“I SWEAR, I’M GOING TO GOUGE my eyes out before this semester ends,” Cassie says, flopping her head down on my desk. “Studying is hard.”
I laugh. “Formal is tonight, Little. Just put your notes away and work on it tomorrow.”
“Says the communications major.”
“Hey! I have tests, too,” I defend, but she peeks up at me through her red locks with a smirk. We both know her classes are harder than mine, even if she is a year younger. I toss a highlighter at her. “Whatever. I’m changing my major anyway.” The truth is I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Right now, I’m trying to focus on poker and paying my tuition. The American Poker Club tournament pops into my head again and I let myself daydream about what it would be like to not have to worry about money again.
Could I really win it? Could I really take home the grand prize of the largest poker tournament in the nation?
Part of me thinks I could, but the larger part wonders if I’ll ever be good enough. I’ve stacked my summer with tournaments, some bigger than I’ve ever done before, so I guess the time to show up or shut up has arrived.
At this point, I feel like I’m on the edge of something . . . something I can’t quite grasp yet. I can either keep pushing through the fog to find out what it is or I can stay in my comfort zone and go along like I have been.
I’ve never been one for comfort zones.
Cassie smiles and closes her textbook with a snap, tucking it inside her messenger bag along with the fifty neon-colored notecards she’s been reciting all afternoon. Jess swings through the door at the same time and bounds toward me.
“I just realized you and I are going stag to formal tonight.” She bounces on the bed excitedly. “Girl fucking power, bitch. I packed us each a flask. Let’s get wild!”
“Except I’m not going stag.” I point out.
Jess’ face falls. “What? I thought you and Adam broke up!”
“We did. Which means . . .” I wait for her to fill in the blank.
“Ugh,” she groans. “You’re bringing Bear. Of course you’re fucking bringing Bear.” Waving her hands, she dismisses me quickly. “Fine. More alcohol for me.”
“So because I have a date, I don’t get booze?”
“Your date can buy your booze, hussy.”
Cassie laughs, shaking her head as she pulls her messenger bag over her shoulder. “If it helps, J-Love, I’m going alone, too. I just want to spend time with my sisters. Maybe I can finally take my sister’s advice and stay away from boys.”
“I hear you on that one,” I chime in. The only boy I plan on having anything to do with for quite a while is Bear. He needs me right now after the whole Shawna Shit Show, not to mention his family. For now, my best friend is the only guy I need. No more Skyler the Heartbreaker headlines. If I have anything to do with it, those tabloids are going to start to notice me for my talent, not my dating life.
“Wait, what happened to Grayson?” Jess asks.
Her pale fingers fidget with the strap on her bag as her eyes dart toward the door. “It’s complicated. I’m going to go grab my makeup bag. Be right back.”
She’s out the door before I can ask anything else and Jess and I share a glance. “Wonder what that’s about.”
Jess shrugs. “No clue. That tatted up man-bun piece of sex candy is definitely not one I’d let get away easily.”
I cross my arms over my chest and cock a brow. “Funny. I seem to recall you giving up a pretty hot tatted up piece of sex candy yourself.”
“Don’t, Skyler,” she warns, pointing a finger in my direction as she crosses to her closet. She pulls out the clear plastic bag housing her formal dress and lays it across the bed with her back still to me.
“Jess, just call him.”
“And say what? He wants me to be his girlfriend or nothing at all.”
“So be his girlfriend, you idiot.”
She sighs. “He’s my teacher.”
“Was. And technically, he was the Graduate Assistant, which isn’t even the same thing.”
“I don’t do boyfriends.”
“And? That’s a personal choice, which means you can change it.”
Jess rolls her eyes, yanking her dress out of the plastic bag forcefully. “He’s about to graduate and have a job. I’m still in college. It’d be weird.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. It’s not like I could bring him to socials or frat parties.”
“Actually, you could. Sisters bring their boyfriends from other schools and stuff all the time. No one would care that he’s a couple years older. You act like he’s fifty.” I grab a pillow and hug it close to my chest, resting my chin on the edge.
“I’d probably hurt him. Or he’d hurt me.”
“Again, that’s a choice. And you could literally hurt anyone around you at any point in time. Need I remind you of Family Weekend?”
“Which is exactly why I need to keep him in the little box I have him in now. He knows what to expect and so do I.”
“Except that he’s not trying to live in that box anymore,” I argue.
“Ugh you’re so exhausting!”
“Well, are you done yet?”
“I’m scared, okay?!” she screams, her hands flying into the air. She holds them there for a moment, her chest heaving, wild eyes searching mine. Finally, she lets them fall, raking her nails back through her messy bun. It falls with the force and she ties it up again before crossing her arms. “I haven’t had a boyfriend since the day I found out why everyone calls me J-Love. I’ve embraced the name, turned it from an embarrassing one to a badass one. Everyone thinks I fall in love too fast and chase guys away? Fine, I’ll make them fall in love and chase me, instead. I flipped a switch, Skyler, and I don’t want to go back to where I was before. I was pathetic. I was weak. I was—”
“Normal, Jess,” I breathe, hopping off my bed. “You were a normal girl. We all fall in love, sometimes too fast, sometimes not fast enough. We get reputations, we go for the wrong guys and we survive on heartbreak diets when it all goes wrong. We lean on our sisters and we pick ourselves back up just to do it all over again because if we don’t, what’s the point? It’s okay that you love Jarrett.”
