Premature Evacuation (Underground Sorority #1) (24 page)

“Why
are
you here?” He turned on to his side and open one eye at me. The wounded look on his face stabbed my heart.

I wasn’t really shocked he was so blunt. He always did everything in extremes. My anger at him had burned up and disintegrated the moment I walked into his room, like a slip of paper set on fire and turned to ash. I inched closer and perched on the edge of his bed. “To make things right.”

Tints of blue robbed Corey’s skin of its normal, robust glow. “Fucking Harrison tricked you into that confession, didn’t he?”

My face burned as I let out a relieved breath. Corey believed me without me uttering a word. “Why is he so hell bent on hurting you?”

Corey strung an arm over his eyes. “It’s a long story but the gist of it is, he rushed Beta Chi two falls ago. We’d really bonded, I think he assumed he’d get a bid, become my little brother, all that crap. But then we found out he was writing an exposé on pledging and turned him down. He’s had it out for me ever since.”

I straightened, vaguely remembering Harrison mentioning that Corey had cried during pledging. I wondered if this was something they’d bonded over when Harrison had rushed Beta Chi, maybe something Corey had told him in confidence, which Harrison now exploited.

Silence crept into the cracks between us, wind whipping through the window panes and sending a tree tapping against the glass. I pulled out his Angel coin from my jeans. “Corey, you should have this.”

“I gave it to you. Keep it.” He knocked his knuckles against mine to push my hand away. “It helped me get through the worst time of my life, I hope it did the same for you.”

“I’m getting help,” I said, admitting it for the first time out loud. “I made an appointment with the school counselor.” I didn’t think I was an alcoholic, though maybe one of the side effects of being one was denial, but I clearly needed an extra push to help me quit cold turkey. “And another thing.” I twisted my hands in my lap, my eyes focused on the wood grain beneath my feet. A heaviness welled up inside me, forcing its way out of my mouth in the form of a huge sigh. Admitting I might have a drinking problem was hard, admitting I was wrong was harder. “I should never have suggested we drive.”

Corey shook his head. “You only suggested, I acted. I was wrong too. I know that now.”

A lump blocked my airways. “I should never have broken up with you.” All this time I’d been pissed at him for squashing our potential relationship back in October, but I’d done the exact same thing. I didn’t need to carve him out of my life to figure out what was left of me without him. What I needed was his shoulder to lean on while I stitched myself together. I’d secretly blamed him for being a bad influence on me, but I’d made every one of the decisions that had led me here. “I miss you,” I whispered.

I didn’t give him a chance to answer or respond, I wasn’t ready yet, my transformation incomplete. I was fixing me, but I still had a long way to go to fix him.

Instead, I slid off his bed, grabbed my box of toiletries, and walked out of the room.

T
HE NEXT DAY, I marched straight to the Greek Organization office after my first meeting with the counselor. She’d listened to all my confessions and it felt phenomenally good to get everything off my chest. She started prying to the root of
why
I was drinking and I was surprised to discover the answer had nothing to do with Corey. It was that I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin. We were working on that, and in the meantime, I agreed to go to one of the campus Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

As I entered the Greek Organization office, I held my breath. Truthfully, I knew this plan was a long shot. But not trying would get me nowhere. This might get me somewhere.

“I’m so sorry,” the receptionist told me, “rush sign-ups ended weeks ago.” A copier hummed, spitting out warm sheets of paper. Large windows hung behind her, their shades closed, the sight of winter no longer appealing.

I tapped my fingers on the linoleum counter. “No, I want to talk to someone about Rho Sigma.”

She let out an exaggerated sigh. “Hold on.” She picked up the phone and mumbled something so low I could only make out the aggravated tone.

A moment later, the same blond woman from Harrison’s incriminating evidence photo emerged from a glass door. She smoothed down her cardigan and gestured for me to join her. I followed her into a gray office, as dismal as the weather outside. She clasped her fingers on top of her desk. “Let me guess. You want to plead the case to reinstate Rho Sigma?”

I unzipped my coat as sweat pooled in the crooks of my elbows, a side effect of going to school in zero degree weather. The buildings jacked up the heat. “Am I not the first person to come in?”

“Your former president has been here every day.”

Layla. I almost felt bad for her.
Almost
. She really did care about the sorority.

The woman kept her lips set in a thin line, even as she spoke. “Rho Sigma violated several infractions. With just one, we could settle on a temporary suspension as a warning. But more than one offense oversteps our no tolerance policy. I’m afraid we can’t make an exception for you. Others may feel they’re owed the same justice.”

So we were an example. “What if we proved we would be good? We’ll do philanthropy. We’ll sign contracts promising to abstain from alcohol and parties.”

“All of that is required anyway.
Parties
held inside fraternity or sorority houses are already restricted from serving alcohol to minors and must be registered with the Greek Organization.”

