by Rachel Shane
The next day, I forced myself out of my bed. I chugged a lot of liquid like I used to do at Quigley’s, though this time it was only bottles of water. I’d texted with Corey a few times, letting him know I still had feelings for him and this was be a temporary blip for us, but each reply from him came back clipped with one word non-starters: understood. And soon I responded in the same dialect: okay.
When I texted him the only two words that mattered—I’m sorry—he responded with more than one word this time, a full sentence even. The final word of our relationship.
Me too.
Ice froze my heart into painful little shards of ice. My shaking fingers hovered over the little call icon next to Ryan’s name on my phone. Maybe it wasn’t too late to right all my wrongs, to go back where I started, a blank slate via old Kenzie, the girl whose only real problem was not getting enough computer lab hours in when I flew to Ryan’s college. The girl whose only previous trips to the hospital involved visits to see her dying mother. It had been Mom with the tube shoved down her throat, but to help her breathe after her lungs refused to do the job thanks to Stage IV thyroid cancer and its lovely side effects. I’d erased all of Saturday night with only a few drinks. A single phone call could override the last few months and patch January back together with last August as if they were two pieces of fabric joined at a seam. I pressed call.
He picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”
My stomach swirled, the vomit that had been pumped right out of my stomach returning in a rush. I didn’t want Ryan. I didn’t even want Corey, not like this. Not when I didn’t want to be the girl he’d fallen for, over and over.
I threw the phone across the room and sobbed into my hands. The ice cream Fallon had bought was long gone so I trekked out into the cold and snow for another pint, finishing it before I even reached my empty, lonely dorm. Classes had scooped up my one savior and stolen her from me, at least for a few hours. I needed a distraction, to wash away all traces of the hospital and Beta Chi and even last semester. To return myself back to factory settings.
I hurled my giant basket of laundry, throwing in some clean clothes on top to make a full load, and stomped to the laundry room in the basement. When I bent to shove the clothes in the washing machine, something fell out of the pocket of the jeans I’d worn to Beta Chi. The clink of a coin reverberated in the empty room. I’d lost myself and now I’d lost a fucking quarter. Next stop: my mind.
I scrambled onto the dirty Laundromat floor to retrieve it and gasped, which sounded more like a snotty sniffle. Corey’s Angel coin glinted on the ground. I picked it up and examined it in the light. He must have slipped it in my pocket at the hospital. I crumbled to the floor and cradled it in my palm. Maybe I shouldn’t have broken up with him.
A coughing sound startled me. “Are you going to use that machine or guard it like that for no reason?”
A tall girl holding a basket of overflowing laundry hovered over it, an impatient look on her face.
“Oh, sorry. Yes.”
She dropped her basket with a loud thwack sound. I shoved the real quarters into the machine, placing Corey’s coin into the pocket of the jeans.
I returned to my room and stepped over a white envelope that had been shoved under my door. Bubbly handwriting announced my name on Rho Sigma stationary. My stomach lurched. The last time I’d received one of these shoved under my door, it had been on Bid Day when I’d found out I’d been accepted into Rho Sigma. I’d hopped up and down at the sight of it. Now I wanted to hide in my closet where it could never find me. A rattling breath whooshed out of my lungs as I ripped it open.
Mackenzie Shaffer,
We are sorry to inform you that, effective today, your membership to Rho Sigma: Delta chapter has been terminated. You had previously been given ample warning to refrain from further careless behavior, but you have chosen not to abide by the high standards to which we hold our members. This was made painfully obvious with your hospitalization for alcohol consumption. Our sorority prides itself on its respected reputation. We cannot allow the actions of one member to jeopardize our commitment and vision. You have become a liability for us and we must take preemptive steps to avoid possibly losing our sorority charter as a result of your actions. We wish you all the best luck in the future.
Please note all dues paid for the upcoming semester will be reimbursed to you.
