“Alright pledges, listen up!” I shouted, pacing back and forth in front of a row of traumatized girls. I grinned widely seeing them tremble beneath their blindfolds and I swear one of them was about to fall out of the metal folding chair we’d shoved her into. “Here’s how it’s going to work. I’m going to ask you some questions. Answer them correctly, nothing happens. Answer them wrong, and you get a little surprise! Does everyone understand the rules?”

I heard some scattered acknowledgement and I think a few whimpers. I shouldn’t have expected much more at 3 in the morning. We’d dragged them out of their beds, after all.

“I don’t think I heard you right, Pledges!” I barked. I was doing my best to sound aggressive. Truth is I was holding in some serious laughter. To my right I saw Aleah standing in the corner looking at me completely uninterested.

“Yes Miss Tiffany!” They all shouted, almost in unison, except for Audrey who I think was more confused than the rest of them. She probably should have been; she wasn’t a pledge, after all.

“That’s a little better, but we’ll have to work on it!” My voice rang hard against the basement walls. I hated using the GAT house basement for this; it meant that someone would have to clean it up later.

“Um excuse me,” Audrey said, not even attempting a feminine voice. “Why am I here?”

I would have rolled my eyes for dramatic measure if any of them could see me, but instead I just tried to sound as bitchy as I could.
“Because we have things to teach you Audrey, and I’m a little busy, so I have to shove everything into one, now shut up and listen. Pledges! Remove your blindfolds!”

I stood as patiently as possible as they removed their blindfolds. They were slow as molasses, and none of them looked great. One of them, Hailey, was struggling with the blindfold literally stuck in her frizzy and now matted hair. She gave up at some point, having pulled it off but leaving it stuck to the side of her head thanks to static electricity. Audrey had red indents on the side of her face, as if she’d been asleep on the carpet in her dorm. I would have to ask about that later.

“If you ladies are DONE,” I said, crossing my arms and doing my best Satan impression as I glared at them. “First thing’s first. The person next to you is now your pledge buddy, you’ll be with them at all times. That doesn’t go for you, Audrey.”

It was unspoken for Audrey; ever since the Mike incident a few days ago, one of us had been with her practically 24/7. I was really glad she was low maintenance, other than being a potential target.

“Now that you know the rules,” Aleah said, stepping from the shadows and addressing the horrified pledges. “You’re going to be asked questions about your sorority. The sorority that YOU pledged to. I hope you remember what we told you about it during rush week, or better yet, maybe you read your handbook?”

The pledges looked at eachother. Of course they hadn’t read their handbooks, it was the first week, well, actually the first few days. We probably shouldn’t have been hazing them this early on but hey, what the hell right? Though to be perfectly honest, if the Greek council found out that we were actually hazing our pledges, I mean really hazing them, there would be hell to pay.

“If any of you leave this room,” I said, stepping in again “For any reason – ANY reason at all, you fail, and you and your pledge buddy will be removed from Gamma Alpha Tau. Trust me, you don’t want your membership in this sorority to end this early on.”

“Okay you know what,” Audrey said, standing up. “I’m not a pledge, I can’t be kicked out so –”
“If Audrey leaves, everyone fails,” I said. Immediately, the two girls on either side of her grabbed her by the arms and pulled her back into her chair.
I took my attention off Audrey and walked over to a random girl. Ashley, I think was her name. She was kind of a cute red head, freckles and all. Should probably mention that she was tiny, so tiny that she would probably be swimming in my clothes if she were so inclined to try them.
“You, pledge,” I unfolded my arms to point at her. She sat straight up like a lightning rod. “What’s your name?”

“Um..my name is…Ashley,” She stammered. Well hey, I got it right.

“Wrong!” I snapped. She jerked back like I’d shot her. I grabbed a handful of her red hair, gently. She cringed. “You kind of remind me of a red velvet cupcake. I’m gonna call you cupcake.”

I heard a few of the other girls snicker.

“Hey!” I clapped my hand to get their attention. “Over the course of the next three months, you will remain pledges to Gamma Alpha Tau! Those of you who make it to initiation will do so because you learned to rely on eachother. Now with that being said, that means you need to work together, support eachother, come together! Do I make myself clear?”

There was a stunned silence, as I expected.

“I said –” I started to shout, but they cut me off before I could finish with a chorus of ‘Yes Miss Tiffany’. Audrey said nothing. She looked angry, actually. Of course she was angry, we’d dragged her out of bed at three in the morning. “Audrey.”

As I said her name she looked up at me. I glared at her in absolute silence, you probably could have heard a pin drop in the cramped basement. I briefly heard Aleah shifting positions from her observation spot over by our washing machine.

“Yes Miss Tiffany,” Audrey said quietly.

I fought the urge to smile. I can be a sadistic bitch sometimes.

Before I go any further I should probably explain what was happening here. Okay, you already know what a hazing is, but what was the deal with Audrey. To put it simply: Audrey, formerly known as Todd, had been surfing Transgender forums and social media groups trying to figure out who she was. Her little search somehow ended in her breaking into the Gamma house and putting on a dress belonging to our chapter president. Just when we were getting ready to ruin her life, Aleah, came across the internet history on her phone, and from there on out, for some reason, we decided to try to help her transition. Okay, let me correct myself: Aleah decided to help. I think it was a mistake, and honestly, with school starting up, who had time for all this? So, in order to speed up the process, it was my idea to interlude her transition with our pledge hazing. A little bit cruel? Yeah, but what’s a gender transition without a little trauma?

I stepped over to the girl beside Ashley, really cute, definitely younger than me, and with bright blonde hair.

“I’m gonna call you lemondrop,” I said snidely. “Goes with your hair.”

The girls snickered again. I looked over at Audrey again who was staring at me intently. I paused for a moment and then stepped over to her.

“And what’s your name?” I asked her, bending over to speak to her at eye level. Her chair was clattering against the ground; she was shaking.

“It’s um…it’s…Audrey,” She said. I could tell she was still uncomfortable saying it out loud; it came out as a half-whisper.

“Again.”

“My name is…Audrey.,” She repeated with a little more confidence. “Are…you going to give me a nickname too.”

I shook my head and moved on.

Finally, reaching the next pledge, I asked the first question.

“You, beanstalk!” I said to a taller, lanky brunette who looked as if she’d never sat in a chair in her life. Seriously, she was sprawled all over it like a spider. “What year was Gamma Alpha Tau founded? You have five seconds, go!”

“Uh..eighteen….” She said, her voice trailing off, her eyes wide.

“Eighteen isn’t even a year!” I barked at her.

“Eighteen-Ninety-seven!” She suddenly choked out.

“Well look at that,” I said. “We have ourselves a little know-it-all here. The boys aren’t going to like that very much!”

More snickering.

“You!” I moved on to the next girl. “What does GAT stand for?”

“I…” She stuttered. I glared at her.

“Come on!” I taunted. “You can’t tell me you joined a house and didn’t learn the motto!”

“It’s uh—,” She was close to tears now.

“Do you want to quit?” I asked her. “Go ahead and walk out the door right now, take your buddy with you!”

“I..no, I don’t want to quit!” She sobbed. “I just don’t—”

I looked up to Lauren and Isabella standing in the darkness behind them. I nodded. They both came forward and hoisted a huge white bucket over the pledge’s head – it took both of them to lift the thing. Suddenly, the pledge was covered in off-brand chocolate syrup. She shrieked and raised her hands to her head, grasping at her matted hair, then tried to rub the chocolate from her eyes. I stepped closer to her, took a finger, and rubbed a but of chocolate from just under her eye.

“Your tears are delicious,” I said with a twisted grin as I licked my finger.

The rest of the session went about as well as I could have expected; every pledge soaked in chocolate syrup, one of them had fallen out of her chair and was rocking back and forth on the concrete floor. The only person in the lineup completely untouched was Audrey; I hadn’t asked her any questions. How could I? She didn’t know anything about our house. Nevertheless, I walked to her.

“Audrey,” I said. She stared up at me like a deer in headlights. “If you get this wrong, everyone here gets a bucket. You’d better be ready.”

“I can’t—” She stated to say. I pressed a single finger to her lips and shushed her. She looked completely defeated.

Smiling, I reached into my pocket and produced a liquid eyeliner pen.

“If you’ve been practicing like we told you,” I said. “Then you’ll be able to draw a straight line from one end of your eyelid to the other.”

I grabbed her right and shoved the pen into it.

“I’m waiting.”

If she’d been afraid before, she’d elevated it to a completely new level. I think her teeth were chattering.

“You’d better get this right,” The girl next to her said through gritted teeth.

“Remember,” I said. “If you get this wrong, EVERYONE suffers. That includes you, Audrey.”

“I know!” Audrey suddenly snapped.

“Female voice, Audrey,” I sighed. “Pitch it up.”

“Fine!” She was trying.

I stood and waited. With a shaking hand she raised the pen to her eyelid and as soon as she made contact, she twitched and drew a line halfway up her forehead. I shook my head and looked to the two behind her chair.

As I took a step back, they dumped the bucket over Audrey’s head, and I swear she screamed louder than any of the other girls here. Yeah, she had to have, from the way they looked at her.

“Oh knock it off, Audrey!” Isabella called out from behind the row of chairs. I had to agree, she actually managed to slide out of her chair and slammed into the basement floor, rubbing her eyes and generally freaking out.

“Audrey, get back on the chair,” I commanded. She wasn’t listening. I sighed and motioned to the Lauren and Isabella who reached down and picked up the burlap bags, filled with down feathers.

“You know,” I said to the pledges. “I was going to give you a pass, but this is the most pathetic display I’ve ever seen.”

As soon as I finished that statement, they opened the sacks and dumped the feathers on the pledges, none of whom made a sign movement. If I had to use one word to describe them, I think it would probably be rage. Silent, terrible rage. I feel like if I’d been alone, someone would have found my body buried under the football field twenty years from now.

I stayed silent for a moment, allowing the entire thing to sink in. Then, finally, I spoke, pointing to Audrey who was still rocking on the floor.

