“Okay, sit down,” I indicated the toilet. Audrey obediently plopped down on the seat while I grabbed my makeup wipes. I briefly wondered how hard I would have to scrub her face to get this crap off. Really depended on how they’d sealed it on. If it was just a setting powder yeah, okay, but if they’d gotten carried away? I might have to take a belt sander to her face. I leaned in and readied the makeup wipe. “We’ll have you home in just a bit.”

“Um, Aleah?” She said. She looked up at me, her eyes wide and tear stained. Pleading.

“Yeah?” I said gently, holding the wipe in my hand.

“Can I…can I stay for a little while?”

“Why? Don’t you need to get home?”

“I um…well when I was over at Tri Pi I was…like this and…they called me Audrey the whole time and…”

“And you were a girl,” I finished for her. She nodded lightly.

“I don’t want to stop yet,” She whispered, staring up at me with a sad look in her eyes. I understood. I put the makeup wipe back in the bag.

“Okay Audrey,” I smiled. “Let me fix your mascara though.”

She nodded, I grabbed her makeup bag from under the sink and smiled to her as I rubbed of the excess, fixed her foundation, and reapplied the mascara.

“Go ahead and go downstairs,” I said to her. “Just hang out, okay?”

I watched her leave, and Tiffany entered the bathroom.

“Need to talk to you,” She said pointedly. I stared back.

“What about?” I asked.

“What are you going to do about tuition?” She asked, walking further into the bathroom and shutting the door. I sighed.
“There’s not much I can do,” I said. “I’m going to have to drop out. I figure on Monday I’ll have to call a house meeting and I’ll announce that I’m leaving. We’ll have new elections and…that’ll be that.”

Tiffany frowned.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” She asked.

“Um, unless you’re going to pull the money out of thin air,” I said. “I can’t get a job no matter how hard I try and financial aid won’t help me.”

“I…pulled some strings for you,” She said. “With Shawn.”

“Shawn? The president of DEM? Why would I want his help?”

“Because you’re desperate,” She pointed out. “And he’s not a bad guy, and neither is his father.”

“I don’t know,” I trailed off for a moment. “I just don’t want to get into anything shady.”

Tiffany rolled her eyes.

“You’re telling me you’re not already into shady stuff with the whole student body president thing?”

“That’s different,” I said.

“Let’s be honest,” Tiffany said. “You’ve already secured the Omega house vote through…actions. You have most of DEM and I trust you’re going to work your way through the rest of the student body. Your hands aren’t clean.”

“Fair enough,” I sighed. There was a knock at the door.

“Hey!” Olivia called out from the other side. “I need to pee!”

“Use the downstairs!” Tiffany shouted back. I heard Olivia grumble as her footsteps moved toward the stairs.

“You were saying?” I said to Tiffany who leaned against the door.

“I’m saying you’re not the most honest person, which is none of my business really but you’re doing one thing that is moral, and honest, at least to an extent.”

“What’s that?” I crossed my arms.

“Audrey,” She said simply. “This is the nicest thing you’ve done for anyone in a long time and I think maybe it’s good for you.”

I chewed over it, she was probably right about that.

“So what are you saying?” I asked.

“I’m saying that if you drop out of school and out of this house, whose going to help her? I think she’s helping you as much as the other way around.”

I didn’t like that image. I didn’t want to depend on someone else for my emotional well being. Surely there was another explanation. I closed my eyes and shook my head.

“What do you want me to do? What do I do?” I said finally.

Tiffany crossed the bathroom and handed me a business card.

“Michael Derringer’s phone number,” She explained. “His private line. There’s already an interview set up for you, a part time job so you can keep going to school.”

I stared at the card. I couldn’t believe I was going to do this. I was going to do this.

I sighed a bit and followed Tiffany from the bathroom, clutching the card in my hand as we descended the stairs. Audrey was there in the living room, talking and laughing happily with the other girls as if nothing was happening. She was comfortable, she was happy; more so than Jayne had ever been. I felt a twinge of anger at the elation that Audrey felt – knowing that it was something Jayne would never experience. No, that wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fault that she got to be happy and…

“Hey ladies,” I said as I walked downstairs. “Let’s talk a bit about philanthropy!”

“Are we actually DOING philanthropy?” Isabella looked up. Audrey did too.

“Very funny,” I said. “Tiffany is involved in the Les Biz play so that can count as-“

“Les Miz,” Audrey corrected.

“Isn’t it Les Mis?” Tiffany raised an eyebrow, folding her arms.

“Everyone says Miz,” Audrey shrugged. “It’s cool, and hip, unlike you.”

“Audrey,” Tiffany scowled. “I will literally fuck you with a rake-“

“LADIES!” I interrupted rudely. “Tiffany is in the play, so we can count that toward our hours. I counted it up and all we need to do to meet the minimum is volunteer at the old folks home, or maybe do some trash pickup, whichever one sounds less gross.”

“Soup kitchen,” Audrey said suddenly. Everyone turned and stared at her.

“Sorry?” I said, looking at her, wondering what kind of input she could possibly have.

“You can work at the soup kitchen down on Fourth and Apple. You just hand out food, and you’re behind a counter so you don’t really have to interact with anyone. I do it once a month, I can get you in.”

“YOU volunteer?” Tiffany raised an eyebrow.

“Do I look like a monster to you or something?” Audrey said sarcastically. “Of course I volunteer.”

“Okay that’s really unexpected,” I admitted. “But I think we’re going to go with that. Can you get me the number to the shelter?”

“Sure,” Audrey said, pulling out her phone and shooting me a text. I ignored my phone as it buzzed in my shallow pant pocket.

As I surveyed the room I noticed Tiffany standing behind the couch, staring intently at me. When I finally made eye contact, she nodded to her phone. She wanted to text. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and unlocked it. First there was the text from Audrey – that was awesome, and then there was Tiffany’s message:

Check this link

Her message was accompanied by a hyperlink, which I tapped, and then impatiently waited for the page to load. Finally the cursor stopped spinning and the page splashed across my device. It was a news site, a pretty reliable one. The headline read: Alexander Garron Donates $1 Million to Woodcrest University.

That kind of made me stop in my tracks; Alexander Garron was…he was Jayne’s father. There was a lump in my throat and a tightening in my stomach that I can’t even begin to describe. I read further and the feeling became worse as I discovered his donation had given him a seat on the school board. I slowly looked up from the phone and made eye contact with Tiffany again, then shifted my gaze to Audrey who was still sitting on the couch, talking and laughing with the others. I’d promised to protect her, and that was becoming harder by the minute.