So recruitment week was anxious. It was hard enough worrying about whether the group of girls you hoped to call sisters liked you, and furthermore, saw the real you. There was something so warm about the idea of having sisters—Arielle had never had one, and while she loved her mom and her friends dearly, there was nothing like the idea of definitively belonging to a group of friends who carried the bond of family.
Every time she thought about that, she tried to ignore how much she knew Lauren needed that exact same thing. They only had to get through this one week, and then they would each be in a house, or at least know for sure that they wouldn’t be in a house, and they’d be able to talk through it. It might be difficult, but they could do it. They’d grown too close, and Arielle had planted Lauren in too many of her daydreams about the future, to abandon what they’d started.
At every single movie night, philanthropy meeting, and mid-week activity planned by the recruitment coordinators, Arielle kept one eye on the sororities that she visited—the list was narrowed with each meeting, and Alpha Chi always remained front and center—and the other on the crowd of girls. If Lauren was there, she’d see her right away—if she didn’t catch sight of her shining black hair, she’d hear her laugh, or maybe smell her perfume first. The more Arielle scanned crowds, desperate to catch a glimpse of Lauren, the more she realized how utterly attached to Lauren she’d become. Addicted, even. The hope of seeing Lauren, even if just for a moment, was a tiny carrot at the end of a very twisty-turny stick. At the moment, though, the only thing twisting and turning was Arielle’s stomach when she realized just how close this feeling was to what she’d experienced with Rachel. Too damn close.
One thing Arielle couldn’t stand about sorority recruitment was how steeped it was in pomp and circumstance. Each girl’s list of houses she was interested in narrowed for each round, and when Arielle went through the entire week without seeing Lauren, she started to hope that maybe what Lauren said would turn out to be true. Maybe they’d end up totally loving different sororities and they could keep dating like nothing had ever gone wrong.
Like Arielle hadn’t decided she wanted something else just as much as she wanted Lauren.
That, however, was assuming that she could get Lauren to talk to her at all. She was still stewing about it, and she wanted the chance to work through it, convince Lauren to get back together with her. And assuming that Lauren had told her sorority that she was gay, which Arielle wasn’t too sure she’d do after all, and assuming that that sorority didn’t hate gay girls. Like Rachel’s did.
But now that she was in it, she really did feel so at home at Alpha Chi. Obviously, her relationship with Lauren had started with attraction, and the one with her roommates as a Society meeting. As nice as attraction and blind circumstance were, the Alpha Chi girls were looking at Arielle the whole person, and—hopefully—saying they wanted her to be part of their house.
Arielle growled at her stupid curly hair as she tugged some smoother through it with her fingers. At least recruitment in the dead of winter meant that there would be no humidity to puff it out into oblivion. She sighed as she tugged the curve-hugging white dress she’d borrowed from Amy up over her waist. Her hips were about the same size as Amy’s, but she was about three inches shorter, making the thick-knit skirt fall mercifully just below her knees.
White dresses were one more ridiculous thing about sorority recruitment. It was a holdover from wearing white during Spring recruitment, or maybe to graduation ceremonies—nobody really knew anymore. Apparently, along with being traditional, white was awesome at accentuating lumps and bumps. Arielle frowned in the mirror, tugged at the way the dress bunched up around her waist, tried to figure out how she could pose in pictures so that the dress looked natural on her instead of looking like the hand-me-down it was. The sleeves only went to her elbows, and it was ass-cold outside, so she pulled on her dressiest sweater, which happened to be purple, with a line of sequins around the hem. Definitely not on the dress code. But she shrugged. Now that she was all in, and she knew her reasons why, she knew she didn’t want to be part of any sorority that wouldn’t have her if she wore something slightly off-plan—something that made her feel more comfortable in her own skin.
