“I don’t need the gory details,” said Maddy. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to mess up rush for you. I should have known if he could do something like that to you, then he could do it to me. But I thought . . .”
“You thought you knew him better.”
“Yeah. I’ve been a crappy sister and I wouldn’t blame you for hating me.”
“I don’t hate you,” said Maddy. Even if it wasn’t 100 percent true, it felt good to say. She was tired of being angry.
“But you’re a Sigma now! You can probably have any guy you want.”
Miranda might be right, but at that moment being in a relationship seemed like a lot of trouble Maddy just didn’t need. She had enough work to do figuring out her regular friendships, let alone dealing with a boyfriend.
“Listen,” she said as she watched the new pledges start into the house. “I have to go. I just wanted to let somebody at home know what was happening. Will you tell mom and dad for me?”
“I’ll tell them. And seriously, Maddy. I’m happy for you. You’re pledging Sigma just like you said you would. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, Miranda.” Maddy felt a pair of arms grab her around the waist and turned to see Violet, the very first girl she’d met on the first day of rush, waiting to crush her in a bear hug.
“Welcome to Sigma!” said Violet. “We’re so psyched to have you!”
Maddy put away her phone as Violet led her up the sidewalk. The crowd was starting to thin as girls went through the red front door, into the house. “C’mon!” Violet said. “There’s a ton of stuff planned for today, and you don’t want to miss any of it.”
By the time they reached the porch they were the last two still outside. Violet stopped. “You can’t come in without this,” she said, taking something out of her pocket. It was a silver star on a glittering chain.
“It’s so pretty!” Maddy murmured, her voice catching in her throat.
Violet smiled. “It’s for you.”
Maddy bowed her head and pulled back her hair so Violet could fasten the chain around her neck. She brought her hand around to her throat, held the little star between her fingers, and made a vow: from that second on, she would do everything she could to be worthy of it.
“Welcome home,” said Violet. She stepped over the threshold into the foyer, where Maddy could hear the other girls laughing and singing. Still holding the star with one hand, she reached out with the other to take the knob.
Maddy shut the door.
FORTY-EIGHT
When Cass and Ruby reached the first landing of the grand staircase, Ruby turned toward their room, but Cass continued climbing, up to the third floor. The door to the president’s suite was shut, but the door next to it—Marianne McCourt’s door—stood open. Inside, looking out the window, was Delia.
Cass peeked her head in. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” Delia answered, keeping her eyes on the sidewalk below.
“I’m sorry,” said Cass, going to stand next to her. She didn’t know what else to say. “I feel terrible. About everything. I just . . . I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Cass filled the silence with a nervous laugh. “Um . . . I hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way, but you’re making me nervous standing by the window like this.”
“Why?” Delia’s voice was even and calm. “The view is amazing.”
“After last night, though . . . I mean . . . what were you doing up here?”
“Did you think I was going to jump or something?” Delia let out a laugh of her own. “You really think I’d do something like that?”
“Well you have to admit it’s been a pretty surreal week.”
“I won’t argue there.” Delia hugged herself, even though outside it was hot and sunny. “I come in here a lot, when I need to think or be alone. This used to be my room until my friend died. I’m sure you’ve heard all about it—what happened to Marianne.”
Cass swallowed, resisting the urge to glance at the poster behind the bed. “I’ve only heard the gossip. And the people who gossip seem to be going for maximum dramatic effect, so . . .”
“I know.” Delia rolled her eyes. “The last one I heard was that she’d been killed, supposedly by one of us. If you knew anything about how close we all were back then, you’d know how stupid that is.”
Cass took a deep breath and decided to ask what she—and everybody else—had been wondering. “What did happen? Only if you want to talk about it, though. I mean, I can imagine it’s not something you really want to remember . . .”
Delia touched the windowsill, then leaned out just a bit to take in the steep slope of the roof. “Marianne used to like to climb out and sit on the ledge right here to read. I’d beg her not to, but she’d always tell me to quit being so serious.”
“So she fell?” Cass couldn’t help it, she felt a bit let down. “That’s really all there is to it?”
“I wish,” said Delia. “Things would probably have been a lot different if that was all. But this was a different house then, too. We worked hard but we also had a lot of fun. Sometimes the fun went too far, and Marianne wasn’t the only one to pay the price for that.”
“Did she go out and get wasted, then come home and try to sit on the ledge for fresh air?”
“She’d been drinking when she fell,” Delia said. “But she wasn’t out before it happened. We were having a party here at the house.”
The clues Cass had found earlier in the week started to make sense. She went to the stripped-down bed, pulled the bottle from between the mattresses, and put it on the windowsill in front of Delia.
“I hid that,” Delia admitted. “It was bad enough they were going to find out she’d been drinking. She was underage, which goes against the Sigma honor code. But drinking inside university-affiliated residences is illegal. And we were all doing it.”
“That’s why nobody talks about what happened.”
