Aubree laughed at Brooklyn's comment, mostly because she felt like it was the only polite way she could respond. A roll of her eyes or offended expression would have been more fitting given Aubree's personality and the way that Brooklyn hadn't seemed half as cordial in her greeting than Aubree had tried to be in hers, but she wasn't going to be petty. That stemmed partly because she just knew better, given the situation and how she was already being overbearing just by being there, but also because of who Brooklyn was. Aubree didn't even know her, and even if she didn't think that Brooklyn was Cara, who Aubree still barely knew, and actually only knew "of", as being the girl who had enough money to pay the rent, she still would have felt a certain way about Brooklyn. For starters, she was absolutely gorgeous. Aubree was quite happy with who she was, especially in a physical sense, but that didn't mean that she was blind to the world's beauty standards. Girls like Brooklyn who were thin and had light skin and light features, particularly the blonde hair and blue eyes, seemed to just get a free pass in the world. They were idolized just because of their DNA, and though when she thought about it fully, she knew that it was sick and wrong, it didn't mean that she could just automatically unlearn what society had taught her for all of her life. No, even to this day, her first thought when seeing girls like Brooklyn was one of intimidation. She wouldn't show it at face value, but in the back of her mind there was a voice reminding her that she needed to know her place around girls like Brooklyn.
The voice wasn't as loud as it had been years ago, when she had left the neighborhood she had grown up in, and was actually around girls like Brooklyn frequently. Growing up in a community that consisted of 99% minorities, Holly and her mother had seemed liked rarities, but they didn't even count as being a part of that superior group of white people, because Aubree had automatically decided that they were trash, and below her, after they "ruined" her family. Before growing up, the most interaction that Aubree had with people who weren't low-income minorities like herself were from reading about celebrities like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan in magazines on the checkout lane in the grocery store. It was people like them who were basically worshiped, with their every move being followed, and even when they did wrong, nothing happened to them. Aubree would see people she knew being incarcerated over dime bags of weed, while these white girls could get into car accidents or do hard drugs and get off with community service. Especially as a child and teenager, growing up in a society where her life held such a stark contrast to theirs, it was hard not to think that somehow, they had to be better than her and her people, if the rest of the world thought that. Things had changed since then, and that was something that was probably easier for Aubree than other black girls, considered that being half Asian, tall, and considerably light skinned led guys to thinking that she was more attractive than some other girls. Given that that was still playing into the entire race system that the social world thrived off of, it wasn't something that helped in the overall sense of fixing things, but it did give Aubree a boost of confidence to feel comfortable in her own skin.
Makayla's initial insistence that she coudln't stay definitely led to a feeling of discomfort and awkwardness at first, which was something that Aubree wasn't comfortable with feeling. No one would be, but for someone like Aubree, it was even worse, because her initial reaction to things like that was typically to take it as being attacked, and then lash out. She knew that that wouldn't do her any good in this situation, but still, she didn't want to have to beg to stay, since she really had no where else to go. Luckily, Makayla caved, and Aubree smirked internally, knowing that she shouldn't have doubted, even for a second, that that was coming. "Of course," she smiled, putting in a lot of effort to not make it look as strained as it really was, as she agreed that it would just be a one night stay. "I would never over stay my welcome." With that, she returned to the doorway and retrieved her bags, but by the time that she got back to the couch area, she could hear Holly getting worked up, and blatantly stating that she didn't want Aubree to stay. She had always known that the girl was a brat, but for her to be this rude made it impossible for Aubree to be completely civil. "Don't worry, babe. Some of us know how to respect others' spaces, so you won't even know that I'm here. No need to get worked up over it." She did her best to keep her tone sweet, despite her words purposely being indicative of how she didn't think that Holly had a leg to stand on when complaining about someone else intruding in her personal space. She turned back to Makayla a moment later though, and smiled. "Mind if I take a shower? I always feel like I'm covered in a layer of grime after getting off the subway." She did want to shower, but she didn't know what she would do if she didn't shower. Brooklyn and Holly were sitting on the couch that she was supposed to sleep on, and she clearly couldn't kick them off, and she also didn't want to watch with them, so this seemed like the only option she had, especially if she wanted to keep the tension at a low.