“You all have a task. Audrey needs to learn to do her makeup properly, and you’re all going to help her. I want her to learn contouring highlighting, eye shadow, eyeliner, I want her to know fifty different ways to wear lipstick, and I want it in the next day. There are ten of you, you should be able to figure it out between all of you. Now, get out of here, get some sleep. Audrey, stay behind for a moment.”

It’s not like I had to tell her to stay behind; I don’t think she could have peeled herself off of the floor anyway. We waited until the traumatized pledges and piled out of the basement door and into the night before approaching her.

“Audrey, are you okay?” Aleah asked. She didn’t answer.

“Audrey!” Lauren snapped. Audrey immediately looked up.

“What’s wrong with you?” I demanded. “It was chocolate syrup.”

“I don’t…I don’t know…,” Audrey said, finally beginning to relax a little. “It’s just that…I guess…I’ve been by this house and…seen you guys...out a lot and…I didn’t think you were capable of this…”

There was a moment of stunned silence. We all stood there trying to comprehend what had just been said to us by the chocolate coated girl on the floor. Aleah was the first to break the silence, her hysterical laughter echoing through the concrete room.

“Audrey,” I said. “Have you ever like…watched those college movies where pledges get hazed? Like any? At all?”

“Well yeah, but they were just movies,” She said.

Aleah and I looked at eachother incredulously.

“You know that GAT is always called the toughest sorority on campus, right?” Lauren smirked a bit.

“Well yeah but—”

“Audrey, honey,” I said, crouching down beside her. “Listen, you really want to experience being a woman, right?”

She nodded slowly.

“Okay, you just got hazed by a sorority. As a woman. I mean, you can be happy about that, right?”

“You’re really not supposed to coddle her after the fact,” Isabella said, her arms folded.

“She’s right,” I said to Audrey who was a bit more relaxed now. I reached a hand out to help her up and cringed when I realized it was sticky. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Okay,” She nodded.

“Good. Now stand up, there’s a shower stall over there in the corner…well, sort of. It’s just a little cubby with a drain grate. Stand still, we’re going to hose you down; you don’t want to walk back home and explain to Mason why you look like a chocolate duck.”

“Have you talked to Mike?” Aleah asked me as she passed me a roll of masking tape and a poster. I held it up, it was pretty simple; it just said ‘Aleah Simms for Student Body President’. It was her second time trying, and her last chance. She would graduate at the end of this year. Probably.

“Thought Julia was doing that?” I phrased the statement as a question. Honestly, why would I do the job the police should be doing.

“Um so…” She said, turning away from me and taping a flyer up over Brittney Price’s. Brittney was the current class president and Aleah’s nemesis for the past three years. It was kind of silly if you ask me, but hey, silly seemed to be our thing lately. “I saw him just walking across campus like nothing happened.”

“Well school just started, so campus is where he’d be I guess,” I said dismissively as I walked to the opposite wall and hung the poster. The tape made a screeching sound as I pulled it from the roll.

“He attacked Audrey,” She said pointedly, staring at me from across the hall. It was after hours; her voice echoed across the white floor tiles.

“I’m sure Julia is taking care of it,” I said, getting impatient with this line of questioning.

“Not if he’s walking around like he owns the place.”

“Okay, so to be fair,” I said, turning around and crossing my arms. “People attack other people and walk free all the time. It’s not Julia’s fault, they probably just didn’t have enough evidence. You’re too close to this thing.”

“So are you,” Aleah rolled her eyes. “You just poured chocolate syrup on her in our basement last night.”

“Ugh,” Was my only reply. We continued hanging the posters in silence until she finally spoke again.

“Do you…do you think she could join GAT?”

I narrowed my eyes and turned to her.

“Aleah,” I said calmly. “Of course she could, but she’d have to be out, and accept who she is instead of hiding away like a closeted pervert. Then she’d make the decision herself; I’m not planting the idea in her head. If you want to protect her so bad, do it yourself.”

I have to think I was right; I had a communications major to worry about. How could I possibly have time for Audrey’s personal crap? She could take care of it herself.

“Do you hear that?” She said suddenly.

“Hear what.” I demanded.

“That singing,” She said, pointing toward the auditorium down the hall.

“It’s an auditorium,” I was completely uninterested. “They sing there. That’s what it’s for.”

“Yeah but…it sounds so…amazing.”

“Didn’t know you were into that crap,” I reached for another poster. “Come on, we have to finish hanging up these posters.”

She was already walking down the hall. I cursed and followed after her, but there was no stopping her, so I shut my mouth as she pushed through the double doors and into the auditorium.

“You just left all your stuff in the hall,” I said to her, but I knew at this point she didn’t really care. She was walking like a zombie toward the stage; the drama kids were up there acting something out, probably pretending they were going to go somewhere in life. It’s always nice to pretend.

“Wow!” Aleah said, practically running toward the stage. “This is amazing, what even is it?!”

“It’s a bunch of dorks singing,” I said helpfully. Despite my lack of encouragement she continued to walk toward the stage until a short brunette wearing the nerdiest pair of glasses I’ve ever seen emerged from the second row of seats clutching a clipboard to her chest.

“Can I help you?” She asked Aleah as I stuck to the shadows behind her.

“Oh!” She said “I’m so sorry if I interrupted anything! What is this? I love this music!”

The girl smiled a bit, not too much.

“We’re doing our class presentation of Les Miserables,” She explained. “Well I mean we’re trying, we don’t have an Eponine, or enough background characters.”

I don’t know why I spoke, but I did.

“I know someone who could play a great background character,” I said. The girl looked at me startled; she’d clearly been unaware of my presence until that very moment.

“Oh my god!” She practically squealed. “You could be our Eponine!”

I stopped dead in my tracks, my jaw hung open.

“I could be…your what?”

“Yeah, Tiffany,” Aleah teased. “You could be their ipecac.”

“Eponine,” The girl corrected.

“What’s the difference,” I asked.

“One is a character, the other induces vomiting.”

“Like your play?”

The girl frowned.

“You know if you’re going to be rude then you can go be rude somewhere else,” She said. She wasn’t even angry; it was as if she was used to this kind of thing.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Aleah said, practically stepping in between us. I really want to stay here and watch, I love this music.”

“Nope,” The girl said as she pointed a thin finger toward the door. “Both of you can leave, right now.”

“She can play Epinephrine for you!” Aleah practically screamed, pointing at me.

“Excuse me?!” I demanded. “I don’t think so!”

“You owe me!” Aleah hissed. “For that one time, remember?”

Okay, maybe I did owe her for that one time.

“You’re calling in a favor…to make me sing in a play?” I almost snorted. It was laughable.

“It’s a musical,” The girl said rather flatly as she shot her hand out toward me. “My name’s Melissa.”

I took her hand.

“I’m –”

“Tiffany Grey,” She said. “I know who you are.”

“..oh…” I said.

“So you can be here, tomorrow, for practice?”

“Oh my God,” I said shaking my head. Then suddenly an idea began to formulate inside my mind. “You know what, yes, I can, and I can get you that background character you wanted.”

“Wait,” Aleah said, touching my arm. “What are you doing?”

“You know what I’m doing,” I said with a grin starting to form on the corners of my mouth.

“No way. No!” She shook her head. “You cannot make her do this, she’s not ready!”

“She looks fine,” I shrugged. “And all she has to do it stand in the background, right?”

“Do either of you want to tell me what’s going on?” Melissa demanded. “I have a ‘thing’ to get back to.”

I looked at Aleah, she glared back at me. There probably wasn’t a good way out of this.

“So um…” Aleah started to say, and then she paused.

“Oh my god,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Okay so the…person…we can get for you…they’re a girl but they…weren’t born as a girl…”

“So you’re saying this person is…transgender?” Melissa looked super confused but I guess she was really well informed.

“Yeah, that’s it,” I nodded.

“Okay, and?”

“Well I mean…” Aleah said. “It’s just that…she’s…she hasn’t really told anyone?”

Holding the clipboard under her arm, Melissa began to wave her arms in front of her face in a criss cross pattern as if she was telling us both to shut up.

“Okay, just, just hold on!” She said. “You’re telling me that you want to force a trans girl who hasn’t come out, to perform on stage? First of all, she can, yes, and she can wear anything she wants. She can dress as a guy if she’s not comfortable. But you know what? That’s…that’s not even the point, you automatically assumed she should stand up there in a dress just because she’s trans?”

“I don’t see the problem,” I said, folding my arms. “I wear dresses all the time.”

“Are you on crack?”

“I don’t really think that’s a fair question.”

Melissa huffed and walked back her seat. She came back with two manila envelopes, one said ‘Eponine’, the other said ‘Extra’.

“I assume I don’t have to explain to you which envelope is which, but if you do have questions, I don’t know…Google it? Oh, and your girl? She can wear whatever she wants. If you’re going around forcing her to be feminine then I feel really sorry for her.”

“That’s not fair!” I snapped. “I never said I was doing that!”

“There were the implications,” She said as she started to turn away. “And I know your character, so.”

“My character?” I started to move toward her.

“Let’s go,” Aleah said, taking me gently by the arm and pulling me up the stairs.

“You’re lucky my friend’s here,” I said angrily. “She’s holding me back, you see what she’s doing for you?”

“Come on, Tiffany,” Aleah said.

“You think you’re hot stuff cause you’re directing a play?” I called after her. “You’re nothing!”

Aleah finally got me to the top of the stairs and we stood outside the wood double doors.

“Find Audrey and give her that packet,” She said. “Oh, and Tiffany?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t kill the drama class.”

“Is this too much?” I asked as I stepped from the hallway and into the bedroom where Olivia and Aleah were literally playing cards on the floor. Olivia looked up at me and let her eyes wander up and down my outfit; it was a strappy dress that came down to just above my knees.

“For a first date? With Shawn Derringer? Girl he’s lucky to be in your presence, you should just wear a t-shirt,” Olivia snorted at me and went back to her hand.

