The Broken Hearts' Society of Suite 17C

by LeighAnn Kopans

  ~Taylor Vydra

  Arielle

  “You’re going to do what?” Arielle stared at Lauren like she’d lost her mind. Lauren continued shuffling through stacks of papers, cross-legged in maddeningly short shorts on the edge of Arielle’s bed.

  “Ari. Baby.”

  Arielle still blushed like mad any time Lauren called her that, even though they’d been using the name for each other since Lauren had introduced herself as Arielle’s girlfriend at Arielle’s parents’ house, right before they lit the damn menorah. Ari swore her mom almost cried. Lauren loved Chanukah so much that even the fantasies Ari’d had of her converting to Judaism and them having a wedding under a chuppah didn’t seem that crazy anymore.

  “Yes. I’m listening. I swear.”

  “My face is up here,” Lauren teased, but then turned serious again. “Sororities are, like, a thing in California. My mom did it, and all her friends and their sisters, and their daughters rushed. I never had a sister in real life. You can’t blame me for at least wanting to check it out.”

  “You shouldn’t have to pay for sisters. Real ones or fake ones.”

  Lauren shrugged. “Hundreds of girls on this campus don’t have to. But they decide to anyway.”

  “It’s just so…mainstream,” Arielle grumbled.

  “What, and you’re not?”

  Arielle’s eyes flew wide open and she dropped her jaw, feigning shock. “Absolutely not. I’m, like, the opposite of mainstream.”

  “Oh really. Long layers in your hair, a crush on Taylor Swift, this season’s hottest jeans and an obsession with Starbucks lattes? Yes, Arielle, you’re so unique.”

  Arielle scrunched her lips together and pulled them to the side. “I’ll give you that. But I’m…you know…”

  “Gay? Yes, I know. Probably better than anyone.”

  Arielle grinned. She’d gotten damn lucky when she met Lauren, that was for sure. No, Lauren wasn’t Jewish, but everything else about her was absolutely perfect. Best of all, even though Arielle discovered Lauren was uncomfortable with serious PDA, she showed just how aware she was of Ari’s relationship fears by linking fingers with her when they walked across campus, or giving her a quick kiss when they parted to go to their respective classes. Who cared if Lauren wasn’t a card-carrying lesbian when she spent all her free time with Ari and wasn’t afraid to kiss her right in the middle of Northern’s humungous student body, at the busiest time of day?

  “Whatever. Gay girls rush. More importantly, girls who don’t have any other extracurriculars rush. You can’t just go four years here doing nothing but studying.”

  Arielle knew too well that gay girls rushed. She also knew that, at least in Rachel’s sorority, gay girls were not something they exactly got excited about being part of the sisterhood. “I don’t know. What if Rachel is doing recruitment shit for her sorority?”

  They hadn’t talked about Rachel much—Arielle figured Lauren really didn’t want to hear about her ex, especially when she was on campus. Plus, even though Arielle was happy with Lauren, there was no way she could hide how pinched and twisted her insides still got at the memory of Rachel smearing her heart all over the quad.

  Lauren brushed her lips down Arielle’s nose, a move that always threatened to completely undo her. “Then she’ll see how completely and totally okay you are without her. And then she’ll see me and be crazy jealous and pissed at herself that she lost her chance with you.”

  Arielle tried to pout, fighting against the stupid head-in-the-clouds smile that tugged relentlessly at the corners of her lips. “That’s true. But I won’t rush a sorority as revenge on an ex.” As sweet as the devastated look on Rachel’s face may turn out to be. “Besides, I don’t need an extracurricular. I’m not even bored.” Arielle already knew her argument didn’t hold water. She wasn’t interested in very much at all—couldn’t even think about deciding on a major without having a panic attack, and her classes were the opposite of challenging. Now that she thought about it, she realized just how bored she really was.

  “Yeah, because we’re, you know…new.” Lauren stood up from the bed and walked slowly over to Arielle’s desk chair, then settled on her lap, roping her arms around Arielle’s neck. Arielle grunted and gave her a begrudging smile when Lauren propped her forehead against hers. “Shut up,” Lauren murmured before kissing her softly. “I’m not that heavy.”