Arielle scrolled through the email about bid day protocol on her phone for the millionth time as she shivered on the short walk to the student union. Rion had called it cultish and Amy had called it weird when she’d told them about the process, and Arielle had found it hard to argue. Each original recruitment group, organized by dorm, was supposed to meet in a different room with their recruitment advisor. The girls who didn’t match with a sorority—the main reason people didn’t was because they’d suicided, or only listed one acceptable sorority—would get pulled aside before bids were handed out, so they could leave through a back door, embarrassment-free. Most girls were dreading that possibility, of not finding somewhere to fit in, of nobody accepting them. Arielle was different. She thought ‘suiciding’ was a stupid term, because not matching with a sorority wouldn’t be the end of the world. She certainly wouldn’t want to die if no sorority wanted her. She’d be sad, because she loved Alpha Chi so much, but she’d find somewhere she fit in. Probably.
She did, however, feel like she might die if she never saw Lauren again.
Arielle settled into a molded plastic chair in the random conference room the Harrison recruitment group had been assigned. She smiled as the last few girls walked in. Everyone had done their hair and makeup, and the buzz of excitement that ran through the group made them all glimmer with excitement. Most of all, it was nice to be excited about pretty much the same thing as a group of girls her age were.
Here, in this moment, she was normal. She fit in. She belonged.
The worst part was that she wasn’t really angry at Lauren anymore. Anger would be easier. This uncertain hope and longing might kill her before today was over. If only she could figure out how to talk to Lauren again.
Anita, the Rho Gam for the Harrison Tower recruitment group, stood at the front of the room clutching a stack of white envelopes. She wore one of those conciliatory smiles that made Arielle’s stomach twist. She could totally handle the disappointment of not being in Alpha Chi, but that didn’t mean she was eager for something else to make her cry just two weeks into what would feel like a very long semester if there were two huge disappointments to start it out.
“Okay, welcome to bid day, girls!” Anita looked stunningly out of place in frigid Indiana, with her nose stud and golden-tanned skin from her winter break to Greece to hang out with her grandparents. “First, I’ll need to speak with Kelly Newman, Diana Singh, and Elissa Overholt. And that’s it.” Her smile looked relieved, even though the three girls—who Arielle vaguely recognized, probably from running into them at the Harrison mailboxes or elevator—looked like they were going to be sick. They filed out after Anita, and as soon as the door shut, the sparkly happy anticipatory energy turned a little more solemn. In high school, they would have gossiped and chatted about the other girls, reveling in their own good luck. Back then, Arielle would have expected sorority girls to do the same. But there was one thing about this recruitment process that had stuck with her—sorority girls, by and large, were really, really good people. Sweet and dedicated, ready to be amazing friends and sisters.
Most of all, Arielle was trying to contain her happy butterflies. She hadn’t suicided for Alpha Chi and she hadn’t been called out of the room—which meant that Alpha Chi was offering her a bid. When Anita announced it was time to open their envelopes, Arielle was one of the girls who grinned and squealed and wiggled in her chair.
Alpha Chi Beta cordially invites Arielle Duval to become a New Member of Kappa Mu Chapter, Indiana Northern University.
What a rush. What a strange feeling, to feel like she was one of a select few completely and totally happy people in a situation that she would have called bizarre a month ago.
At that realization, it was like everything started u
nraveling all around her. A month ago. Just thirty days ago, she would have never imagined herself as someone who would join a sorority—in fact, if anyone had suggested it, she would have glared at them and told them to shut their stupid mouths. What did they think she was, a stupid mainstream giggling college girl? But now, she’d fight for her affiliation with Alpha Chi to the death—that was how quickly her viewpoint and feelings had changed.
What if Lauren was just as wishy-washy about dating girls? Arielle had always put so much emphasis on knowing who she was, and only dating girls who knew who they were, too. But what if dating her was the one thing that made those other girls sure? What if Lauren had been with Arielle, and her identity had taken an unexpected turn, too?
Arielle’s elation suddenly became coated in panicked regret. Because, now that she knew she was joining Alpha Chi, that it was an undeniable part of who she was, that she loved the sorority so much and felt completely comfortable there, if they’d asked her to shout her commitment from the rooftops the first time she’d walked into the house, she would have balked. The realization of how unfair she’d been to Lauren in essentially asking her to do the same made her face fall and her shoulders slump.