I scoffed. There were twelve sororities on campus and fourteen frats—or well there had been up until two weeks ago. At least one of them threw an unregistered party every single night of the week. I leaned back in my chair, knowing a lost battle when I saw one. She’d shoot down any argument I made. I shifted in my seat and decided to try another tactic. “Okay, then what about Corey Taft? Why is he being singled out? He didn’t force feed me alcohol like the rumors suggest.”

She lifted her glasses a centimeter down her nose, her lips pursing ever so slightly, like she was judging me. “I assure you, Ms. Shaffer,”—wow my name must be a household entity around here—”We’ve taken his situation with the utmost consideration. There’s nothing—”

“Fine.” I pushed back my chair and scrambled into a standing position. She was a brick wall, stationed there to thwart anyone who tried. “And here I thought the Greek Organization gave a shit about philanthropy.”

After the Greek Org office, I went straight to the painting studio. Painting was like meditating to me. I lost myself in the repetitive brush strokes and let my head clear. Visions of future paintings would often come to me when I did this, and so I hoped a way to help everyone would seep into my unconscious psyche.

I’d stopped painting my motif of 16oz cups and started painting Corey’s Angel coin in a variety of compositions. My teacher thought I was having a religious experience, inspired by images from art history. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was a Jewish girl who only worshipped porcelain gods. Sometimes I painted my own face reflected in the coin’s shiny surface. Or the coin falling out of Corey’s hand, in descent to the floor. Once I covered a canvas in dark blacks and blues with a glint of light toward the bottom. It was supposed to be the coin inside my jeans pocket.

Fallon’s own work had progressed from painting self-portraits to elaborate still lifes. Instead of the usual bowl of fruit popular throughout art history, her work concentrated on everyday objects found in a college student’s room. It was a play on an installation piece she did freshman year. Her thesis was to prove that even the mundane could be beautiful, that one person’s junk was another person’s art. A pile of lipstick. A laundry basket shadowed by a heavy industrial washer. A close up of rumpled bed sheets. I loved her inventive use of color and the way she globbed the paint so thick, the images looked three-dimensional. However, I wasn’t exactly a fan of her subject matter. It didn’t seem like she was saying anything new, after all, Corey had stumbled into the same art statement when he tossed plates off his balcony. The problem with painting every day objects was the artist needed to find some twist, some new angle, to make the viewer rethink the object in a new way. Her work only presented the images as is, very in your face.

I leaned back from my canvas and studied the glint of the coin. For this composition, I’d mixed the subject with every day change, tarnished and old, while the coin glinted in gold, clean. It almost looked normal, worthless, but it was so much more. My mind supplied the obvious connection from Corey’s Angel coin to money. Even if he got a job, it would be at least two weeks before he received his first pay check. How would he possibly be able to put a down payment on an apartment by Sunday?

The brush fell from my hand, splattering on the concrete floor, as an idea formed in my mind. I hopped off the school and swept to the computer graphics lab across the way to look up Holly’s number in the online directory.

“Hey, it’s Mackenzie,” I said when she picked up. “Shaffer.” My voice mixed with the hum of computers. A boy from one of my classes glared at me.

“Oh, hey. Are you going to come on Friday?” Her voice rose up on the end like Bianca’s usually did when she was excited.

“That’s what I’m calling about, actually.” I left the lab and paced through the empty hall, my footsteps adding to the echo. A found beat. “I have an idea that could possibly help Corey, but involves your party.”

“Okay…” She sounded skeptical.

“So you know how for some sorority philanthropies, the bars donate their cover money to a cause?” Layla had always demanded we head to Quigley’s and pay cover to support the other houses even if we couldn’t actually get into the bar. This happened at least once a week.

“Yeah,” Holly said. “Wait—you want to get Quigley’s to donate the cover to…what charity exactly?”

“The one that will help out one of their best customers.” I explained about Corey being cut off by his parents and needing money A.S.A.P. “Quigley’s might do it if we can fill the bar on a Friday.” Fridays were usually a dead night on campus compared to Thursdays and Saturdays. Fraternity mixers usually took place on Fridays. “And you benefit by having the largest birthday party ever.”

“That’s brilliant! I’m in.”

“Only, I don’t know how to convince the bar owner.”

Holly paused for a second. “I already arranged my party with him. I’ll talk to him about this, too.”

I knew there were flaws to this plan—like holding a party in a bar, the very cause of so many of our problems. But it was the best I could do under the circumstances. Even if we only raised six bucks from mine and Holly’s cover, it would be more than Corey currently had.

I’d still have to face Bianca there but maybe she would understand. Maybe she would see that even though I destroyed, I also rebuilt.

Back at my dorm, I grabbed my mail and flipped through it while I road the slow-as-hell elevator. One envelope made me breath halt.

Throckmorton letterhead. Something official. My pulse ratcheted to heart attack levels. The only time I’d ever received formal letters was when they delivered bad news. The school probably figured out Rho Sigma hadn’t hazed me or forced me to drink and put me on academic probation like Corey.