  “Not for a Chinese giant,” Arielle said, leaning her head against Lauren’s shoulder. She debated whether to keep kissing Lauren, maybe sneak a hand up her shirt, or control herself and kill this conversation once and for all. “Besides, you really don’t need anything else to do. You have kickboxing, and soon I’m going to make you come to yoga with me.”

  Arielle spent more time daydreaming and dozing in yoga class than actually working out, but she noticed a little bit more flexibility in her legs since she started downward-dogging twice weekly. She might have even seen an ab muscle the other day, when she turned just the right way.

  Now it was Lauren’s turn to grunt. “You know that shit drives me crazy. It’s so slow. I almost fell asleep the last time you made me go.”

  “Which is why you should totally do the sorority thing. You always want to be moving, want to be doing something. I always want to be home. In my pajamas. Preferably with you.”

  “Right. Which you can still do if you join a sorority. I’ll come to your house.”

  Arielle narrowed her eyes at Lauren. “You’re not going to let up on this, are you? I didn’t even know you cared about sororities.”

  “I don’t know. I still feel like I’m floundering here at Northern, you know? Except for you, I don’t really have anything besides my classes. And my mom keeps asking me what the best thing about school is…”

  “Seriously? So you tell her it’s me, right?”

  Lauren groaned and kissed Arielle lightly again, melting her from the inside out. “She knows about you, but not all about you.”

  Arielle raised her eyebrows. “Say more.” She could feel her hackles starting to rise, and begged the sick feeling in her stomach to ease.

  “Not because I don’t want to tell her we’re together. She wouldn’t even care. Well, she would care—too much. She’d be desperate to meet you. You know, I’m an only child, and she’s not that young—she’s like sixty, Ari.”

  Arielle nodded. Lauren had told her about how desperately her mom and dad had wanted a child, how hard they’d tried, until her doctor had basically told her she was too old to keep going. Lauren’s mom had been 42 years old when she’d flown to China to bring Lauren home. “She’d fly both of us home right away, and you’d see how overbearing she is, and she’d start asking you how soon you want to have babies because she doesn’t have grandchildren, and you’d freak out and leave me.”

  “Never,” Arielle said right away, pulling back so that Lauren could see the look in her eyes. She stopped herself before she could tell Lauren about the feeling that had been creeping into the edges of her consciousness for the past few weeks. She just wasn’t willing to risk it when there were so many unknowns, and when there were more than three years left for the two of them to figure things out.

  “If it would make you happy, I’ll tell her the next time I talk to her. How I met you, how long we’ve been together, how I’d rather be with you than anywhere else. You can even stick your head in the camera next to mine.”

  Just the offer calmed Arielle. “There’s really no rush. You’re away from home, and you guys aren’t that close anyway, right? Don’t worry about it. This, right here, is what matters most to me,” she said, squeezing Lauren’s waist.

  “Well, you know what matters to me?” Lauren said with a smile and one more light kiss, standing up again to go back to the bed. She held up a glossy folder. “Checking out this recruitment thing.”

  Arielle groaned and let her head fall back, rolling her eyes at the ceiling.

  “I’m serious. I’ve just heard a lot of really great stuff
about sorority life, and, you know, it might be for us. For me, or for you. I’ve heard so many good things, Ari. Like how so many girls join a sorority and find their home away from home. I could use that, here.”

  “You don’t feel at home?”

  “With you? Yes. With the rest of Indiana Northern? Not yet.”

  Arielle sighed and leaned her head on Lauren’s shoulder. But Lauren was not giving up.

  “At least it would be something different to do for the next few weeks, right?” That soft whispery lilt in her voice was going to be Arielle’s undoing one of these days. Maybe today.

  “It’s just a few weeks?” Arielle asked.

  As soon as Lauren turned her laptop around to display the schedule, the pressure in her stomach eased. “It’s only two weekends.”

  “Yes! Two weekends. And your classes are easy, you don’t have a job, so why not?” Lauren practically bounced.

