by Rachel Shane
But I wasn’t a sister anymore. Layla’s mandate didn’t apply to me.
I told Harrison everything.
MY EYES FLEW TO the front page headline like a beacon, stomach lurching.
UNDERAGE DRINKING VIOLATION CLOSES SORORITY.
It had been three days since I’d relayed my version of events to the smarmy asshole who didn’t deserve a name, so much as a byline. Every day I’d freeze up when I passed the pile of newspapers tossed into the lobby of every academic building on campus. But so far the story hadn’t been printed. Until now.
I put one foot in front of the other, my heels clicking in the empty art building foyer. The paper rattled in my hand as I lifted it off the large stack. Beneath my jacket and sweater, the no-longer-valid Rho Sigma t-shirt hugging my chest was now a collector’s item.
I sank to the dirty concrete floor and drank in the words like they were the only thing left to get me intoxicated. They blurred the same way until I couldn’t only focus on the important details. Investigation conducted after sophomore lands in hospital. Linked to police report from Rho Sigma winter formal where a “well known fraternity member” was arrested for drinking and driving. What cracked the case was a confession, in the victim’s own words, delivered to Investigative Reporter Harrison Wagner.
My words and name were never even quoted in the paper. Corey’s name wasn’t mentioned either.
The article went on to say that even though the Greek Organization revoked the Rho Sigma charter, the girls could continue living in the house for the rest of semester. An official would be appointed to live inside instead of the house mom, to ensure no more underage drinking occurred. Omega Upsilon Tau fraternity would be taking over the house next semester.
Out House. Harrison’s frat. Vomit gurgled in my stomach.
Harrison had never planned to write an article about the truth of the events. He’d delivered my taped confession to the Greek Organization on a silver platter to secure his fraternity with the one thing they didn’t have: a house.
Corey and Nate thought Harrison had provoked him at formal to get Beta Chi kicked off campus, but all along his real target was a house far more vulnerable. Mine.
The following Monday, as I cowered in my room like the coward I was, the door opened with tornado-caliber force. Fallon stomped to her desk. The door slammed shut behind her, making my teeth snap. She tore off her jacket, dumped her school bag onto the floor, and climbed onto the bed. When she faced the wall, she curled up in fetal position.
“Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Her voice was high-pitched. Sniffles escaped between the spaces in her fingers covering her mouth.
I hopped off the bed, finding my footing fast this time. The last few days I’d been mostly wobbling through campus like I might keel over at any moment. I stroked her arm from shoulder to elbow. “You can talk to me.”
Her shoulders convulsed as a sob hit the air. “First semester grades were posted this morning.”
“Yeah, I saw.” Despite my lackadaisical efforts in my classes the previous semester, I managed to eke out an 3.69 grade point average. I made Dean’s List again, though the title felt like it belonged on someone else. Someone worthy. Someone who cared. Kenzie.
“How did you do?” I asked even though the answer was pretty obvious.
“I don’t get it, Mackenzie. I worked so hard last semester trying to find a motif to paint. But I got a B.” She spun around on the bed, tears staining her cheeks. “Yeah, I know. B’s are still good. Blah blah. They’re just not good for me when it comes to my major. Former major.” She still hadn’t declared a new one, and I guessed the real reason was because she still wanted the old one.
“That’s bullshit. I’ve seen your work. It’s great.” I strode to our mini-fridge where an endless supply of emergency ice cream now huddled in the freezer.
“Not great enough though. Be honest with me. Am I wasting my time? Am I too uncreative to make a career of this?”
I handed her a pint of rocky road and a plastic spoon pilfered from the dining hall. “You’re really talented, I promise. I think the issue is the subjects you paint. They don’t come from your soul.” I thought back to my recent series poured onto the canvas in the middle of the night: IVs and missed opportunities with Corey. Already new images pressed against my skull, demanding to be painted: Exit signs glowing invitingly above closed doors. Clocks with the battery removed and springs loose. Anything to symbolize the thief of time, ending things too soon. “My work is my own form of therapy,” I said.