“Or a burlap sack,” Aleah laughed.

“Okay, first of all,” I lectured and pointed at Oliva. “You don’t get to judge anyone on their taste in men. And you, a burlap sack? Please, that is SO last fall.”

Olivia shot me a dirty look. She should have expected it after her boyfriend beat the living crap out of Audrey in a public bathroom. She still wouldn’t leave him.

“Speaking of which,” I interjected to break the silence. “Has anyone seen Audrey since the chocolate syrup thing? I need to give her that stupid packet.”

“It’s not STUPID,” Aleah said. I couldn’t tell if her seriousness was exaggerated or if she was actually offended. “It’s Les Miserables, and it is a very important part of French culture.”

“You literally just heard about it yesterday.”

“Les…what?” Olivia asked quizzically. I guess I could make a crack about theater not being her forte but you know what? It wasn’t mine either really. Or at all.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Aleah promised. “Oh, and uh…Audrey should be around the house tomorrow.”

“How do you know that?” I wondered.

“We have her doing some chores around the house,” Aleah shrugged.

“More slave labor?” I turned to the vanity mirror and inspected my lipstick.

“No we hired her to replace the house boy…you know, the one who was supposed to be mowing the lawn for us?”

“Hope she doesn’t quit then,” I said. “The last one was SO unreliable.”

“He wasn’t unreliable,” Olivia said. “You screamed at him for an hour because he got grass on your car.”

“An hour he got paid for,” I said defensively.

“I don’t know why you’re going on this date,” Aleah said. “He’s the president of DEM, he’s just going to use you somehow.”

“He’s kind of cute,” I shrugged. “Besides, it wouldn’t hurt us to have an ‘in’ over there, would it?”

“What is this, a royal wedding?” Olivia laughed.

“AGAIN,” I said to her. “Talk to me when you take out your own garbage, okay?”

If she hadn’t been wearing enough foundation to open her own Sephora, she probably would have been turning ten shades of red.
I felt my phone buzz in my hand. He was outside.

“Okay, I’ve gotta go,” I said. “Take care of the house for me.”

“Hey, Tiffany,” Aleah called out to me as I turned to go.

“Yeah?”

“Have you thought about what I asked?”

“About what?” I asked innocently.

“You know what,” She said. “I need a vice president.”

“Don’t think it’s for me,” I shrugged. “I got a lot of my plate.”

“Just think about it, okay?” She was desperate, it seemed.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Promise,” She stared at me intently.

“Promise,” I nodded as I turned and exited the room.

I walked downstairs and past the couch, throwing open the front door and walking down the steps. The first thing I noticed was that the lawn had finally been mowed, the second was the really, really impressive Ford Mustang sitting in front of the house. It would have been perfect if not for Shawn leaning against it as if he were someone. You know, other than the president of DEM, and probably living on his dad’s spare change, which was a huge hunk of change, don’t get me wrong. Looking at him, I immediately felt overdressed. He was wearing a dark blue polo shirt and khaki pants, like he was going out for a few drinks at a country club instead of on a date. With me. Wow, I suddenly felt undervalued.

“Hey there,” I waved with a slight smile.

“Hi,” He said. I tried to figure out if he was nervous. He should have been, dressed like that. “You look amazing,” He said, mentally drooling already.

“I know,” I said matter of factly and walked right past him, around the car and stood at the passenger side of the vehicle, looking at him expectantly. He didn’t waste any time walking around and holding open the door for me. I ducked into the car, smoothing my skirt out beneath me as I settled into the posh leather seat. The inside of his car was clean, sterile almost. Mine was pretty clean too but I would have been embarrassed for him to see it.

“So,” He said settling into the driver’s seat and shifting the car into gear. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of taking a GAT girl out. Word the street is you’re the toughest sorority on campus.”

I smirked.

“Is that what they’re saying?” I said. “Well you’d better watch out then.”

“I guess I’d better,” He laughed.

We drove in silence for a few minutes; we’d planned this date weeks ago but I guess neither one of us really had anything to say.
“So um…what do sororities do…all day?” He asked. Seriously? That was his ice breaker?

“Well what do you guys do all day?” I quipped, trying to sound cute.

“I guess…go to class and do guy stuff,” He laughed.

“Kinda the same thing,” I grinned. “But you know, more girly.”

We pulled up to a restaurant, it was one of the nice ones. Hazelrod’s. A five star establishment, if I remembered correctly. My family was well off, but definitely not well off enough to eat a restaurant that served a $200 steak. He was really trying to impress. He wasted no time stepping out of the car, walking to my side and holding the door open for me. A perfect gentleman I guess. Time would tell if there was anything else to him. I didn’t bother thanking him as I stepped out. No point in saying ‘thanks’ for something he was supposed to do. I simply rose from the seat and strode past him, my heels clicking against the sidewalk. I could feel him staring at me.

“Mr. Derringer,” The waiter said as we walked into the restaurant. “We have your reservation, please, this way.”

This place was everything I would have expected, honestly. Oak wall panels, hold fixtures, very old-timey. We walked through a dining room that was mostly empty, all of the tables covered in pristine white tablecloths with place settings. Crystal glasses sat upside down on each table, waiting for someone to sit. I shouldn’t have been surprised; this was the middle of the afternoon; a weird time for a date really, but it was Saturday, so why not?

We didn’t sit at one of the tables in the dining room; he’d reserved some private space off in the back. Semi-private, anyway. It was this quaint little covered area with a noise divider, perfect for a private conversation in an empty restaurant.

“May I start you off with something to drink?” The waiter inquired.

“I’d like a bottle of the house wine,” Shawn said. Was he old enough to drink? I sure wasn’t.

“Are you sure?” The waiter raised an eyebrow. Shawn paused for a moment, pondering.

“Pick one for me,” He said finally.

“As you wish, sir,” He turned to me. “and for you?”

“I’ll...um…” I had no idea what to order at a place like this.

“She’ll have what I’m having,” Shawn said smoothly.

“Very good,” The waiter said as he strode off, not even writing anything down.

“Are you old enough to drink?” I teased. He laughed.

“Of course not,” He said. “But my dad owns this place.”

“You brought me to a place your dad owns?”

“What can I say, I get a discount.”

Strike one.

“So tell me,” I said, as I started to find him a lot less cute than when I’d asked him out. “What does the DEM president do all day?”
“Well,” He said, placing his hands on the table and leaning in. “You know, the same things yours GATs but…you know…manlier.”
I chuckled. That was kind of funny, I had to admit.

“We lost a pledge, though. Not the first time, but at least it didn’t happen during a hazing this time.”

“Lost a pledge?” I smirked. “Did you misplace him?”

He suddenly leaned back in his chair, a perplexed look crossing his face as the waiter returned with the bottle and two glasses. I watched as the bottle was put on ice, the wine poured and the waiter disappeared.

“Weirdest thing, actually,” He said to me as he began to browse the menu. “He made it past rush, pledged and everything but…he just never showed up to the first meeting. I haven’t had that happened before.”

“Well not everyone is cut out for Greek life,” I shrugged and tilted my head.

“I guess, but it means we’re down a pledge and I’m kind of pissed.”

“Who was it? Maybe I’ve seen him around.”

“Uh…some guy named Todd,” I nearly spit out the wine I’d been sipping.

“Todd, huh,” I said. “Weird name.”

“That’s…really not weird,” Shawn said. “What’s weird is he never showed up. Anyway, what do you think about spaghetti?”

“Not really my thing, honestly,” I said. “They have this parmesan chicken, though.”

“That they do,” He nodded in agreement.

“So what else does your family do, besides own this restaurant?” I asked, genuinely curious, and trying to put Audrey out of my mind.

“Well, I mean, you’re from here,” He said, raising both eyebrows. “So you kinda have an idea.”

“Your dad has his hands in everything, yeah.”

“You could say that.”

The waiter came back, we ordered. He got the spaghetti, I got the parmesan chicken. Two different tastes I guess.

“So your father,” He said to me after the waiter had left. “He has his hands in a few things too I hear.”
I nodded.

“He’s the CFO of some big company, you know.”

“Some big company, that’s what you’re calling it.”

“They make cars,” I shrugged. He laughed a bit.

“One of the top automakers in the United States, that’s not something to shrug at. Those profit margins are really up from last year.”

“Is this what you do?” I grinned, taking a sip of my wine. “Do you research your date’s dad before you take them out?”

He laughed a little and said, jokingly, I hope. “Well, I’ve gotta see what kind of genetic material I’m working with.”

I smiled and nodded.

“Well cheers to that,” I raised my glass a bit in a faux gesture and took another sip. “I hope you like what you’re working with.”

“We’ll see.”

I smiled and pulled out my phone as I apologized for being rude and shot a text off to Audrey: GAT house, 6 PM. It definitely wasn’t a suggestion.

Audrey arrive late, at about 6:15 PM, accompanied by Ashely, our pledge who would have probably rather been doing something else. Normally I would have lectured her for being late, not because I cared about her punctuality, but because I’m honestly busy.

“Get upstairs and change,” I said to her as she walked through the door.

“Uh, how long am I going to be here?” She asked.

“Don’t care,” I snapped. “Go get dressed.”

“What’s going on?” Aleah asked as she walked in from the sitting room on the other side of the house. She let the swinging door loose behind her.

“The little shit is going to ruin her own life, is what’s happening,” I said, more than a little annoyed. “You know, I have a lot of things to do. Homework, track, I really don’t have time for any of this.”

“Time for what? I don’t understand,” Aleah said.

Audrey came down in a very simple dress and a half-assed makeup job that was still ten times better than I’d seen her do in the past. I guess the pledges had been doing their job. I took note of that. I waited for her to finish descending the stairs, and then I pointed to the couch. She sat down like an obedient puppy, that was probably something I should work with her on too. Learning when to say no was a valuable skill. Aleah looked at me questioningly as I walked around the front of the couch and stood in front of Audrey.

“You pledged to DEM and never showed up,” I said, putting my hands on my hips.