  “Because it’s cold?”

  “Come on, baby,” Lauren said, leaning over so her chest touched the bed, and grabbing Arielle’s hand. Arielle was mostly distracted by her cleavage. Again. “Just four days. Then it’ll be over and everything will go back to normal.”

  “What if you join?” Arielle whined. “Then you’ll be too busy with sorority stuff to see me.”

  Lauren tented an eyebrow up. “Seriously? Do you seriously think I would rather be busy with something other than you?”

  “I don’t know,” Arielle said, picking at some fuzz on her sweatpants. “What if you meet someone else?”

  “There is nobody else,” Lauren said, her tone completely serious. “Have you not noticed how I always want to hang out with you? I even ate two lunches the other day just so I could see you between classes!”

  “You didn’t have to eat,” Arielle pointed out. But it was true. Lauren had agreed to lunch with her even though she was drowning in premed coursework already.

  “And I’m here almost every night.”

  “And that won’t change?”

  “No, especially since you’re so sure the sorority thing’s not for you. Even if I move into a house next year, I’ll just spend the night with you in your dorm or apartment or wherever. No problem. Your roommates already love me.”

  Next year. Lauren was talking about next year, and the hopefulness that Arielle had pushed down time and time again grew a little more.

  “What if I have different roommates?”

  Lauren scoffed. “Yeah, right. You’re almost as attached to Amy as you are to me. And if there’s anyone who can put up with Rion better than you, well, I haven’t met them.”

  Arielle shrugged. It was true that the girls were astonishingly close for three random roommates. But living together for another year, on purpose? That was a whole different level of friendship.

  “Okay, I’ll register. If it’ll make you so happy,” Arielle grumbled, not even trying to hide her indulgent smile this time.

  “Thank you!” Lauren’s grin almost made this whole ridiculousness worth it. She held her laptop out to Arielle. “Here. You first.”

  Arielle had imagined that she’d be pissed off about the $75 sorority recruitment fee, having to wear something other than sweatpants on a Saturday night, and her cheeks hurting from fake smiling so much. But over the past several weeks with Lauren, she’d discovered that doing things to make Lauren happy was even better than doing things that Arielle wanted to do for herself. The fire in Lauren’s eyes as she walked up to a group of girls welcoming her to that first night of recruitment was electric, contagious.

  At that first meeting, they learned that they’d be divided into groups by their Rho Gams, which was the generic sorority sister name for the girls from each sorority on campus who’d volunteered to lead the wide-eyed freshmen through the two weekends of recruitment events and answer all their questions in the week between.

  A part of Arielle had wanted to walk out of the room right then. Lauren had promised her that going through recruitment together would give them some couple time, but the group divisions erased any promise of that.

  But Lauren hadn’t seemed fazed by the separations, still squeezing Arielle’s hand between their chairs and sneaking her winks. Something remarkable had happened, a feeling that Arielle had only ever experienced when it applied to herself—Lauren’s utter joy was making her happier, too. The girl yammering on about sorority procedure faded to the background as Arielle looked at Lauren taking it all in. The way she fit in so well, the way her hair shone in the weird recessed multiple lights in the student union conference room.

  She could do this for two weekends. She could do this for Lauren.

  As the meeting went on, Arielle was shocked that sorority life actually didn’t sound that horrible. Until the girl talking about recruitment dos and don’ts started in on the don’ts.

  “Always remember the 3 Bs,—things you should not ever talk about during sorority recruitment,” she said, her expression grave. “We teach this every single year and we are dead serious. The girls in the houses know this rule so well that if you do mention one, we’ll probably take it as a hint that you’re trying to drop out of the recruitment process. Got it?”

  Okay, this was ridiculous. Now even their small talk was being censored? But Arielle glanced at Lauren to see her watching and waiting for the info, completely serious.