“We swore to keep it a secret, but that was just the beginning. The alums and the older actives decided we needed to recommit to Sigma and all those ideals they thought we’d forgotten. When we came back the next year, it was stricter, harder, and, to be honest, meaner. I thought it was for the best. I swore after Marianne died that I’d never be so stupid again, but now look at me. I was just as dumb for not listening to you.”
Cass thought back to the first day of rush—telling Imogen Ash that she believed the stories about the sorority house being haunted. All this time, there was no ghost; just Delia coming to Marianne’s room to remember her friend.
“But the worst part is what we lost,” Delia went on. “We were so obsessed with being Sigma that we forgot how to have fun. We forgot how to be real friends.” Delia brushed aside the tears that had dampened her cheeks, threw back her shoulders, and pulled herself out of the past. “Isn’t it weird how it happened?” she said. “One minute I’m up here, watching my boyfriend with a rushee, and the next I’m resigning as president.”
“You didn’t have to leave,” said Cass.
“I’m actually kind of glad, though. My whole life I’ve been scared to disappoint my dad, worried I wouldn’t know who I was if I didn’t have a plan for everything. Now that failure’s caught up with me I can finally deal with it. My biggest regret is that the chapter is going to go bankrupt.”
“I won’t let that happen,” said Cass. “We’ll find a way to raise money.”
“I hope you can.” Delia pushed away from the window. “I’m going to go pack. The honors dorm has an opening so I’m heading over there. I’ll go while you take the new girls to lunch—I don’t think it would look good to see someone moving out just as they’re getting ready to move in.”
Cass watched as Delia took the lavaliere from around her neck and let it dangle from her fingers. After a moment, she placed it on the windowsill next to the bottle.
“Good luck, Cass,” she said, and left the room.
The lavaliere glinted in the sunlight, and Cass considered taking it to give back to Delia later. Instead, she put the bottle in the pocket of her hoodie, then leaned out the window, grabbed the panes, and pulled them closed. But just before she did, she spotted a familiar form among the crush of new pledges out on the sidewalk. It was Leo, looking up and waving.
Cass ran back down the stairs and out the front door, into his arms. He lifted her off her feet, hugging her tight, and then there was a short second where they both hesitated, unsure what to do next.
She answered the question by taking his face in her hands and kissing him, right there where anyone and everyone could see. No more wondering, no more weirdness.
Leo beamed when she let him go.
“I had my doubts about Cass the sorority girl,” he said. “But it turns out I really like her.”
“I do, too,” said Cass.
Leo looked past her at the red door, behind which drama from the morning and the night before was still playing out. The alums were back in their meetings, and at least a few other Killer Bees were waiting to hear whether they were going to be kicked out.
“I hope it’s okay that I came over,” Leo said. “Your revolution sounds like it was pretty bloody.”
“You can come over any time,” Cass told him. “Just because I’m here it doesn’t mean things have to change.”
“But I want things to change.” He reached down to take her hands. “At least as far as this is concerned.”
Cass looked at their entwined fingers, remembering all of the times she’d wished she could touch Leo in a way that wasn’t just funny or friendly or fleeting. Her hands in his felt like they’d belonged there all along.
Leo looked nervous, an expression Cass found new and thrilling. “Are we still friends, too?” he asked.
The only way to answer that question was with another kiss. And then another, and a few more after that, until someone on the front porch let out a catcall, which was just fine because they needed to come up for air anyway.
“The new pledges are here,” said Cass. “We’ve got a bunch of stuff going on today, but I don’t think I have plans for later. I never got back to the bar last night.”
“I’ll wait for you,” Leo said. “I’ll even promise not to bitch about it if you’re late.”
“I won’t be.” Cass leaned in for one last kiss. “I’ll be there. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
But first, there were new sisters to meet and old ones to say good-bye to. Cass let Leo go. She watched him get in his car and drive away, then went back into the house to get ready to greet the new girls.
Author’s Note
My own sorority was nothing like Sigma Theta Kappa, thank goodness! I chose recruitment week as a novel setting because it packs tons of potential for conflict within a short period of time. But a book about a girl who pledges a house where she has a great experience and makes lots of friends wouldn’t be a very fun read. So I dialed up the drama and dreamed up a place where many of the young women have forgotten the true meaning of sisterhood.
Every campus and sorority does recruitment differently. For Sigma, I created routines and rituals to amplify conflict. It’s not the way my house did it. Any resemblance to how other houses do it is a coincidence. And amid all the drama, I hope the real message of Rush shines through – that recruitment may not be perfect, but the rewards can be wonderful. Sororities aren’t for everyone, but they can be a great way to forge bonds and friendships that last a lifetime.
Bio
Sara Bennett Wealer’s first novel, Rival, is about two former best friends competing against each other in a major singing competition. Sara lives in Cincinnati with her husband and two daughters.
www.sarabennettwealer.com
www.facebook.com/sarabennettwealer
Twitter: @sbennettwealer
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Copyright © 2016 by Sara Bennett Wealer
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This electronic edition published in 2016
First published in November 2016
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