“Sorry, what?” Aleah’s eyes widened as she walked over to the front of the couch to join me.

“I don’t think they’d want me after—” Audrey started, but I interrupted.

“Voice, Audrey,” I snapped. “Pitch your voice up. You can’t walk around sounding like that, you’ll get hurt.”

“What are you talking about?” Aleah demanded. “What do you mean she pledged to DEM? When did this happen?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Before school started, obviously. She just never showed up after rush week.”

“Did you call them?” Aleah stared at her.

“I…no…,” Audrey stammered. “I didn’t know I was…”

“Audrey,” I said. “Do you have ANY idea who runs DEM? Shawn Derringer. You know his father, Michael Derringer? Do you know how much influence he has in this town? Now you have this reputation for not following through on your commitments. How exactly do you plan to get a job after college?”

“She could always flip burgers,” Aleah said flatly.

“Okay why do you care so much,” Audrey said defensively. “I’m not a part of your house, you barely know me.”

“I’m still human,” I said, practically shouting at this point. “I don’t want you to fall flat on your face for no reason!”

“Do you want to be in DEM or not?” Aleah demanded. “You need to make a choice now. If you still want to be in, we can probably help.”

I gave Aleah a sidelong glance. Helping Audrey to join a fraternity at this point would probably do a lot more harm than good.

“I don’t…I..um..” Audrey was stammering again. I snapped my fingers.

“Focus, Audrey!” I snapped. “Yes, or no, it’s not that hard!”

“No,” She said, looking down at her bare feet.

I unlocked my phone and threw it onto her lap. She flinched as it hit her leg.

“Under my contacts,” I said. “Shawn Derringer. Call him, tell him you changed your mind.”

“Now might actually be a REALLY good time to tell the truth,” Aleah suggested. I looked at her, out of the corner of my eye I could see Audrey developing a look of sheer terror.

“Maybe not go that far,” I suggested quietly. The relief on Audrey’s face was measurable. “Make the call.”

We stood there and waited while she made the call. It was probably more awkward than the first time I met her, if I’m going to be perfectly honest, but somehow she stumbled through it. While we were waiting for her to finish making a fool of herself, Aleah and I went to join Ashley on the other side of the sectional couch.

“So are you going to see him again?” Aleah asked me.

“I mean…” I said. “He was cute.”

“So you like him?”

“He has money,” I shrugged.

Ashley snorted. I’d forgotten she was sitting there.

“Don’t you have a task to be doing?” I demanded of her. “The front of the house is looking really dirty.”

She simply rose from the couch without showing the slightest bit of irritation or anger. Apparently she was more obedient than Audrey, or she was just trying to make a good impression.

“Yeah he has money,” Aleah agreed. “But you sure you want to be getting into all that?”

“Honestly,” I said, rolling my eyes. “How bad can it possibly be?”

“You know how bad it can be,” She said, looking at me seriously.

“Moral objections from the woman whose literally cheating to win student body president?”

“Brittney is cheating too,” She objected, not even getting defensive.

“Two wrongs make a right,” I concluded. “So stay out of my business.”

We heard Audrey finish up her conversation. I turned to her.

“Audrey,” I said. “There’s an envelope on the table, take it please.”

“What is this?” She asked. Her feminine voice was getting a little better but I swore I was going to find her a speech therapist just so I wouldn’t have to hear that horrible scratchiness everytime she talked.

“You and Tiffany are going to be in a play,” Aleah said excitedly.

“Yep,” I said. “You’re going to be extra #11. Isn’t that just exciting?”

“What is this for? I don’t know if—”

“It’s called Les Miserables,” Aleah started to say. “By this guy named-“

“Victor Hugo,” Audrey finished her sentence. Aleah looked started. “Javert, and Jean Val Jean.”

“Wow,” Aleah said. “You are a bit of a nerd aren’t you.”

“I just can’t believe someone went to prison for twenty years over loaf of bread,” I said. “The whole thing is so unrealistic.”

“Five years,” Audrey corrected.

“Um…the play said 19?”

“Five years, for stealing, the rest for running. How are you going to be in this if—”

“Shut up,” I snapped. “I just have to look like I know what I’m doing.”

“Why…exactly am I doing this?” Audrey frowned at the packet in her hand.

“Nevermind that,” Aleah said, suddenly settling in and leaning back against the couch. “We have something important to talk about.”
Yeah, I knew this talk was coming. Audrey looked up at us, she had that terrified look in her eyes, as she tended to do when we told her we needed to talk. As she started to speak, one of our sisters, Megan walked through the front door, passing us as she made her way to the stairs.

“Hey guys, hey Audrey,” She said as she passed us. Audrey immediately looked to the floor. She still wasn’t comfortable being seen like this, even if it was just one of us.

“Hey,” I responded, turning my attention back to Audrey.

“Your girlfriend,” Aleah said, finally. Audrey’s eyes went wide. Yep, this wasn’t something she wanted to talk about.

“What…what about her?” Audrey asked. Was she turning pale under all of that makeup? Probably.

“You have to tell her,” Aleah said, a bit forcefully.

“Why?”

“Um because while you can’t do anything about being trans, you CAN do something about being a liar.”

“Wait, I’m not a liar,” Audrey protested.

“You kind of are,” I informed her. “Chastity thinks she’s dating a guy. Don’t you think it’s going to be a little bit messed up if she walks in on you wearing her clothes one day and you have to explain it on the spot?”

“That would never happen!”

“Really?” Aleah said, feigning confusion. “I seem to remember about a week ago, you snuck into our house and –”

“Okay, okay!” Audrey said, putting her hands up. I’d learned that she didn’t really like talking about the ‘incident’ that brought her to us.

“Okay what?” I asked.

“I mean…I guess…”

“You guess what?” Aleah was pushing her into a corner. I would gladly help.

“If she breaks up with you then it was probably for the best. Do you feel good lying around her? Be honest.”

“I…I guess…no?” Now she looked like she was on the verge of tears. Great.

“So, how do you feel then, be honest.” Aleah asked.

Audrey paused. I could see the gears turning in her head.

“I guess…jealous?”

“Why jealous?” I frowned.

“Because…I guess…I want to be like her, she gets to dress…like that and she gets to do all the…girl…things with her friends,” Audrey wasn’t doing well. She was stammering and trying to shrink back into the couch.

“So you’re jealous of her and you’re with her because…”

“Well I mean I like her but—”

“But you’re lying to her.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Audrey finally admitted. “I feel guilty about it.”

“I know this is hard for you,” Aleah said. “But I know Chastity, and I know how bad she’d be hurt if she had to find out the hard way. If you like her, you’ll tell her, we’ll help you.”

“You’ll help me? How?”

“We’ll do it right here,” I said. I hoped that was what Aleah was thinking anyway. “We’ll help you tell her.”

“What, you want me to be dressed like this when she shows up?” She indicated the dress she was wearing.

“Please don’t be stupid,” Aleah said. “This is serious, and no, we’re not going to shock her like that.”

She hung her head. I couldn’t tell if she had been joking or if she was trying to force a situation. Of course she was. She wanted to be herself around Chastity. Why wouldn’t she?

“I’m going to invite you and her over here for dinner, on Friday,” I said. “I used to hang out with her all the time, it’ll be easy, I promise.”
There was a long silence. Audrey simply sat there, staring off into space. I could feel her fear, but I’m not sure if I cared.

“Tell us what you’re thinking, Audrey,” Aleah said. “What’s going on in your head?”

“I’m…” She started, and then closed her mouth, not daring to make eye contact with any of us.

“Yes?” I said. I wanted to hurry this up, I had things to do.

“I’m scared,” She said finally. Well, no kidding. I didn’t need her to tell me that.

“Think of it like….ripping off a bandaid,” Aleah said helpfully. “It hurts at first, but once it’s off, it’ll be okay.”

“Will it be okay?” Audrey asked quietly.

“Knowing her? Probably,” I shrugged. “I probably know her better than you do.”

“Just think!” Aleah spoke, being unusually upbeat. “Once she knows you can go shopping together and do eachother’s makeup, wouldn’t that be cool?”

Audrey kind of giggled. That was hopeful at least.

“Yeah. I mean…that’s what I want.”

“Then maybe she can help you instead of us,” I laughed. “Gotta admit, it’s really cramping my schedule.”

We all laughed at that. Things were getting back to normal for the moment.

“Okay, time for you to go home, Audrey,” Aleah said. “Go upstairs and get changed.”

“You mean I came over here and got dressed just for that?”

I shrugged.

“Come on,” Aleah said. “Stand over here by the stairs, I want to get some pictures of you.”

“Why?” Audrey asked as she stood from the couch and walked to the stairs, once again being way more obedient than she should.

“Because when we talk to Chastity we’re going to need to show her some pictures, obviously,” Aleah laughed as she straightened out Audrey’s dress and snapped a few pictures. “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

Audrey shrugged. The only shoes we’d given her to wear around the house were a pair of three inch pumps. I could see her hesitation, I distinctly remembered her falling down in front of the refrigerator during our initiation party. I slumped back onto the couch and began scrolling through my phone, finally noticing a text that I’d missed. I opened up the messenger, it was Shawn. ‘Hey, want to see you again. This Friday? He didn’t use text shorthand. I liked that about him. Complete sentences. Friday was no good.

Thursday? I wrote back.
I returned my attention to the scene in front of me. Aleah was finished and had sent Audrey upstairs. I smiled a little, I guess I was glad that she was coming along, maybe she would be easier to relate to now. Maybe. Probably not. Aleah waited until Audrey disappeared up the stairs and then turned to me with a cold look on her face.

“What do you know about Chastity?” She asked.

“Um…” I said. I tried to think. I’d hung out with her a lot last year. We’d kind of drifted apart but I couldn’t say I had any bad memories. “Well, I mean she’s like anyone else. Blonde hair, like mine, but longer. Um…really likes oversized sweaters.”

“You know what I mean,” Aleah said. “How do you think she’d deal with…all of this?”

