Riverview School For Girls [GxG]

four

Riverview had four towers, jutting into the sky, piercing the clouds. They were once used as guard posts for knights. From the very top, there was a perfect panoramic view of the landscape; the acres of grassy land, the surrounding forests, the castle and all its secrets. Willow liked to imagine the knights roaming through the tower's spiralling staircases, lonely and bored as they protected the fortress from any intruders. Now, all these years later, the towers were home to the school's dormitories.

Willow, Sydney, Dahlia, and Val shared a dorm at the very top of the West Tower. Complaining about the trek up the endless flights of stairs was a daily occurrence between the friends, but Willow almost thought it was worth it for the view. The perfect slice of untouched British landscape; all green and natural and wild. Some nights when she couldn't sleep, she would sit at the windowsill with a blanket draped around her shoulders, watching the swaying forest doused in moonlight. She imagined it full of magic. Secrets and spells and curses. Mythical creatures who came out at night and claimed the forest as their own. Her imagination had no limits, and growing up in a grand castle like this only fuelled her wandering mind.

She used to think that the dorm was cold and uninviting. It was a round room, made entirely of stone, with a dome ceiling, and heaters lining the walls. Their beds were placed in a circle, centred around a big red rug with the school's crest on it. Over the years, Willow stopped seeing the dorm as a hostile place, but as one filled with warmth and laughter.

They each had a wooden trunk at the foot of their bed, and though Willow's was always neatly tucked away, the other girls' trunks exploded with clothes and books and makeup. Empty vodka bottles rolled out from beneath their beds, half-completed homework discarded at the windowsill, their shared basin surrounded by different brands of moisturiser and hair products. The dorm was always full of chaos; Dahlia stealing Val's clothes, Val stealing Sydney lipgloss, Sydney stealing Willow's homework. Bras strung up around bedposts, open textbooks littering the floor, a communal pile of tampons in a box by the sink.

Willow wasn't usually a fan of chaos, but after six years of it, she wasn't sure whether she would cope when the day finally came that she no longer lived with her three best friends.

"Will." Sydney called over, a toothbrush hanging out the corner of her mouth, dressed only in a pair of satin pyjama shorts. She was holding up two lace bralettes; one red, one pink. "Which one is sexier?" She gargled through a mouthful of toothpaste.

Willow finished buttoning up her shirt, glancing over disinterestedly, "I don't know; either." She shrugged, nudging Sydney out of the way to get to the mirror.

Sydney rolled her eyes, rinsing out her mouth and slotting her toothbrush into the jar by the sink. She stepped out of the way so Willow could stand in front of the mirror, watching her friend silently for a moment. "Well, if you were a boy-"

"I'm not a boy." She retorted, and heard Dahlia and Val snicker from the other side of the room, where Dahlia was perched on the windowsill, braiding Val's hair, who sat cross legged on the floor.

"Well, if you were attracted to tits then." Sydney threw her arms up helplessly, "Which would you find sexier?"

"Ask Dahlia and Val." Willow told her distractedly, pulling her hair out of her face and into a high ponytail. She pushed her glasses up her nose, spared one last look at her appearance to make sure she was presentable, and then turned away from the mirror.

"Go with the red." Val called over.

"Yeah, I like the red, too." Dahlia agreed.

"Thank you." Sydney grinned, tossing both the bralettes into her trunk and pulling a regular black bra on instead, "I'll wear it this weekend."