Sincerely,
Layla Davies
President
I ripped up the letter and stuffed it into the bottom of the garbage can. What cowards. They couldn’t bring themselves to deliver the news in person? I picked up the garbage can and hurled it at the wall. Papers flew everywhere and Diet Coke from a half empty bottle sprayed like a geyser all over my blue comforter. Garbage rained down around me as it made its slow flutter to the ground. It wasn’t long before the tears followed. I buried myself in my small closet, shoes jabbing my back, darkness wrapping around me like an embrace. But light crept in through a crack on the bottom, mocking me. Melancholy surged through my body like lightning striking me with its shocking charge. Not lit like the spark of the bolt, but only the aftermath: where darkness battled against the fading light.
I’d lost Corey, myself, and now I’d lost the sorority. That was everything I had.
I SPENT THE NEXT few nights in the art building. Anything to keep from concentrating on Rho Sigma or worse, Corey. In painting, I found myself in a trance, painting vodka shots, Corey’s car bathed in red and blue police lights, and candles with unlit wicks. In animation, I started a new series: IVs puncturing 16oz red cups, hands strapping the cups to beds, then filling them with ice cream. My teacher thought I had created a motif, a real statement on alcoholism, but really my head pounded with these images and I needed to pour my thoughts into pixels.
Inside my graphics lab, my bare forearms glowed in the fluorescent lights but then I shrugged into in my heavy winter coat, wrapped a scarf around my mouth, and slapped the imaginary handcuffs back on my wrists to retreat to my on-campus prison. No amount of bundling up disguises could stop the heavy stares that followed me as I skirted through the carved out paths in the snow back to my dorm. Whispers followed me like shadows, sometimes escalating into full laughter. Rumors traveled faster than contagious diseases and the one about me had infected everyone.
Worse than the whispers was the silence. My friends stopped answering my calls, all except Fallon. They’d asked how I was the day after the party then chopped off all communication as if they were amputating my legs. I wasn’t exactly sure why; because I dumped Corey? Because I got kicked out of Rho Sig? I considered skipping my Thursday class, Human Sexuality, a random elective I’d signed up to take with Erin and her friend Holly McKenna, who at the time I only knew as the girl with the high pony tail. Now I knew her as the girl who took Corey to her formal. A formal that didn’t end in a car accident or an arrest. In only one night, she’d one-upped me.
I dreaded seeing them both. I couldn’t wait to see them both.
Keeping my shoulders back, I stomped toward the classroom but stopped short when I saw a guy leaning casually outside the door. Harrison Wagner’s long legs were crossed at the ankles and his perpetual smirk crested his lips. He wore trendy plastic-rimmed glasses that made him look like a pretentious jerk. A gray peacoat that belonged in a runway catalog hung from his shoulders as if intended to defy winter entirely and deal with the below freezing temps like a bad ass. He lifted his hand in a wave.
I ignored him, assuming his greeting was directed at someone else, someone who gave a shit, someone who didn’t want to punch him in the gut. When I tried to brush past him, he placed his hand on my arm to stop me.
Flashes of his elbow resting on my shoulder blinked in my mind. Since the formal, I’d built the moment up, no longer just a harmless power move but the first step toward a violent act. I whirled on him. “Are you serious? Didn’t you already play this record?” I shrugged out of his grasp with such violence, my elbow struck him in the rib
s. I should have aimed for his crotch.
He let out an oof. “What was that for?”
“That’s only a taste of what you deserve.”
I took a step into the classroom, my eyes scanning the steep rows of auditorium-style lecture seats for the ones that contained Erin and the girl I now both hated and needed to know more about. Had Corey been truthful when he claimed nothing happened between them? A vague piece of knowledge popped into my head. Holly had set up Erin with Harrison for formal. “Are you in this class?” I asked. Because if so, I was about to change directions and head to the registrar’s office to drop it. I crossed my arms.
“You caught me.” He shook his head. “I came to talk to you, actually.”
