throw it out if you don’t want it. Or if you don’t like vanilla cold brew.”

Amelia loved vanilla cold brew. Which only made her so skeptical, since there was no way Ashley made such a lucky guess. “Just- give me a minute.” Rather than accepting or declining right away, Amelia stalled by pulling out one of her clean dress shirts and pulling it on over the cami. She had been halfway through getting dressed anyway, and felt particularly self conscious when contrasted with Ashley, who was standing there in full uniform and better curves than Amelia would ever have.

“Millie, what are you doing?” Ashley asked. Strutting over, she took the petite blonde’s hand and walked her towards the bathroom. “Deodorant first. And wash your face before putting your uniform on, or your clothes might get wet. Have you even brushed your teeth?”

“I was going to!” Amelia replied. It wasn’t her fault Ashley had knocked the second her alarm went off. Everything her ‘cousin’ just listed was part of Amelia’s routine that ideally included a shower. That was looking less likely with every passing second, since it didn’t make a lot of sense to get dressed only to strip back down.

“Mm hmm. Show me that you know how to get ready for the day, or Claire’s going to have to start supervising you again.”

Resisting the urge to sigh, Amelia did as she was told. Keeping the dress shirt unbuttoned for the time being, she quickly yet thoroughly washed her face and grabbed the girly pink stick of deodorant for a few passes over her armpits. As she proceeded to brush her teeth, and braced herself for braiding her messy blonde locks, it never once crossed Amelia’s mind that she was doing this for the sake of proving that she could do all of it herself.

Though this morning was supposed to be about passing every subject in the impending aptitude test, Amelia’s extended stay at Westridge was starting to make her think more like a student trying to earn her continued independence rather than a young adult trying to earn her freedom.