“Ugh…she’ll be fine,” I said. “My god, she’s dated women, I’m sure she’s run into a lot of trans girls.”

Aleah nodded.

“I’m just worried,” She said.

“Why are you so worried?” I demanded. “You know she’s a big girl, she can take care of herself.”

“I just…I would feel bad if…”

“You’re still thinking about Jayne, right? You know that’s not here. Audrey is her own person.”

Aleah stared at me.

“I know,” She said. “But I just…I think…”

“You think you did something wrong and you’re trying to fix it. You can’t fix it by fixing Audrey.”

“I am…very…aware of that,” She gritted her teeth and pursed her lips at me.

“As long as you know,” I shrugged and went back to my phone.

Class wrapped up early so I dropped by the library to catch up on some reading. I probably could have done it at the house but it was kind of quieter here. Call me a prude I guess. I stepped into one of the private reading rooms, and I immediately remembered that it was the one we’d sent Audrey to for Lauren’s laptop.

I threw my purple canvas messenger bag onto the table along with my purse and took a seat at the far end of the table. As soon as I sat down I started reading through the ‘Communications 102’ textbook and after about fifteen minutes I was bored out of my mind. I wanted to be a news anchor, or some kind of TV personality, but damn, I was sure I’d never use any of this information. I sighed and slapped the book down on the desk, there was no way this was getting done without music, but my stupid iPod was in my purse – on the other end of the table. I stood up, pushing the wooden chair out behind me and trudged to the other side of the table. Just as I reached into my purse to fish it out, I heard my phone beep. A text notification. I sighed and pulled it out.

“Just once…couldn’t leave me alone just once,” I muttered to the phone as I unlocked it and tapped the text message app on the screen. My pink phone background was replaced with the bright white text messaging screen. I frowned. It wasn’t a number I recognized. I tapped it, the message read: Outside. What the hell was that supposed to mean? I turned to the window behind me and glanced out at the courtyard. There were plenty of people, I looked around to each one, none of them seemed of the ordinary. I shrugged; it was probably a prank, or a wrong number. Then, suddenly, I froze. I could see him across the courtyard wearing that stupid letter jacket. Mike Jones. I had a sudden twinge of anger, I sort of wanted to rip his throat out. Why was he even walking around free after what he did, and why was he staring at me from across the courtyard? Why did he even know I was here? Talk about stalkerish.

I grabbed my purse and my bag and stormed out of the room, throwing the messenger bag strap over my shoulder as I made my way down the stairs and through the crowded first floor of the library. I bumped elbows with a few people and muttered ‘Sorry’ as I went past them. I’m sure a few of them didn’t mind coming into physical contact with me. A few moments later I pushed my way through the double doors and stood on the steps of the library, directly across the courtyard from him. He was still staring at me, his arms crossed, like he was in charge of something. He was about to be in charge of my fist in his face. I power walked as quickly as I could in wedges and came up on him like a python about to eat its first meal of the day. I was in no mood.

“How did you get my number?” I demanded. “Why are you following me?”

“What have you been telling my girlfriend?” He asked, staring sharply at me, his arm still crossed.

“What are you even talking about?”

“She doesn’t want to hang out with me as much, what have you been telling her?”

I shoved a finger in his face, a pink acrylic nail centimeters from the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t have any control over your girlfriend, Mike, and I want you to stay away from me.”

Just as quickly as I’d shoved my finger in his face, his hand came up, and his finger wrapped around my wrist, grabbing onto the pressure point. My jaw dropped, but my outrage was quickly replaced by a wince as he squeezed harder, glaring at me, but forming a slight smirk as he watched my knees buckle. I reached with my free hand and tried to dig my nails into his fingers. Nothing. He wouldn’t let go.

“Mike,” I said firmly, trying my best to retain my dignity. “Mike, let go.”

“You listen to me, bitch,” He said evenly. “You’re going to stop telling my girlfriend to stay away from me. She’s mine. You understand that.”
“Mike, dammit, let go,” I said a little louder as the pain began to creep into my wrist and up my arm. I looked around desperately, there was no one near us.

“And as for that little shit? Todd? You keep him away from her too. You’d better enjoy her while you have her, because she’s out of that house by the end of the week.”

I’d had enough. I brought my leg upward and aimed for his shin. Not so gracefully, I brought the corner of my wedge down on the flat of his shin and dragged it across the bone as hard as I could before finally slamming my heel down into the top of his foot. He screamed and his grip on my wrist loosened. I yanked it away and stumbled backward.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded. He stood a few feet away from me, clutching his leg.

“You heard what I said, bitch,” He growled.

“You’re crazy!” I screamed. “You’re a god damn psycho!”

A few heads turned when I screamed, but no one cared enough to come over. As he turned and walked away, or rather limped, my first instinct was to look at my wrist. It was starting to bruise, I could see the formation of a hand mark. I immediately reached into my purse, pulled out my phone and fumbled until I managed to unlock it and take a picture of my bruised wrist. After that, I pulled up the GPS app to see Audrey’s location. I hadn’t told her, but I’d turned GPS tracking on in her phone. She wasn’t far from me, over near the quad actually. I texted Hailey, she should have been with Audrey.

Are you guys okay?

I wrote in my message. I waited for a response. Nothing, no answer. I swear to god if something happened to her I would never forgive myself.

“Crap,” I muttered. I made a beeline for the quad, it was across the street. Our campus wasn’t too complicated really. My feet pounded heavily against the concrete as every conceivable scenario passed through my mind. I’d been so god damn mean to her and I really hadn’t meant to be. As I reached the edge of the courtyard and finally stood facing the street, my phone beeped. A text, from Hailey.

Yea y?

My phone beeped again, this time it was a reminder. Theater practice. 3 PM. Perfect. I continued my beeline for the quad, looking to my left and right as I crossed the street, fully aware that I was jaywalking. I found them sitting on one of the concrete barriers, Audrey was looking very male, and bored out of her mind. Hailey was texting.

“Yo, Todd,” I used her male name in public still. I’m not sure if she minded. I hoped she couldn’t see the signs of panic and simultaneously relief strewn across my face. “We’ve got theater practice, you ready?”

“Oh,” She said. “Was that today?”

“Yep, grab your stuff, let’s go.”

Hailey looked up from her phone, studying me for a second. Yeah, she was just a pledge, and she hadn’t known me for long, but she was perceptive. I knew that much. I ignored her and looked to Audrey.

“Come on, hurry,” I said.

“I’m coming!” She said, throwing her backpack over her shoulder and walking toward me. Hailey was still staring at me. I seriously hoped that she wasn’t psychic or something.

“Thanks Hailey,” I said. She nodded. I put my hand on Audrey’s back, guiding her toward the school.

“Have you talked to her?” I asked as we pushed toward the building.

“To who?” She said.

“You know who,” I replied, still power walking as fast as I could.

“No,” She said.

“Have you seen her?”

“Yeah.”

“You saw her and didn’t talk to her?”

“Well I didn’t talk to her about…”

“Okay. Friday then.”

“Yeah, Friday.”

I texted Aleah a picture of my wrist with the caption ‘Mike’. This was going to be a long week, and it was only half way over.

“Wow, you guys actually showed up,” Melissa said, walking toward us as we entered the theater. She was appropriately dressed in a gray knit turtleneck, wearing those black glasses that I really wanted to make fun of her for. We made our way through the rows of seats and met her in the middle.

“Todd, this is Melissa, Melissa, Todd,” I dismissively introduced them to eachother and checked my phone again. No texts from Aleah.

“Hi it’s um…nice to meet you,” Audrey said. Her voice was a little shaky. She wasn’t good around new people.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Melissa smiled at her. “What do you want me to call you, sweetie?”

Audrey looked at me, her eyes wide.

“She knows,” I said matter of factly as I continued scrolling through my phone.

“It’s okay,” Melissa smiled and brushed some of her long black hair from the side of her face. “Your friend has a big mouth, but I don’t. Your secret is safe with me.”

“I um…Todd…is okay,” She said, glancing at me occasionally as she struggled to find the words. I think she wanted to kill me. She’d have to get in line.

“Okay, great!” Melissa said. “Well, as you know, you’re going to be Extra #11, and Tiffany is going to be Eponine.”

Audrey snapped her neck around and stared at me.

“Wow,” She said. “That’s fitting.”

I looked up from my phone and stared, trying to figure out what she was talking about, but Melissa had already started walking toward the stage where the other students were milling around, some dressed in ridiculous Victorian looking costumes and others wearing their regular clothes.

“We’ll be in full costume for the play, obviously,” Melissa said. “But for right now you can just wear your clothes.”

“How exciting,” I said, trying to sound at least somewhat interested. I reached into my bag and pulled out the envelope she’d handed me earlier in the week. I hadn’t even looked at it before, but as I opened it up, I noticed it was a script. Throughout, my sections were highlighted in yellow. That was helpful.

“Alright, make way for Eponine, bitches!” I announced as I climbed onto the stage. Audrey simply walked to the end and used the stairs.
“Okay, the uh…scene is…Page, 54, Gorbeau Tenement, let’s get into positions people,” Melissa stood on the floor of the auditorium, just in front of the stage. I watched Audrey walk confidently to a random part of the stage, but it was like she actually knew where to go. Why did she know, and I didn’t? I noticed there was a mattress on the floor, and one of the actors was seated on it. I glanced at my script, page 54. Yep. This was all me. I stepped up to the end of the mattress and read off the script.

“Hey there, Monsieur, what’s new—” I started, but Melissa interrupted me.

“That is SO not how you pronounce that,” She said.

“What do you mean?” I demanded. “It’s right there, on the paper!”

“It’s MISS-sieur, not Mon-sewer.”

“Right, okay,” I said. “Hey there, MISS-sieur, what’s new with you? Planning to change the world? Plotting to overthrow the—”

“You missed a line,” The guy on the mattress said. I looked down at the script again.

“Yeah, sorry, Marius,” I said. He was kind of cute, for a theater nerd.

“Alright, again from the top!” Melissa clapped her hands. “We’re going to get this right, even if it kills us, and it probably will.”