“So you’re stalking me then.” No doubt Holly had given him GPS directions directly to my face. “Haven’t you done enough?”
He perfected the puppy dog pout. “I want to apologize.”
I snorted. “You’re not forgiven. Take back your false report to Rho Sigma, show up at Corey’s court date and testify in his favor, and then maybe I’ll consider hating you a little less.”
He squinted at me. “Court date?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know exactly what happened at the formal so don’t play dumb.”
Harrison pursed his lips. “I heard he was arrested. But you can’t possibly blame that on me.” He placed a hand over his heart as if I’d wounded him. “I didn’t shove him into a car or force drinks down his throat.”
His words made my stomach clench. “You did technically force him into a car by instigating a fight and getting him kicked out.”
Just then Erin emerged at the end of the hallway. Her entire body stilled when she spotted us, but then she pointed her nose toward the ceiling and strutted toward us. My lungs waited for instructions inside my chest. “Hey,” I said, when she reached us. A simple word. An invitation. She offered Harrison a pretty smile as she brushed past him. She reserved nothing for me.
Rocks piled into the empty quarry of my stomach, skidding along my ribs like a xylophone. I pressed my hand against the wall to steady myself. Why was everyone so pissed at me? I was the one who had gotten kicked out! Or did I no longer rate on their priorities now that I wasn’t a sister?
“Wow,” Harrison said. “Harsh. But I might be able to explain.” He looked up at me beneath his long boy lashes. “If you’ll let me.”
My new professor appeared at the door, eyeing the two of us up and down with her feminist stare. “You two in this class?”
I glanced at her, then back at Harrison, who wiggled his eyebrows at me. Erin’s fierce determination extended beyond her school work into real life. If she set her mind to silent treatment, there would be no penetrating her barrier. “No,” I said.
My former professor shut the door in my face.
“This better be good,” I told Harrison. I crossed my arms, balling my hands into fists at my sides. I’d never punched someone before but Harrison seemed like a good candidate to practice on.
“This way.” He waved his arm for me to follow and loped toward the elevator. I waited until he pressed the down button, then I took the stairs. An enclosed box was too close quarters to spend next to him.
I regretted my decision instantly when I emerged into the lobby, a little sweaty, and he was already there, foot kicked up onto the wall, greeting me with a gloating expression. I marched toward him. “Do that one more time and I’m done.”
He squinted at me. “Do what?”
“Act like an ass.”
His smirk increased. “I’m not the one with the attitude.” He pushed the door open to outside. A whoosh of cold air slapped me in the face.
My teeth clattered. “Where are we going?”
“I have something to show you.”
Wind snatched the ends of my hair and taped them to my glossy lips. Harrison stomped through the thin path in the snow, mounds rising higher than my head on either side of us. His long legs carried him away from me, forcing me to run to catch up. He fled right off campus and turned down one of the side streets that held the extra curricular buildings. He stopped in front of The Daily Snowflake, our school’s newspaper, which was named after our apropos but not at all fierce mascot. My pulse increased.
“After you.” He flourished his hand toward the stairs that led up to the boxy brick building.
“I’m not stepping foot in there.” I crossed my arms, then rubbed them to warm up. My cheeks stung from the wind.
“Suit yourself.” He plopped onto the top step right on a pile of uncleared snow. “But then I can’t show you.”
I let out an annoyed sigh that earned a laugh. “What do you want to show me?” I deadpanned like a stage director feeding a line to an actor.
He leaned toward me conspiratorially, but since I hovered over him, it meant he aimed for my crotch. “I already told you. I know why your friends aren’t speaking to you. They’re actually not allowed. Like, at all. And I can prove it.”
Hot air swirled out of my mouth from my breath. “You have five minutes to convince me.”
He hopped up, snow falling from his butt. I followed him inside. Heat embraced me as we stepped into a long hallway. Each open door we passed revealed a small office filled with students pretending they were preparing for the real world. Harrison nodded at every person we passed.