“Since there are only 200 girls rushing, we’ll meet in the downstairs lobby. Then they’re going to call each girl to their new house individually. So, indicate your acceptance or rejection of the bid on the back of the small card they included and hand it back to me, please. Keep in mind that if you reject, it’s likely you won’t be offered a bid from another house, at least for this year. I’m ready to talk to anyone who has questions, but please don’t discuss bids among yourselves.”
The silence in the room was palpable. About half the girls seemed as excited and sure as Arielle, but the other half were lukewarm over whatever they scribbled, or agonizing. She couldn’t help thinking of Lauren—whether she’d gotten a bid, where it was, how she felt about it. The bid process was so highly guarded that Arielle didn’t want to mess up her chances by asking the Alpha Chi girls inappropriate questions, but she knew it was a possibility that Lauren would want a bid from them, too. A slim one, since she hadn’t run into her, but still. Now that they were definitely all in the same building though…maybe…
Arielle’s hand shot up. “If I need to go to the bathroom, is that allowed, or…?”
Anita nodded quickly—the girl she was talking to looked like her dog had just died. Arielle ducked out of the room and slunk down the mostly quiet hallway. The student union was newly renovated, and rooms on the third floor were rarely frequented. It still smelled like new carpet. Almost every room was completely closed off to the main hallway behind heavy metal doors but there was one, a triangle-shaped corner room with long mahogany tables, that had windowed walls on all sides, probably because it offered the best view of the rest of the union. Arielle didn’t expect it, but there were girls in white in all those chairs, too, and then she caught a glimpse of the sign on the door—CRAWFORD. Lauren’s dorm.
Arielle’s heart thudded in her chest. The bathroom she was supposed to use was just to her left, but there was another one past that conference room. Nobody would question her walking by it, especially since the purple cardigan was long enough to not make her white dress so totally obvious.
She was dying to see Lauren, just like she’d been all week—but part of her had also hoping Lauren had dropped out. That was the selfish part—the part that imagined that she could have it all, without bending. That she could be a sorority girl and a gay girl, and that it would be okay because her girlfriend wasn’t even involved with all that stuff. Didn’t even want to be.
But Arielle had spent so much time staring at Lauren’s back, her profile, the way she sat in a hard-backed chair, the exact swoop of her hair, and she spotted her instantly, chatting with another girl across the table from her. She didn’t look panicked or worried or sad. She seemed happy. Best-case scenario, she’d matched with a sorority she loved, which might be okay. Worst-case scenario, since she and Arielle had fought, or broken up, or whatever they’d done, she had fully embraced lesbianism and was flirting with other sorority girls with complete abandon.
Arielle fought to steady her breath, numbly used the bathroom, and forced her legs to walk back to her recruitment group. She had to focus on the positive. She was about to have a brand new home.
If only she could ignore the sour, twisting feeling in her stomach as she walked away from Lauren, maybe for the last time ever,
Arielle had fallen in love with Alpha Chi for every reason opposite of what was going on right now on the main floor of the student union. Groups of girls, dressed alike—white shirts with denim, mint shirts with black pants, pink shirts with khaki…and tall leather boots as far as the eye could see. Each group stood in a cluster, chanting cheers, doing dances, bouncing around with posterboard signs and streamers in the sorority colors. If aliens descended on the student union at this moment and were presented with this view of humanity, Arielle wouldn’t blame them for laser-zapping all two hundred-some squealing girls.
Some of the girls in her group were just as squealy and bouncy. Arielle glimpsed Lauren coming into the room where all the potential new members waited to join the craziness, shouldering in next to another girl. Arielle couldn’t tear her eyes away. She had to know how Lauren was doing. Arielle watched the downward flick of Lauren’s eyes, the half-smile that showed no teeth or dimples. When she talked with the girl standing next to her, she kept her shoulders facing forward, only said a few short words. Not like Lauren at all.