It would probably kill me, yeah.

We must have repeated that scene ten times before they absolutely gave up and moved on to the next. Hopefully they would just find someone else to do the part, but I doubted it. I wouldn’t be here if they had anyone else. I watched from the side, my arms crossed and clutching the script. I could see Audrey across the stage fitting in perfectly with the others. How could she even be that happy doing this? Why couldn’t I be that happy? More importantly, why did she know the script to this stupid play? Didn’t matter I guess.

I reached into my phone and pulled my purse out to check my messages; there was one from Aleah asking ‘what happened?????’, talking about the massive bruise on my wrist. I looked down and saw it turning a few different shades of black, blue, and brown. Mike had grabbed me hard. It broke me down, in a way. I was supposed to be the tough one, that’s how they’d always seen me, but this guy, he’d actually made me afraid. I was still afraid, in the back of my mind I guess. It wouldn’t be long before I was talking to Julia Stenson, our contact at the Woodcrest police department. She had a particular interest in Gamma, but only because she was an alumni. Her family had been a part of GAT since the Woodcrest chapter was just a colony. That’s a long time.

“I hate that you’re happier than me,” I spoke in Audrey’s direction, but quietly, mostly under my breath. “Despite everything that’s happening to you, you’re still happier than me.”

She was happier than me, I could sense that. I wondered for a moment if she would stay happy. I’d seen so many trans people like her…well…maybe not like her. She had a lot ahead of her, and for a moment, I wished there was something I could do, anything to make it easier. I could give her all the advice in the world, I could coddle her, I could tell her it was going to be okay, but in the end, I couldn’t protect her from herself. Yeah. It was better for me to keep my distance, at least as much as I could.

I watched them congregate on the stage, and then come together to practice a song. Something about ‘looking down’. It wasn’t a bad song; kind of catchy really. I glanced at my phone screen as they finished up; it was a little past 5 PM. Probably about time to head home soon, and I couldn’t really leave Audrey by herself, could I? I tapped my foot and waited for them to finish, kind of wondering why Audrey knew the lyrics to this stupid song. She wasn’t even holding a music sheet. Was she some kind of music robot from outer space? They finally wrapped it up and a few moments later, Melissa walked up to me holding a DVD.

“It’s the movie,” She said. “Watch it, learn it, don’t mess it up next time.”

“Wait,” I said. “There’s a movie? Is it like a real movie or are there songs…and stuff?”

“Well it’s the musical version so yeah, there are songs, and stuff. The part you did tonight isn’t in here, I don’t think, but this should give you a better idea of what we’re going for, okay?”

I shrugged

“Alright, I’ll watch it.”

“Good,” She nodded. “Oh, and your girl over there? She’s really good. She should be in this class.”

“Uh…yeah,” I said. “I don’t know why she knows all of this…stuff.”

“Good taste, probably.”

“I heard something last week,” Melissa said. “About someone being beaten up in that bathroom, up on the trail. Your friend looks a little worse for wear, I think. It was her, right?”

I stared at her. It was obvious that she knew, but I didn’t really want to say it. She couldn’t know everything, and Aleah was definitely right about it looking bad for Gamma house. Maybe Gamma didn’t mean the world to me, per se, but I cared about my scholarship. The whole thing wasn’t technically our fault, but would anyone care? People just wanted someone to blame, and we were right at the center of this crap. She stared back at me and nodded.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to keep her safe. If you can’t, then I will.”

I stood there in silence for a moment, trying to comprehend what she was saying.

“I’m working on it,” I said quietly. She nodded again.

“Make sure you watch the movie.”

“I will.”

I awoke to a blood curdling scream. It was Thursday, and what better way to wake up? It came from the second floor, the bathroom right across from our room. I opened my eyes slowly, Aleah was already up, feet on the floor and throwing on her bathrobe.

“Calm down,” I said sleepily as I rolled over.

“Well something’s wrong out there, come on!” Aleah grabbed my shoulder and shook me. It wasn’t even daylight outside.

“Stop it,” I said tiredly. “Either someone’s dead or DEM played a prank on us. Either way, there isn’t much we can do about it.”

“Get up!” She pushed on my shoulder again, but this time lost her balance and literally fell on top of me.

“Okay, okay, I’m getting up!” I pushed her aside and tossed the covers. I sat up and groggily rubbed my eyes as I slid my feet into the pair of white fluffy house slippers I kept beside my bed. “I am so totally up.”

I followed her out of the room, and then followed the screams to the bathroom where Courtney was standing there, hands level with her head screaming like she’d been shot.

“What’s going on?” I asked her. “Are you okay?"

She continued screaming.

“I know this is weird, because we’re in college, but did you just have your first period or something?” I shouted over her hysterical screams, and then, finally noticed that she was staring very intently at the bathtub. I followed her gaze and then let out a shriek myself as I saw that a nice little gift had been left for us in the tub. Live fish. Yes, live fish, swimming around in our tub. Not even the cute aquarium fish; they were like bluegills, or carp, or whatever. What the hell?

“Is this happening right now?” Aleah said, her face betraying her complete disgust and fear. Fear of fish. Okay, that was a new one.
“Yes,” I sighed. “It’s happening, and I don’t see why ANY of us had to be awake to see this.”

“Aren’t we going to feed them?” Isabella said, pushing through us to peer into the tub.

“I’m sorry…what?” I blinked. “Feed them?”

“They’re cute, and they’re animals, we should feed them!”

I turned to look at her. Was she tired? Drunk? Stupid?

“Don’t feed them,” I snapped as I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes.

“And give them names!” Lauren said excitedly.

“Don’t feed them, don’t give them names.”

“What do we do? How do we get rid of them?” Aleah was slowly backing away from the tub.

“Oh…my…god…” I said turning to walk out of the bathroom. “We LITERALLY pay Audrey to clean up around here. This is a cleanup job.”
I walked out of the bathroom, pushing through the wall of girls that was forming at the entrance. Across the hall, I grabbed my phone from the floor where it had somehow fallen during the night. Snapping it off the charger I whipped up the messenger app, then changed my mind and went straight for the phone. I hit Audrey’s contact entry and waited for her to pick up. She sounded pissed, as she probably should be at five in the morning, but she actually answered.

“What are you doing?” I asked her. “You sound like you’re wide awake.”

“I’m playing a game,” She said. “You know, like a normal person?”

“Yeah okay, we need you to come to the house and clean up a…mess”

“A mess?” She asked, very clearly distracted.

"Yeah," I said into the phone while leaning against the doorway. "DEM left a bunch of live fish in our bathtub--"

I stopped for a second and peered into the open door to see Isabella knelt down beside the tub.

"Stop feeding the stupid fish, Isabella!" I shouted without even bothering to cover the mouthpiece.

"They're people too! And they're cute!" She whined back.

“Where did you even get fish food?!”

I huffed and turned around, walking back into he room.

“Look, you need to get over here.”

“No can do,” She said. “I only get paid from 3 PM to 5 PM.”

“Audrey!” I snapped.

“Okay, okay, fine,” She said. I suddenly felt a twinge of guilt. She’d only agreed so quickly because this was the only place on campus where she could be herself. Oh well, no time to worry about that.

I walked back into the hallway, the girls were still gathered in the bathroom. I squeezed past them and made my way toward the stairs.
“It’s okay, it’s taken care of,” I said as loudly as I could. No one was listening to me as I clumsily descended the stairs and flipped the living room light on. “Anyone get the mail yesterday?”

No one answered. Stupid fish. I crossed the living room, a little more confident in my step now and pulled the front door open. Sticking my hand in the mailbox I managed to pull out a stack of letters, which I brought into the house and tossed onto the kitchen counter.

“Junk, junk, really junk, bill, junk…” I muttered as I sifted through the thick stack of envelopes. I was about to give up on finding anything interesting when I came across a thicker white envelope addressed to Aleah from Woodcrest University. The address was from the financial aid office, and a red ‘Past Due’ was stamped on the outside of the envelope. What the hell was this?

“Aleah?” I shouted as I walked toward the stairs. I was interrupted by an abrupt knocking on the door. “The hell?”

Audrey was standing at the front door with a huge blue plastic barrel at her side, the kind that they put oil in.

“How…did you get here so fast?” I said, astonished. “And how did you just happen to have a barrel?”

She shrugged.

“Doesn’t everyone have a barrel?”

“No,” I said. “No they don’t.”

I squinted. There was someone behind her. It was her roommate, Mason.

“Mason brought his truck,” Audrey explained, almost apologetically.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You just happened to know you needed a truck, and a barrel?”

“Yeah,” Mason said. “This happened over at the Tri Pi house last year. We took care of it then too.”

“Oh…my…god,” I said, moving aside so that they could come in. Audrey and Mason grabbed the barrel and walked it up the stairs, slowly and carefully. I sat down on the couch and stared off into space. Lord, I hope no one called her Audrey up there while Mason was around, that would open a whole new can of worms – bigger than the one we were going to deal with tomorrow. Guaranteed. Except, tomorrow wouldn’t even be bad. I knew Chastity pretty well; she was always watching Drag Race and talking about other girls. I allowed myself to stop worrying and rested my head against the couch, dozing off for a moment. The next thing I knew, Mason and Audrey were coming back down the stairs lifting the barrel by a pair of handle on the sides.

“Okay,” Mason said. “We’ll get this out there, then I have to come back in and use the bathroom, alright?”

“Sure, whatever,” I mumbled. They disappeared through the front door. Maybe I could get a few more hours of sleep before class. Probably not. Mason walked back through the door, alone. I’d completely forgotten about him coming back to use the bathroom.

“Oh, hey,” I said. “There’s a bathroom downstairs he—”

“Can it,” He said sternly. I snapped to attention and stared at him. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry?” I said. “What do you mean what’s going on?”

“With my friend, Tiffany,” He said, still staring at me, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket.

I slowly stood to face him, straightening my white cami as I did to make sure it was pulled over my pajama bottoms. Didn’t want to show any skin this early.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I just asked her to come over and take care of the fish. She works here.”