“Do you work here?” I asked him.
“Obviously.” He opened a door and stepped inside. A long dormitory-grade wooden table squeezed into the cramped space. Replicas of the standard issue wooden chairs with faded blue cushions from my dorm circled the table. Folders and a laptop covered the table. “Make yourself at home.”
I stood right where I was, crossing my arms over my puffy jacket. Harrison made a grand show of shrugging off his peacoat as slowly as possible, dropping into the nearest seat, and kicking his legs up on the table. He flipped open the laptop and tilted it toward me. “Exhibit A,” he said.
I leaned in close, my jacket rustling. An email that had been forwarded to Harrison from the Rho Sigma list serv covered the screen, but scrolled down to shield the sender information. My throat tightened. My own email address had been removed from the group in conjunction with my expulsion. I longed for the news blasts and inside jokes that filled my inbox every day. But this email was entirely different:
To: [email protected]
From: Layla Davies
Subject: FWD: URGENT: New Rule effective immediately
Ladies,
I’ve heard far too many whispered conversations today—in the house and out—about the events that went down last night (and the ones from formal). Yes, we had to remove one member from our ranks because she was dragging down our stellar reputation and putting the entire house at risk. As far as you should be concerned, she’s dead to you. She no longer exists. Stop talking about her.
I’m instituting a no tolerance policy, effective immediately. If I learn that you’ve spoken to her or about her (or the events in question) in public or private, you’ll be joining her on the curb. You didn’t hear anything. You didn’t see anything. You were not involved in anything. Period.
If anyone has any questions, keep them to yourself because as far as I’m concerned, this subject is closed.
Holy shit. My pulse slammed into my neck. Sweat formed in the crooks of my armpits. I unzipped my jacket in a huff and slumped into the seat next to Harrison. His gloating smirk returned, but I didn’t care. “How did you get this?” I reached for the touch pad to scroll up to the sender.
He snapped the laptop shut. “Let’s just say one of your sisters didn’t want to stay silent.”
Hope surged in my chest. Bianca? Erin? No, she’d ignored me. “Di—did they say anything else?”
He studied me for a moment, brown eyes swimming behind his glasses. “That you were forced to drink—either by Corey or by your sorority as a punishment for your date getting arrested at formal, hazing-style. Then they carried you over to Beta Chi aga
inst your will and left you to pass out.”
I sucked in a deep breath. The rumor had already twisted, growing its own legs based on a body of truth. “No one forced me to drink, I already told you that.”
“But why risk it if you were on probation with Rho Sig? It doesn’t make sense.” Harrison tapped his long slender fingers on the table.
I scrubbed my hand over my face. “I was only hanging out with my friends. We were playing a harmless drinking game. It doesn’t affect anyone but me.”
He leaned in close. “You sure about that?”
My pulse increased. The tone of his voice indicated that I should not, in fact, be sure of that.
Harrison set his phone on the table. He scrolled to an image of several people wearing business suits standing on the front porch of Rho Sig. The little info caption made sure to tell me this was taken earlier today.
“Recognize any of them?” he asked.
I clucked my tongue. “Obviously no, so get to the point.”
“Well, you should, actually. You would have met this one last year”—he pointed to a snooty looking blond woman—”when you signed up for rush.”
The truth slammed into me. The head of the Greek Organization, bringing her cronies over to Rho Sigma. Because of me.
Harrison leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. “So why don’t you tell me your side of the story? Because I can promise you everyone else’s side is about to come out.”
Suddenly the concrete walls and wiped clean dry erase boards closed in. The knowledge of where I was and who I was with pulsed. “Wait, is this an interview? For the paper?”
He didn’t even blink. “Don’t worry, you haven’t said anything incriminating. Which is a shame, because I’m just trying to get the facts straight and right now they all point to you being hazed by two houses as a punishment. Is that the story you want to get out? Because once it lands in the paper, it will become the truth.”
This wasn’t an interview. This was a threat.