Clearly she wasn’t doing okay, a realization which gave Arielle a jab right in the heart. It didn’t matter whether or not Arielle had been the one to cause the upset—even if she hadn’t, she’d ruined any chance of being there to comfort Lauren, to help her out. She’d left Lauren all alone at this giant university, where she’d been feeling more homesick and lost by the day. No wonder Lauren was still rushing.
Just as her self-loathing reached its peak for the moment, Lauren raised her eyes, and they connected with Arielle’s, so clearly and strongly that it couldn’t have been a mistake. Immediately, tears pricked at the borders of Arielle’s eyes, and she blinked hard to will them away. She gave Lauren a sad smile, mouthed ‘hi.’ Lauren’s eyes widened, and her cheeks pushed up. She mouthed ‘hi,’ back. Arielle felt electric with hope. Maybe Lauren didn’t hate her. Maybe Arielle would be able to make it up to her. Maybe, even though this week had felt like one horribly wrong turn after another, they could be fixed.
Lauren smiled a bit wider and mouthed, “Good luck.” God, that dimple was enough to make Arielle melt into a puddle right there. “You too,” Arielle mouthed back.
Then, the head Rho Gam approached the windowed door, waving madly at all the girls. Arielle knew the music was loud, but nothing could have prepared her for the way it boomed through the room, seeming to spin every molecule faster, infusing even more nervous energy into every girl standing there. She flung the door open and squealed. “Are you girls all ready for the best day of your lives?”
Arielle smirked and shook her head. That was definitely overkill, but she’d play along. She wasn’t too much of a snob to admit she was excited, too. Every single sorority girl in the room was chanting the same thing about sisterhood and Greek women at Northern being the best of all the rest, which actually didn’t make much sense, but Arielle still smiled. She never thought she’d feel like she belonged to anything ever again—she thought she’d left that all behind her when she left youth group back home. This was totally different, but somehow the same.
Then a hard shoulder slammed into hers, and sharp pain shot down her arm. “Holy Shit!” Arielle cried, immediately grateful that her yelling basically had the force of a whisper in all this chaos. She spun around, clutching her shoulder, and stared into the one face that could undo her more than Lauren.
Rachel looked good—her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed. Her hair was longer, almost to her waist, and the r
idiculous amounts of glitter on her face and in her hair, plus every piece of sorority bling she wore, actually made her look absolutely freaking radiant.
“Ari?” She stepped back, eyes wide, and scanned her head to toe. “Holy shit. What are you doing here?”
Unlike the unexpected Lauren sighting, Arielle’s first reaction was to frown. “What do you mean?” Arielle held up her bid card. “I’m a new member.”
Rachel blinked like Arielle had just told her she was about to move to Mars and open up an artisan soap shop. A mixture of surprise and pity. “Oh, Alpha Chi. That’s perfect for a girl like you.”
“What the hell is that supposed to—” Arielle only got a few words out before Rachel grabbed her and smooshed her into a tight hug. Equal parts perfume and stale alcohol bloomed up around her face. Mixed with the bitchiness of Rachel’s last comment, Arielle’s skin crawled. She stiffened, hoping Rachel would drop her and she’d get away from her without making a scene. But then Rachel’s breath blew hot on her ear. “I miss you. Maybe we could—”
Arielle wrenched herself away, anger churning through her. “No, we couldn’t. Whatever it is about a ‘girl like me’ that makes you think I would go for that, you’re wrong.”
Rachel backed away from her, flicking her hands out when they broke contact, like she was trying to shake dirt off her skin. All of a sudden, the shiny gloss on her lips didn’t make her look beautiful—it made her look poisonous. “Whatever,” Rachel hissed. “Enjoy yourself in your little geek club.”
Pride for Alpha Chi swelled through Arielle. Rachel liked to keep things shiny on the outside and real on the inside. Arielle was only interested in the real. Just real, honest girls, who had each others’ backs, no matter what. Girls that didn’t care if you fit in, because maybe they didn’t fit in themselves. That was where Arielle belonged.
The Broken Hearts' Society of Suite 17C Page 40