“She?” Mason raised an eyebrow.

“Ugh,” I huffed. “Mason it’s five in the morning, you know what I meant.”

“Whatever,” He said. “He’s distracted, he doesn’t want to play games anymore, he spends all his time in the bathroom. When I try to go in there he screams that he’s ‘almost done’ and locks the door. He spends half his free time with people from this house. Oh, and he acts like he’s scared shitless. None of this shit started until he started hanging out here, so what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, Mason,” I crossed my arms. “I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You know something,” He said accusingly. “And I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

Good luck with that, Mason, I thought to myself. He turned to leave.

“Didn’t you need to pee?” I called out after him as he trudged through our living room and toward the door.

“I can hold it,” He called back as he left the house, closing the door behind him.

I turned away from the door and looked at the stairs. Aleah and Isabella where standing there, gripping the railing and staring at me.
“She can’t keep it a secret forever,” I said, exasperated. “And you can’t expect me to lie everytime it comes up.”

“It’s not our secret to tell,” Isabella said softly. “You did good.”

“I’m not looking for your approval,” I snapped. “I’m going to bed. Wait, Aleah, there’s a letter for you.”

I held the letter up for her. Her eyes widened. We were sharing a moment, sort of. That letter meant that Aleah was not only having financial problems, she was behind on her payments. It didn’t bode well, at all. She walked down the stairs and took the letter from my hand. She glared at me for a moment and then walked back up the stairs. Whatever. It wasn’t my problem. I had class in a few hours, and then a date with Captain Affluenza himself.

“Alright,” I said, walking past them as I turned off the light. “I can get a few more hours of sleep.”

Stepping outside the doors of the school I read a text from Shawn asking to meet at his house. Well, that was a little unusual but it’s not like I wasn’t dressed for the occasion. I’m always dressed for the occasion. I stood outside for a moment checking e-mails and finally, brought up the GAT tracker app that I’d gotten right after being promoted from pledge status last year. Our tracker app was a piece of custom software that we could use to track the GPS on eachother’s phones. A little invasive? Probably, but it came in handy a lot. I say invasive because it didn’t just track movement, it tracked the places you had stopped and for how long. Audrey had no idea what we’d secretly installed it on her phone and were tracking her every move, and that was probable insanely unethical. Still, it saved us from asking her where she was every minute of the day to make sure Mike hadn’t dragged her off to some abandoned warehouse, or another public bathroom.

On the map I could see Aleah on the practice field – she was probably doing her cheerleading stuff. Isabella was at the house, and Audrey was apparently in her dorm, probably playing that stupid Pantheon game. I tapped on her dot to pull up her weekly activity and sorted it by ‘food’. Well, that bitch, she’d been to exactly one restaurant this week and I knew she had no food in her dorm. For a normal person you could probably just write that off but for her it was a little more serious. Ever since we’d met her, we’d noticed that she was thin, stupidly thin. It didn’t take Aleah more than two seconds to figure out that she was starving herself, either that or the sunken eyes and her inability to offer physical resistance was the direct result of a LOT of meth. Either way, it was a problem, so we’d tried to encourage her to eat, a lot. Well, she’d eat on Friday. I was going to make sure of it. So would Aleah. I stopped and wondered why I even cared if she was healthy.

Knowing that she was at least at home, or at least her phone was, you can only imagine how shocked I was when I turned around and saw her standing there, with Chastity, her girlfriend. I literally nearly crapped myself.

“Oh, hey!” Chastity said to me, walking up to me with a smile. Audrey was now standing behind with her head pointed toward the ground. Probably blushing, or at least developing a low grade fever.

“Oh, wow, hi Chastity!” I blurted out. “It’s been a while!”

“Yeah it has,” She admitted. “Work and class have been taking up all my time.”

“Totally,” I nodded. “My communications class is getting so complicated.”

“Yeah?” She said. “How’s that going for you?”

“Pretty good, I think I’m passing this semester, so far.”

“That’s great to hear! Oh, this is my boyfriend, Todd, you two haven’t met,” She said, reaching back and pulling Audrey up to stand beside her. Audrey’s eyes darted away for a moment, then returned to meet mine.

“…Hi,” She said nervously.

“Hi Todd, I’m Tiffany,” I reached my hand out, she nervously took it and waited for me to shake. “So how long have you been together?”
“Oh um…three years since last fall!” Chastity said excitedly. “I think I talked about him a few times?”

I nodded.

“Yeah a few times, but you never introduced us!”

“Hah, sorry about that,” Chastity said almost apologetically. “We really need to catch up sometime!”

“Actually, yeah,” I agreed, nodding. “You know, you should drop by the house on Friday, we could have dinner and catch up.”

“Oh that would be amazing!” She smiled.

“Yeah and…why don’t you bring Todd with you?” I suggested. This wasn’t the way I’d wanted to ask her, but it worked, right?

“I don’t know,” She laughed. “I think Todd would rather sit at home playing games.”

“Yeah,” Audrey said quietly. “I do have a raid on Pantheon Friday-“

“I insist,” I said firmly. “And I won’t take no for an answer, both of you.”

Chastity laughed.

“Well alright,” She said. “We’ll be there, both of us.”

“Friday at 7 then?” I suggested.

“Yeah, totally, we’ll see you there!”

I watched them walk away, Audrey glanced back at me once. That was easy. I started to walk toward the parking lot, keys in hand when I heard Julia’s voice behind me.

“Cute couple, right?” She said. I jumped a bit, but then turned to face her. As always she was dressed in plain clothes but you could sense that air of authority about her. Today her badge was pretty visible on her belt; guess she was actually on duty.

“Yeah, cute,” I shrugged. “I just invited them to dinner at the Gamma house on Friday, you want to come too?”

“I’m afraid I’ve got a full plate for the next two weeks,” She shook her head. “But I would like to talk to you about that bruise on your arm. Why didn’t you come in?”

“No witnesses,” I shrugged. “What could you have done?”

“Taken a report,” She said. “The more we have on him, the better.”

“What did that do last time?” I demanded. “He’s still out running free, isn’t he?”

“There’s such a thing as due process,” She said to me with a very serious look on her face. “You wouldn’t like it if we could just go out and arrest people, trust me.”

She was referring of course to that stupid car accident last year. I’d bumped into another car and just driven off. They’d never proven it was me, but she knew.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Come down to the station tomorrow,” She said. “Make a statement, let’s get it on record.”

“Who told you?”

“Aleah sent me the picture,” She explained. “Look it’s not going to get him arrested, but it’s a start, okay?”

“Yeah meanwhile…”

“How is Audrey?” She asked. “I haven’t heard from her, or seen her.”

“Well, you know,” I said dismissively. “She hangs out in her dorm a lot, comes over to work at the house.”

“Work?”

“Yeah we hired her to mow the grass and stuff, the maintenance position.”

“What happened to the other guy?”

“He just quit for some reason,” I shrugged. “People are unreliable, what can I say?”

“And you’re keeping an eye on her?”

“Yeah, we have someone with her all the time during the day. We don’t let her leave her dorm alone.”

“Would almost be safer to have her pledge to Delta, then she’d have the sorority backing her.”

“That’s true, yeah,” I nodded. “But we can’t take new pledges until next year and she’d have to be out…a lot further out than she is now.”

“Maybe you should give her a little push?” Julia suggested.

“Julia, there are a lot of trans people out there, we can’t save them all.”

Julia shifted weight to her other foot and put a hand on her hip. With her other hand she brushed her red hair aside.

“Do you remember what I told you? That night after you let her leave your house?”

“I remember.”

“I told you that if you guys actively helped her transition, instead of just giving her the number for a support group or something, then you would accept the consequences. This is a consequence.”

“You know when you said that I thought you were talking about hormones, or my clothes getting stretched out.”

“It’s called an unforeseen consequence, Tiffany,” She was getting impatient. So was I.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Be at the station, on Saturday, make sure you don’t forget.”

I’ve always been pretty proud of my car, it was a blue Mercury Milan; my parents paid for it. I can’t say I was really proud of it as I pulled into Shawn’s driveway. If you could call it a driveway. It was more like a road, to be honest. As I pulled in I was greeted by a guardhouse and a wrought iron gate, both of which barred me from entry until I rolled down my window and spoke with the guard.

“Go right in, Miss Grey,” The security guard waved me in as the gate was pulled aside. “Mr. Derringer is waiting for you.”

“Where do I go?” I asked, looking a bit nervously at the huge house.

“Just head on to the front door,” He said. “Someone will let you in.”

I nodded and pressed on the gas pedal, driving the car down the long asphalt driveway. Seriously, it felt like I was on a country road, what the hell was this? I finally came to the end and parked the car in the cul-de-sac, though I wasn’t even sure it would be completely out of the way there. I shrugged and climbed out of the car, shouldering my purse and heading toward the front door. Even the walk there was kind of exhausting honestly.

I walked past the tannish-red brick façade, wondering if anyone was peeping at me through the windows, but shrugged it off as I stepped up and knocked on the door. It took no more than three seconds for a man in a tuxedo to open it and user me in. Seriously, what the hell, Derringer’s family was loaded.

“Wow this is uh…big,” I waved my hand around the huge foyer. It was white marble, because of course it was, and flanked on either side by two massive staircases. Let’s be honest, the floor itself probably cost five times more than the GAT house.

“I appreciate the compliment, Ma’am,” The butler smiled and signaled for me to follow him to the back of the house. We passed beneath the stairs and the landing, eventually walking through a dining area, and finally the backdoor.

“Is he…out here?” I asked as I surveyed the massive green lawn. I couldn’t see him anywhere.

“Right this way Ma’am, we’ll need to take a cart.”

“A cart?”

The butler led us down the porch stairs and to a waiting white golf cart sat upon a concrete slab and plugged into a charger. Unplugging it, he slid into the driver’s seat and waited for me to hop in. Immediately, we began moving down the green.

“How do you even remember where anything is?” I asked the butler. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.

