The rest of the weekend is so great. We take a boat ride out to Alcatraz to see a modern art exhibit on political prisoners, ride trolley cars down rolling hills, eat sourdough bread by the water and chocolate sundaes from Ghirardelli, walk through the Castro, where I buy a shot glass that says, “Drink until He’s Cute” just to mess with Jordan, and to the Mission District, where we wait in line for an hour to have the best tacos in America.
Oh, and we spend quite a bit of time rolling around the king-size bed. We have such a good time that Jordan jokes we may have to worry about that noise-complaints warning after all.
I keep my phone off and in my bag, deciding I deserve to just enjoy the weekend and planning, if Madison gets mad again, to send an email saying I’d dropped it and had to wait until after the holiday to get a new one.
We check out on Monday and head back to the house, me in a cab, Jordan on the train an hour later. I’m expecting everyone to be pretty pissed about the probation.
But I wasn’t expecting pretty much everyone to seem pissed at me.
“Hey, Bambi,” I say as I walk through the front door.
He barely looks up from his book. “Cassie.” He sounds tired at best, and mad at worst.
“That’s it? I’ve been gone all weekend.”
“Well, excuse me if I’m not pumped to see you.” He snaps.
Jesus.
The two upperclassmen I pass on the stairs avoid my eyes and mumble something.
What the hell is going on?
There’s a knock on my door as I unpack.
“Yeah?”
“What’s going on, little lady?”
“Hey, Duncan!”
He pulls me into a big hug.
“How was your weekend?” I ask, returning to my dresser.
“Not good.”
I assume this is in reaction to the probation decision.
“Yeah...listen,” he goes on. “Peter wanted me to tell you, he wants to see you in his room.”
I stop as I’m putting a couple of shirts in a drawer. “Did he say why?”
He avoids my eyes, picking at the chipping paint on my door frame. “I really shouldn’t, Cass. He wants to be the one to talk to you.”
“Yeah, um, okay.” I drop the shirts on the bed. “I’ll go now.”
“Okay, come hang out after if you want.”
I just nod.
As I go to the second floor, a million thoughts race through my head.
Does he know about Jordan?
Oh my God, does he know about the project?
My heart pounds against my chest as I pass the naked calendar. It seems so long since I first saw it at Rush.
Bracing myself, I knock on the door bearing the name plaque, “Mother Fuckin’ President.”
The door swings open, and for the second time in my life I walk into Peter’s room to be interrogated, with what feels like my entire life hanging in the balance.
“Hey, Cassie, we need to talk about something.”
“Okay...”
“You can sit down if you want.”
I take a seat at the desk chair; he sits on the bed.
“So I know you’ve been gone all weekend, which is fine, but, um...” He runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I’m trying to figure out where to start. On Saturday the doorbell rang, which was weird, because obviously we all have keys and there were no guests allowed—you’ve heard about the new rules, right?”
I nod.
“So we sent a couple pledges to answer it, and when they do, this blonde girl collapses in their arms. They bring her inside, and Duncan recognizes her as your friend Alex.”
It feels like all the blood drains from my brain. Like my heart is falling out of my body. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
“No, no, she’s fine now.”
I breathe again.
“But she was in bad shape when she showed up here. Alcohol, and maybe something else, so we had no choice but to call an ambulance. They took her to the hospital, where they pumped her stomach, and she’s fine.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” I say.
He doesn’t look proud. He’s a hero who saved my best friend, shouldn’t he look...happier about it?
“Cassie, substance use and guests, it looks like we had both. That’s two strikes when we didn’t have any left.”
“Oh my God...”
“The housing board is voting at the end of the week, but with this, it doesn’t look good. We’re probably going to be disbanded.”
I can’t believe how much these words—these words that were my goal at the beginning of the year—make me want to cry.
“I wanted to talk to you first, because some people in the house are gonna blame you. But you need to know that it could’ve been any of us, any of our friends or girlfriends could’ve shown up needing help. But it’s important you lay low. I’m trying to make sure if we go out, it’s all as friends, not turning against each other. I know you would never purposely do anything to hurt the frat.”
He’s trying to protect me, even as his house goes down in part because of me. Especially because of me. If only he knew how wrong he was. That I was doing work that hurt the frat long before I even walked through the doors.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
“Hometown sweetheart?” he asks as I stand up to leave.
“What?”
He nods toward me. “The hickey.”
My hand flies to my neck. “Oh, no. I burned myself with my straightening iron.”
He laughs. “Relax, as long as it’s not from someone in my house, I’m happy for you.”
I smile feebly.
As soon as I’m back to my room, I power up my phone.
It lights up like a Christmas tree: texts and voice mails from Alex, drunk and scared and alone, telling me she doesn’t know where to go and is just going to come to the house. Then apologetic texts, letting me know she’s okay and thanking the brothers.
Texts from a few brothers, including Peter, about the situation, and asking why the hell I haven’t answered yet.
And then there are the three emails from Madison Macey, wanting to schedule a call soon.
I’ll deal with her tomorrow. This is still a three-day weekend; I have an excuse.
And I’ve got bigger issues, one friend who was just hospitalized and one hundred who might be about to lose their home.