  “First B—Bucks. Nobody cares if your daddy owns a private jet or your mom is an heiress. I mean, that would be kind of fun, don’t get me wrong,” she said with a wink. “But if you insist on working money into the conversation with us during any of the pref rounds—and trust me, we will not be asking about the size of your bank account—we’ll think you’re trying to either impress us with your trust fund, or bribe us with it. Each of the houses is looking for new sisters who really belong there, not who are so insecure about who they are that they have to wave their money in all our faces. Rich or poor, let your beauty shine through.”

  Again, Arielle would have rolled her eyes if it wasn’t for the expression of wholehearted agreement on Lauren’s face.

  Okayyyyy.

  “Next is B for…” The RhoGam stared at them all like she was waiting for them to complete the sentence. To Arielle’s utter shock, some of them actually did, chiming in “Booze!” Oh for the love. These girls were such ass kissers. Wasn’t it enough to just show up to the info session? Was she actually supposed to do research?

  “That’s right, girls. Your love of alcohol consumption is another thing that doesn’t say very much about you and how well you’ll fit in to the house. If you love getting hammered that much, then you should just walk out of here right now. The focus of being a Greek woman is not on which parties you’ll go to and how much there will be to drink. If that’s why you were thinking about going through recruitment, it’s best to save your time and head down to the bar right now.”

  “The last one should be obvious, but I’ll say it anyway.” Arielle racked her brain. Bs? Were they not supposed to talk about grades? Body? That would make sense. She’d heard about some crazy hazing on other campuses and, especially since she’d been with Lauren, she really had grown to appreciate lots of things about her body. No issue there…

  “Boys.” The Rho Gam said smugly. “Yes, we know how much you love your boyfriend, and if you don’t have one, we know how much everyone hopes they’ll meet some frat hottie when they party with us. You might even think that dropping the names of some frat guys you know will get you in with us. Now, all of us appreciate the beautiful abs of a Pi Psi.” Giggles rippled through the room and Arielle spun around to look. Maybe it was because Lauren had made her feel so absolutely normal over the last few months, but for the first time since she’d arrived at Northwestern she felt like a sad, strange little lesbian bobbing in a sea of horny straight girls. She looked pointedly at Lauren, who gave her a troubled look but shrugged.

  “Pretty simple, right?” The Rho Gam and the Stepford freshmen filling the room bobbed their heads. “See? Nothing t
o worry about,” she said, and then started chattering about dress code and punctuality and some shit that didn’t even matter after what Arielle had just heard.

  Suddenly, the meeting was over and all the future sorority drones were filtering out of the huge room. Then, as if someone had snapped their fingers and changed the scene, they were alone among the rows of empty folding chairs.

  “See? Not too bad, right?” Lauren’s eyes still danced. “It’ll be cool to see if we really fit in to one of the houses like she said. It happens all the time, I hear. Instant sisters.”

  “I…you’re joking, right?” Arielle blinked at Lauren as though she was about to announce that Arielle was being punked.

  “Yeah, I know you’re cranky about having to go out and wear heels on sidewalks that’ll likely be icy. But I’ll look out for you. No worries.” Lauren laced her fingers through Arielle’s and Arielle said a silent prayer. Please don’t let her actually be this clueless.

  “I just figured that one of the things that Aubrey said up there would maybe…I don’t know…convince you not to do this whole thing?”

  Lauren scrunched her eyebrows in and turned to Arielle. “I don’t…no. Nothing.”

  “Oh my God, Lauren!” Arielle stood up so fast the chair wobbled. “The three Bs? BOYS? This is the most crazily hetero collection of humans I’ve ever been a part of.”

  “I…I guess? Most girls have boyfriends, right? Only ten percent of the population is gay?”

  She didn’t say something like “only ten percent are like us” or “I really don’t think you have a single thing to worry about. I won’t talk about boys, because I don’t like boys.”

  “Whatever,” Arielle grumbled, picking at her nails. “I just don’t see why you want to be part of a group like that so much.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I don’t really blame them for assuming we all like boys? Not everyone is as…aware as we are. But I think they’re cool. I think they’re good people, regardless of their obvious heteronormative attitudes. I don’t think that makes them bad people. I like them.” Lauren shrugged and reached out her hand for Arielle’s, something she knew made Arielle melt.