She stabbed the spoon at a marshmallow. “Maybe I should switch into surface pattern design. Curtain patterns don’t have hidden meanings.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” I dipped my own spoon into the pint, scooping around her marshmallow.
“But it’s not what I love to do. I want to be an illustrator for children’s books. But no one will hire me if I can’t even create worthy images in a unique style.”
“How about this. My dad’s about to get a huge surprise to his credit card bill: reimbursement of Rho Sigma dues, yes, but also that pesky thousand dollar hospital bill. Those should counteract each other, but the way I see it, I’m already in trouble. Might as well take advantage before he finds out.”
She gave me a quizzical look.
“I want to buy you something nice. Something to cheer you up, but also a thank you gift.”
She smiled. “Thanks, but really, I couldn’t accept anything from you. I mean, from your dad.”
I chuckled. “I’m probably going to have to get some sort of job if he cuts me off so I’ll be paying him back eventually. It’s from me.”
She laughed. “Well, lucky for you what I want is free. To figure out what the hell I should do with my life.”
I’d skipped my first class for Human Sexuality last week but I was determined to confront Erin head on this time. And if Holly got in my way, I’d make sure she suffered too. I’d never officially dropped the class so I strode in on Tuesday and introduced myself to the professor as a new student who’d just now added it. If she recognized me at all, she didn’t show it. She earned the only smile I’d doled out all week.
When I spun around toward the stadium seats, my eyes locked on Erin and Holly whispering near the back row. Rows of heads swivel in my direction as I passed each one on my way to the top. Erin and Holly suddenly found the wall near my head to be the most interesting thing in the room. The people seated near them hopped out of their seats as if I had the plague. I plopped right down next to Erin and presented her with my second smile for the week.
She wrapped her fingers around Holly’s bony wrist and pulled her upright. The girls dropped into to new seats a few away from me.
What was this, seventh grade?
I stomped toward them again and dropped down. Neither of them got up. Erin stared straight ahead while Holly leaned over her, long brown hair swinging in Erin’s face. I stifled a twinge in my chest at the image that jumped to my mind: Corey pulling on her hair during sex, the way he loved to tug on mine.
“Please,” Holly begged. One word, but it said it all.
I replied to Erin instead. “You don’t need to avoid me anymore. Layla’s threats don’t matter.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you get it? You got the entire sorority shut down.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Then, like a coward, I picked up my bag and fled the row toward one in the very front. A lecture hall full of stares weighed heavy on my back, and I spent the entire hour holding my breath.
As soon as class was over, I bolted out the door and waited outside, knowing Erin had to walk out eventually. When she emerged, her entire body stopped dead as if she’d slammed into an invisible wall. She pivoted on her heels, head still held high, and strutted toward the elevators. It was like following Harrison all over again.
“Erin, I can explain, I—” The volume of my voice carried, echoing off the high ceilings.
She rolled her eyes. “I already read your explanation in the paper.” She stormed into the stairwell with such force, my hair blew around my face as the door slammed shut. I swiveled only to find Holly standing right behind me, looking so perfect and undamaged. The dam burst and hot tears fell down my cheeks. How embarrassing. I was crying in front of another girl who’d been in Corey’s arms.
She reached into her pocket and handed me a tissue. “Look, Mackenzie. I hardly know you and I don’t want to get involved. But I’ll say this, Erin’s my friend and she’s really hurt. She thinks you betrayed them all in some sick revenge scheme.”
That your fucking friend Harrison tricked me into…
“That wasn’t my intention.” I blew my nose. “I only talked to Harrison to set the record straight. He had all these false rumors he threatened to print.”
She let out a heavy sigh. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
Hope appeared like a halo around the girl in front of me. Finally, someone who understood. Who believed me. “Can you—can you tell Erin that?”
She hesitated. I took a step away, knowing her answer. But then she came back strong. “Only if you do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Apologize. You keep coming at Erin with guns blazing but what she really needs to hear—even if she doesn’t know it yet”—Holly laughed—”is that you’re not out to stab her in the back a second time.”
I nodded frantically. I couldn’t let my friends think I’d done this on purpose.
