Free If Only You Knew by Denene Millner

that heiffa that Sydney was mad at the world again, with Lauren back out in the doghouse. Normally, Lauren wouldn’t really give two buckets about Sydney’s attitude, but, right about now, her sister was the only person on the earth who knew all the intel on the West End saga. So she kinda needed not to be on Syd’s shit list (though she’d never admit that mess out loud). She wasn’tsure if going after Dara would get Sydney to snap out of her funk, but it was worth a try. Besides, Lauren needed to get back at her for getting all flip in the lip with her in front of the squad and half the student body while she was getting her shine on.
    Forget what you heard: This was Lauren’s damn house, literally. Altimus had seen to it. The year before the twins made their way from Harbor Montessori Middle to Brookhaven, Altimus, at Keisha’s direction, contributed $150,000 to his daughters’ future school, half of which Brookhaven officials quickly dedicated to a fund created specifically to benefit the schools’ cheerleading squads. The donation came with the strong “suggestion” that a building be erected in honor of the dance squad, and, of course, its generous benefactor. The wall in the clubhouse made very clear who ruled the edifice: A month before the twins began their freshman year at Brookhaven, the janitorial staff, at the direction of Brookhaven’s vice chancellor and dance squad faculty advisor, painted the inside walls hot pink with light pink polka dots in Lauren’s honor and hung portraits of the past dance squad captains in order of service, with a spot reserved for whichever Duke girl would be anointed dance squad captain. Lauren’s picture went up in her sophomore year, smack in the center of all the others at the head of the room (double the size of all the others, of course). Shoot, the name on the façade said all anyone needed to know—itwasn’t called the Duke House for nothing. Of all people, Dara should have known better than to disrespect the legacy.
    So on this day, as the dance squad prepared to move the crowd at the football game against College Park High, Lauren’s mission was to remind everyone, but especially Dara, just who the hell was in charge. She was going to absolutely obliterate her ex-best friend’s rep at Brookhaven—so let it be said, so let it be done. Lauren dabbed some Bare Escentuals nude gloss on her bottom lip, rubbed both lips together to spread the shine, then went in for the kill. “Are ‘honey blonde streaks randomly dispersed throughout jet-black Hawaiian silky-past-the-shoulder-blades’ hot now? Really? Wow,” Lauren said wryly to her audience. Cassie and Inga howled so hard they practically had to hold each other up.
    â€œAnd her decision to pair the Catherine Malandrino knockoff mini with those nurse shoes was, um, interesting,” Lauren piled on, speaking slowly to make sure the duo could give a friends-and-family encore performance of her Dara disses. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but just because the tag says ‘Prada’ doesn’t make it so. Carrying bootleg handbags is against some kind of town ordinance in these parts, isn’t it? Really, she needs to put it back in her broke-ass mama’s closet, or somebody needs to call in the law, or both.”
    â€œOh, my God,” Inga said between gasps. “Stop. It. Now. I can’t go on—I can do no more.”
    â€œFor real, you know you wrong,” Cassie added, carefully rubbing tears from her eyes so as not to disturb her freshly applied mascara and eyeliner.
    â€œNo, Dara’s wrong for showing up to dance rehearsal with an unauthorized makeover a few hours before our game,” Lauren snipped. “I really was about to have a Naomi Campbell, hit-a-bitch-with-a-cellphone moment, but, lucky for her, my new iPhone is acting up.”
    â€œDon’t you mean your mother confiscated