Chloe King

Chloe King is a high-status senior at Trumbull Prep: a model for Crossroads Apparel, lead singer of the Perceived Slights, and president of at least half the school’s extracurricular clubs. Rich, gorgeous, and widely imitated, she occupies the center of the social world that leaves Lilith feeling isolated. Her public confidence is reinforced by a band and a crowd of friends who follow her, but her relationship with Lilith eventually unsettles the simple division between popular rival and outsider.

Identity and Social Standing

Chloe’s influence is visible in both the range of her activities and the ease with which other students take their cues from her. She is not only a performer but also a model and club president, while her band gives her another prominent platform. When the school announces Battle of the Bands as the prom theme, Lilith suspects that Chloe has persuaded the student body to choose it. Lilith’s suspicion draws on an earlier example of Chloe’s influence: she had made Thursday-night bingo fashionable among the in-crowd. To Lilith, even bingo’s popularity becomes evidence of Chloe’s ability to turn her own interests into schoolwide fashion.

Chloe’s presentation makes that status tangible. At school she shows a new angel-wing tattoo on her right shoulder to her boyfriend and friends. Later, she arrives in a red Escalade with her bandmates, all carrying similar expensive-looking patent-leather backpacks. For the competition, the band appears in coordinated outfits: white stilettos, colorful leather minidresses, and pastel-pink prom-court sashes. Chloe wears buttercup yellow and glittery gold eye shadow. These details frame the Perceived Slights as a practiced group whose polish is part of its public identity, not merely a collection of students taking the stage.

A Long Rivalry with Lilith

Chloe and Lilith have been enemies since the first day of elementary school, although Lilith cannot remember what began their conflict. By the time they are seniors, Chloe’s nastiness has lasted for more than a decade. Lilith has learned to ignore it when she can, but the hostility is not private: during homeroom, Chloe complains that something smells awful, and nearby students join in by pinching their noses while one mimics retching. Chloe’s insult becomes a group performance, with the surrounding class helping turn Lilith into its target.

The imbalance between them does not mean Lilith never pushes back. In the cafeteria, Chloe appears in Lilith’s path and taunts her by asking whether she found money on the street or came to beg for scraps. Lilith pushes past her, knocking Chloe’s tray down and spilling food and milk onto Chloe’s white suede minidress. Chloe responds by insulting Lilith’s mother and their poverty. The exchange makes their antagonism concrete: Chloe uses Lilith’s economic hardship to wound her, while Lilith’s physical act turns the confrontation into a direct clash rather than another insult she silently absorbs.

Their rivalry also has a musical dimension. Chloe is accustomed to winning, as Lilith acknowledges when she says that Chloe wins everything. The remark captures how Chloe’s public success looks from outside her circle: her popularity, accomplishments, and band seem to reinforce one another, leaving little room for Lilith to imagine that she could compete on equal terms.

The Rivalry Changes Through Music

The relationship begins to shift when Chloe hears Lilith’s band practicing during lunch. Chloe has taken a mental-health day and is crying when Lilith visits with homework. She says she had not expected Lilith’s band to be competition. The exchange complicates the established pattern: Chloe remains upset and resentful, but her reaction also shows that Lilith’s music has made her take Lilith seriously as a rival.

Chloe initially misunderstands the circulation of Lilith’s lyrics, believing Lilith herself passed around photocopies. Lilith recognizes that Chloe is not lying about what she believes, which tells her that Chloe was not responsible for distributing them. That moment does not erase their hostility, but it gives Lilith a reason to distinguish Chloe’s actual actions from the suspicion surrounding the copied lyrics.

At Chloe’s home, Lilith notices a song title, Managing My Social Status, and suggests that they write it together. Chloe protests that she does not need a reminder of Lilith’s superior songwriting, then asks for her guitar. Lilith hands it over, and Chloe smiles gratefully. Lilith sits on Chloe’s bed, surprised by its softness. The scene replaces the familiar public contest with a small act of shared creative work: Chloe’s guitar and Lilith’s songwriting become things they can use together, even as their competitive difference remains openly acknowledged.

Performance, Recognition, and Defeat

At the Battle of the Bands, the Perceived Slights arrive to a roaring response from the Trumbull crowd. The band moves confidently under the lights, greeting the audience and taking their places at their microphones as though they have played venues far larger than the Colosseum. Their matching clothes and coordinated stage presence reinforce the professional image that their popularity has built. Chloe addresses the crowd as representatives of Trumbull, and the audience answers with another roar.

Lilith’s own performance offers a contrast. She steps into the spotlight with shaking knees and a pounding heart, counts the band in, and begins playing. Cam’s guitar joins hers; the musicians play together, and he later finds harmonies with her that they had never rehearsed. As Lilith sings and plays, her mother and brother dance in the crowd. The scene gives her a public performance and a family audience, but it does not make the contest’s outcome certain or spare her from comparison with Chloe’s reception.

After the performances, Chloe puts an arm around Lilith’s waist and congratulates her, adding that she herself was better. Lilith laughs and says the Perceived Slights were great too. Their exchange preserves the rivalry—Chloe still claims the upper hand—but it is also warmer and more reciprocal than their earlier attacks. The Perceived Slights are announced as the winners, and Chloe celebrates by declaring that prom queen is her next stop. Lilith, who had felt that her band had played exceptionally well, is left brutally defeated as Chloe accepts the trophy.

Change and Narrative Role

Chloe does not stop being ambitious or competitive, and the contest ends in her favor. Her arc instead lies in the partial opening of a relationship that had seemed fixed by years of bullying and unequal social standing. She can make Lilith a target, mistake her for an enemy in the matter of the copied lyrics, recognize her as genuine competition, write with her, and congratulate her—all without the story pretending those actions cancel one another out.

That unresolved mixture gives Chloe a role beyond serving as a popular antagonist. Through her, music becomes both a contest for recognition and a possible basis for contact: Lilith’s songwriting threatens Chloe’s assumption that she will win, but it also creates a reason for the two girls to sit together and make something. Chloe’s victory keeps the social hierarchy visible, while her collaboration and backstage gesture show that rivalry can acquire a measure of respect without simply disappearing.