MY TEXTS AND MESSAGES continued to go unanswered by Erin and Bianca. I knew what I had to do. I had to go to Quigley’s where their status messages thankfully told me they would be. Even Corey’s own status message said he was going “out.” His court date had been sometime last week and based on his post that said: thank fucking God, I assumed he’d gotten his license back. I’d liked his post in solidarity but had enough will power not to comment.
Fallon had gone to Liam’s, which was for the best, since she’d never have let me leave the dorm to go to a bar. Which meant I went by myself. My first real test as Mackenzie 3.0. While I pushed through the frigid temps, I pretended to talk into my cell phone as though someone was listening on the other end. Corey’s angel coin weighed heavy in my pocket: my only company. Yep, pathetic.
Inside Quigley’s, I ignored the stares that followed me everywhere these days and scanned for my friends. Or former friends. Maybe future friends, if I was lucky. I squeezed into a tight space by the bar and flagged down the bartender. He gave me a chin-nod, the universal sign for, “what’ll it be?” My mouth opened on auto-pilot and my lips itched to request a shot plus my usual rum and diet to chase it with. My stomach gurgled in reminder of what got me into this mess and my resolve did the rest. I clamped my mouth shut, placing my shaking palms flat on top of the wet bar. “Diet Sprite,” I finally said. “With a lime.”
The bartender nodded and set a plastic cup on the counter. The soda splashed like a waterfall, filling all the way to the top. It shimmered in the black light like a vodka tonic, which made me feel a little bit at home, but the liquid that coated my throat felt foreign in my stomach.
A hard tap rapped on my shoulder. My muscles tensed. I spun around to come face to face with the scowling ones of Bianca, Corey, and Nate. No Erin. My heart swelled at the sight of Corey only to remember I’d taken his heart and stomped on it.
“You have to be kidding me,” Bianca snapped. “You’re drinking…in a bar…by yourself!” She nudged the base of my cup, indenting it.
I thrust the cup under her nose. “It’s just Sprite. I swear.”
Nate snickered. “Sprite. By yourself. In a bar. Sure.”
I pleaded desperate SOS’s to Corey with my eyes but he only crossed his arms. “Why are you here, Mac? This is the last place you should be.”
I gessoed over his words as if they were a messed up painting I wanted to erase from existence. “I only came here to apologize. And explain. Harrison Wagner”—at the mention of his name, Corey’s face scrunched up in a cringe—”threatened me. He—”
“There’s nothing you can say that will make this right. Your confession ensured that.” Bianca’s tone segued from bitchy to somber by the end of her sentence. Her voice cracked on the last part.
Sweat beaded under my armpits. “But—”
She rolled her eyes and stomped away. They all followed…except Corey.
“Mac, I’m worried about you. You really hurt everyone.” He took the drink out of my hands and set it on the bar. And then, he said the worst thing of all: “I can’t believe I ever thought I was falling in love with you.”
Arrow meet heart. Blood rushed to my cheeks but it didn’t compare to the amount spilling from my opened-up veins.
He stalked away without another word.
At my next Human Sex class, I arrived early and ducked into the front row in an attempt to lay low. I set my notebook on the small desk attached to the chair with the aim to be a diligent student. It was the only thing I had left. I forced my head down and pretended not to notice when Erin and Holly sauntered into the room. My shoulders tensed as they neared me, and I held my breath, silently praying for them to get it over with and pass by me fast, like ripping off a bandaid.
Both girls stopped walking at the end of my row. My pencil dug into the page of my notebook, engraving it with an angry dot. A shadow darkened over my page and the hint of flowery perfume coated the air. My stomach squeezed as I lifted my eyes to find Holly standing over me. A headband pulled back her brown hair and let her pretty face shine. I reguarded her warily, as if she were about to shoot me point blank in the face.
“Hey, Mackenzie. You okay?” Her blue eyes swam as she studied me, her face full of concern.
“Do I have to answer that?”
She offered me a sympathetic frown. “I talked to Harrison. Though that was unnecessary. His gloating was a pretty big clue.”