“I—”
“Yes, you do. And you should. What’s more, he should know how you feel because he feels the same way and you guys are just being stupid trying to be together without actually being together.”
Her face crumples and she buries it in her hands, standing in the middle of our room, exposed. “I do love him.”
I pull her in for a hug, squishing my cheek to her head. “I know.”
“I’m just so fucking scared.”
“That’s okay, too.”
She sighs, shaking her head against my chest before standing tall again. “He put his feelings out there so easily when I know it wasn’t that easy for him to do. We both thought we knew what we were getting into and somewhere along the way we just . . . I don’t know. We fell deeper.”
“Listen, you’ve spent this last semester hiding him from us while trying to figure it all out on your own. Before that, you were both hiding because he was your teacher. You’ve spent all this time feeling like being together was something to be ashamed of when really it should be celebrated.”
She sniffs, wiping her nose with the back of her wrist. “You’re right. You’re so right. God, he probably feels so fucking rejected right now when really he’s everything I want. He’s all I want.” Her eyes lift to mine. “I’m going to go tell him. Right now.”
“Right now?” I ask as she sprints for her Keds, yanking them on one foot and then the other.
“Yep. Right now.”
“What about formal?”
She laughs as she swings our bedroom door open. “Fuck formal.”
But before she can exit, Erin and Cassie usher in a red-faced, snotty-nosed Ashlei. She’s sobbing, using both my Little and my Big to hold her steady.
“Oh my God, what happened?” Jess asks, dropping the purse she’d just picked up and rushing to help them.
“No idea. I just found her in our room like this,” Erin answers. They help Ashlei into Jess’ bed and she curls up into a ball, pulling the comforter up to her chin, eyes still squeezed shut. Erin sits on the edge of the bed and pets her hair, murmuring soothing words for a while as the rest of us stand around watching, waiting.
Slowly, Ashlei’s cries soften, until she’s not crying at all. None of us push, we just let her take the time she needs. Every now and then when we think she’s going to speak, she closes her eyes tight again and fights back another wave of tears.
“Bo left,” she finally whispers, her voice dry and croaky.
“What do you mean she left?” Jess asks from behind Erin. Cassie and I share concerned looks as Erin rubs Ashlei’s back, coaxing her forward.
“She left. She dropped. She’s going back home, or to another college, I don’t know—she wouldn’t really say. But she’s gone. She’s leaving KKB, she’s leaving Palm South. She’s done.”
We all gasp, questions flying from everyone.
What? Why? When?
Ashlei cringes away from the noise, burrowing herself into the covers more before Erin snaps her fingers and glares at all of us to shut up. Ashlei takes a deep breath, exhaling it shakily. “It was too much. It was all too much for her. The website, Family Weekend, me, us, all of it. And her parents are on her ass. She just can’t take it anymore.” Ashlei laughs, though nothing is funny right now. “I can’t even blame her.”
Jess’s brows pull inward and she connects eyes with me, guilt evident in her features. Suddenly, Jarrett can wait.
Because when your sister is hurting, you drop everything to be whatever she needs in that moment.
No one says sorry, because Ashlei already knows we are. Jess jumps up into the bed with her and scoots between the wall and Ashlei’s back, tugging her close and wrapping her arms tightly around her middle. Erin leans her head down to their shoulders as Cassie and I crowd our way in, too. For a long while we just hold each other, a KKB shield around Ashlei as we let her grieve her loss. Jess cries with her, knowing she was part of the reason for the loss and also mourning herself. Bo was her Little, and she didn’t even say goodbye.
“Let’s blow formal,” Cassie says finally. “We can rent movies and get wine and junk food.”
Ashlei shakes her head, sitting up slowly as we all disperse from her like a flower’s petals falling back.
“I want to go.” She chews her lip, grabbing Jess’ hand in hers. “I’m going to miss Bo, but it was her decision to leave and I respect it.” Ashlei sniffs, looking around at each of us with a small smile. “Tonight is about more than her. It’s about celebrating another semester with my sisters, who I learned recently care about me more than anyone else.” Jess squeezes her hand. “We may go through hell when we face life on our own, but together, we can build a bridge over that bitch.”
We all laugh and I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye, knowing her words are true. The Kappa Kappa Beta girls may get into trouble. We may try to handle the world on our shoulders and party hard all at the same time, but we’re a force to be reckoned with. We’re a unit. We’re a family.
“On that note,” Jess says, popping out of her bed with a bright smile. “I’ve got the liquor, who’s doing our makeup?”
“On it!” Erin chimes, thrusting her finger into the air before speeding out of the room to grab her giant makeup case. And just like that, the room is alive again, everyone talking and laughing, wiping tears, pulling out dresses.
Time to kiss spring semester goodbye in style.