She won the first smile I’d worn in days.
“Why don’t you come sit with us?” She jerked her head toward the top row.
I stifled my gasp. My eyes flew toward Erin, who hovered on the stairway. “With Erin too?”
“Look. I feel really bad you’re all alone. Crap. That sounded like I pity you or something.” She bit her lip. “I don’t mean it like that at all.” She fiddled with the strap of her purse. “I know what you must be going through.”
I swallowed. “You do?” I hated myself for ever hating her.
“A similar thing happened to me in high school when I messed up in our championship field hockey game and none of my friends talked to me for weeks.” She waved her hand toward her chest. “Come on.”
My feelings of loneliness lifted out of my body like a stain evaporating in the washing machine. I followed them up to their usual row like a dog trailing its owner. Holly took the seat between us like a buffer. I leaned across her to say hello to Erin, but she remained facing forward, pretending. I slumped back in my chair.
Holly grabbed her notebook out of her bag and placed it on her lap. “So, I’m assuming you’ve seen the paper.”
My shoulders tensed, a knee-jerk reaction to any kind of mention of paper. Had Harrison finally printed the article about me? I’d stomped right past the folded stack today, knowing whatever it said wouldn’t matter. I’d already ruined everything.
“Ugh. That,” Erin said, looking strategically at Holly’s earlobe.
Holly turned toward Erin. “Pretty surprising, huh?”
A breath seeped from my lungs. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be about me. I’d only been friends with Holly for exactly three seconds, but already I knew if it was something about me, she’d tell me. I relaxed in my seat, thankful for whatever new gossip had risen to the top of the food chain and took a bite out of the rumors about Rho Sigma.
“Not really. It was only a matter of time before they found out.” Erin’s eyes flicked in my direction. “With all the investigations going on.”
My chest st
illed. So not new gossip, just a new twist on the same. I opened my mouth to interject, but clamped it shut. This conversation didn’t seem to include me.
Holly tapped her pen against her notebook. “So, is it true?”
“Unfortunately.” Erin’s poise dipped for just a moment as her shoulders sagged. “Bianca called him as soon as we read it.” She frowned. “I feel so bad for him.”
Him? Him as in Corey, the only him that possibly mattered in all of existence?
The lights dimmed and the professor flipped on the projector, causing her to fall down the ranks to my least favorite teacher once again. She babbled about something that didn’t involve whatever article the girls had just discussed. My pen dangled limply in my hand. I leaned forward and scanned the laps of every person in the row in front of me in case any of them magically had a paper on their lap instead of a notebook. In a rush, I scribbled a note to Holly on the corner of my pad. What did the paper say? I tilted it toward her, then nudged her with my knee.
Her entire face fell as she skimmed my message. She bit her lip, then grabbed my notebook and wrote: I’m so sorry. I thought you already knew and were just sulking about it. Holly bent down and lifted the newspaper from her school bag.
It was already folded to page three, where a large photocopy of Corey’s mugshot graced a quarter of the page. My hands shook, rattling the paper and causing the person in front of me to turn around and glare. I set the paper on my lap and gripped the armrests next to me to keep from falling to pieces.
The caption read: FRATERNITY SUSPENDED PENDING INVESTIGATION; JUNIOR PUT ON ACADEMIC PROBATION
My eye snagged on the byline. Harrison Wagner. Of course.
An overwhelming heaviness weighed down my shoulders. I slouched forward as if I were an elephant in a circus trying to grab the tail of the one in front of me. Holly placed a calming hand on my upper back.
A second house follows in Rho Sigma’s footsteps after Throckmorton University places Beta Chi Lambda on suspension pending an investigation into its involvement in the recent underage drinking scandal that rocked campus. Witness reports indicate Beta Chi Lambda threw an illegal party that served alcohol to more than two hundred underage minors and sent one member of the former Rho Sigma sorority to the hospital with a blood alcohol level well above legal limits. Junior Marketing major and Beta Chi Lambda member, Corey Taft, has been linked to both events that led to the shuttering of Rho Sigma.