He laughed a bit as the cart moved along.

“Well,” He said. “You get used to it after a while, and you can call me Jerome.”

“Jerome,” I said, nodding. “That’s a great name.

“Why thank you!” He said, chuckling “I’m pretty fond of it myself!”

“I guess you would be,” I smiled. “So what’s Shawn doing all the way out here?”

“Oh he’s out here shooting I suppose. I think he’s got something special planned for you.”

“Shooting?”

“Skeet,” Jerome explained as he took a sharp left turn to align the cart with a gravel path. “He likes to shoot skeet in his off time.”

“Is that all he does?” I asked curiously.

“Well no, he golfs too.”

“I’m glad he’s so diverse,” I said, staring off at some trees on the horizon. “How big is this place?’

“About 30 acres,” He told me “A lot of it’s wooded, makes for great camping.”

“Oh? You’ve gone camping here?”

“One of the perks of the job,” He said. “Every summer, don’t even have to leave the property to get in tune with nature.”

“I guess that would be a…perk,” I said. I’d never been camping. I didn’t even want to go camping. Why would anyone want to sleep outside?
“Here we are,” He said as he pulled up to a wooden barricade with parking spots carved out in front of it. I could see Shawn off in the distance.
“Thank you, Jerome,” I said as I stepped out of the cart and walked around the barricade.

“Not a problem, young lady!” Jerome called after me as he reversed the cart and drove back toward the house.

“Hey!” I shouted to Shawn as I crossed the grass. He turned toward me, holding a gun of some kind. I think it was a shotgun. He aimed it at the ground as he turned.

“Hey there!” He called out. He walked toward me and embraced me in a half hug, his other arm busy with the gun.

“So…skeet?” I asked innocently.

“Hah, yeah, it’s just a hobby,” He said with a smile.

“Just a hobby,” I laughed. “Most guys your age are playing video games for a hobby.”

“Well I do that to,” He shrugged.

“Well it sounds exciting,” I nodded. I wasn’t really into it.

“Do you want to try?” He asked, motioning to the gun.

“I’m sorry, what?” I blinked.

“Do you want to try shooting a Pidgeon?”

“What? Oh my god, I don’t want to kill a bird!” I recoiled, staring at him wide eyed. He laughed. Why was he laughing? Did he like slaughtering innocent animals? Was I trying to date a psychopath? Holy crap, this was a good way to end up as a lampshade.

“No no,” He reassured me. “I mean a clay pigeon, it’s just a target.”

“Oh! Oh, I am so sorry,” I said. “I thought you meant-“

“It’s not quite hunting season,” He joked. “Come on, I’ll show you how.”

I followed him nervously; I wasn’t sure I wanted to hold a gun, let alone shoot one. What if it exploded in my hand? Oh god, what if I shot someone?

“I don’t…I don’t think this is a good idea,” I stammered as he led me to a wooden block. He explained to me that it was a firing line. I had no idea what that meant. Moments later he was putting the gun in my hands. I immediately doubled over. Oh my god it was heavy!

“Okay here,” He said, wrapping his fingers around the barrel of the gun and holding it in place for me. With his other hand, he guided the end up toward my sounder. “This is the butt of the rifle, now here, use your other hand to hold…yeah, here.”

“What if I shoot…someone?” I asked. I was a little terrified, not going to lie.

“Tiffany,” He said, motioning toward the empty field in front of us. “There’s no one out here to shoot. Just relax, you’re going to be fine.”

“Okay but what if it explodes?!”

“It’s not going to explode, now just aim it up, like this.”

“It’s…really long, and heavy,” I complained.

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I tried hard to hold the gun up. He told me to close one eye and aim down the barrel, so I did.

“Okay,” He said. “Now I’m going to—”

Whatever he was going to say, he was interrupted by a roar as my finger bumped the trigger and the gun fired. The ‘butt’ slammed against my shoulder, knocking me back onto the grass with the gun falling to the side. I screamed.

“Oh my god!” He shouted. “Tiffany? Tiffany are you okay?”

“What the hell?” I demanded. “I barely touched it! Oh my god! Oh my god it hurts!”

I clutched my throbbing shoulder as he dropped to his knees and began to inspect it.

“It’s fine,” He said crouching. “Just a little bit of recoil, but you’re going to be okay.”

“I am?”

“You’ll bruise a bit,” He admitted.

“What did that happen?” I demanded. “Why the hell did it do that?”

“I guess I forgot to tell you to keep your finger off the trigger.”

“Did I kill anyone?”

“Probably not.”

“Oh.”

“Are you disappointed?” He asked quizzically.

“No no,” I said as I finally sat up and let him help me to my feet. He immediately bent over to retrieve the gun. I guess I wasn’t doing a great job of impressing him so far.

“Well,” He said. “If you’re okay, I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise, huh?” I said. “It’s not another gun, is it?”

He laughed.

“No, it’s something a little more…domestic.”

Gun in hand he led me away from the ‘firing line’ and toward a gazebo.

“Oh wow,” I said. He’d set up a table, complete with a dining set and wine. He really liked his wine.

“I thought maybe you’d like dinner out again,” He said coyly.

“Well I guess I am a little hungry,” I smiled as he pulled out a chair and I took a seat. He immediately sat opposite of me. In the center of the table was a cloche. I don’t know what I knew that’s what it was called. For those of you who aren’t up on the latest dining terms, a cloche is one of those dome covered pans.

“I took the liberty of having some roast chicken made for us,” He said, removing the lid to reveal one of the most amazingly cooked birds I’d ever seen.

“Oh…oh wow,” I said. “This is amazing.”

“So while we eat,” He said, his expression suddenly turning serious. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Well that doesn’t sound good,” I said jokingly as I served myself.

“It’s not that bad,” He chuckled. “It’s just that…you know that missing pledge I told you about?”

“You mean that Tim guy?” I asked.

“No, Todd,” He said, staring at me. “I assume you know his name too. Please don’t insult my intelligence.”

“I…what?” I asked. What did he know?

“I got a call from him the other day, he apologized and told me that Greek life just wasn’t for him.”

I remembered hearing Audrey’s side of that conversation. That was sort of how it went, if you accounted for her stammering and nearly vomiting all over our floor from nerves.

“Well that’s great,” I smiled. “I’m glad you got that worked out.”

“Yeah,” He nodded. “He called from your phone.”

I had been taking a sip of wine when he said that. I don’t think there could have been any possible way to keep my composure. I immediately swallowed and immediately choked; so hard in fact that he was at my side in a moment slapping the small of my back until I could breathe again. I doubled over the table and clutched the white cloth on my fist.

“Are you okay?” He asked me after my breathing was finally under control.

“Yeah I’m fine,” I said. “It just went down the wrong way.”

“Right,” He nodded, returning to his seat. “So, what was Todd doing with your phone?”

“I mean…”

“Tiffany,” He said, looking directly into my eyes from across the table. “I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, but I have to clear it up. Obviously you’re not recruiting Todd for your sorority, I mean, that would be…stupid, but I have to make sure you’re not discouraging people from joining DEM. It’s not something I want to bring up with the Greek council, or even Aleah, so I’m coming to you first. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

I paled and shook my head. This was a problem. The Greek council at Woodcrest had strict rules about interfering with the recruiting process for other houses. We couldn’t steal members from Tri Pi, they couldn’t steal them from us, and we couldn’t try to prevent other people from joining houses, no matter what. Did it really look like we’d stopped Audrey from joining DEM? What was I even supposed to say?

“I…” My voice caught in my throat. Was I supposed to tell him that Audrey wasn’t joining DEM because she’d decided she was a girl?
Seriously, what the hell do you even do in this situation?

“Look,” He said. “I can tell from the look on your face that there’s something serious going on, maybe…maybe you’re not trying to interfere, and that’s why I wanted to ask you first. Can you at least tell me there’s nothing going on?”

“There’s nothing going on,” I said quietly. I was shaken. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid. This was like, something that could get me kicked out of GAT, and not by Aleah.

“Tiffany,” He said. “It’s okay, I’m not going to say anything, I just needed to know there was nothing going on. If you can’t tell me any more than that I’ll accept it. I understand some things are private.”

“Alright, alright,” I said, there had been a knot forming in my stomach and it was working its way up to my throat. “I…no…we’re not interfering with your recruiting I just…I can’t tell you what’s going on with Todd. It’s just…it’s private.”

He nodded.

“You know what, I can respect that.”

I suddenly smirked a bit.

“Is something funny?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” I laughed. “I was just thinking…it’s kind of hot when you take authority like that.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, it’s just, I mean…”

“You mean what?” He asked. I couldn’t tell if he was being assertive or genuinely curious.

“I mean you’re…”

“Would you…like me to take charge…some more?” He grinned.

I tilted my head.

“Please.”

“Tiff, what’s going on with you?” Isabella asked as we pushed a squeaky cart down a grocery aisle later that night. “You’re like…glowing.”
“Oh, nothing,” I said in sing-song voice. She was staring at me. She didn’t need to know anything. Tonight we were out getting stuff for tomorrow’s dinner. “Do you think we should go with a roast?”

“Think we should make Audrey make whatever it is we have,” Isabella huffed.

“Does Audrey even know how to cook?” I was genuinely curious. I really had no idea.

“Yes.”

“What? Really? She never even eats.”

I peered down into a freezer gondola and picked up a huge roast. It might have been overkill but it had to feed at least five people, so why not?

“I follow her on Facebook, she took a picture of some dinner she made for Chastity,”

“Ugh, she takes pictures of her food? She’s one of those?”

“Yeah, but not too many selfies, though.”

“Well thank god for that,” I said. Maybe I should start following her on Facebook.

“So you really want to do roast?

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “It’s easy, it feeds a lot of people, why not?”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. We’ll need to get something to go with it though,” Isabella was biting her lip and looking around the store. It wasn’t very busy in here; it was a Thursday night, so all of the ‘regular’ people were still waiting on their paychecks. Money wasn’t something that I typically had to worry about. My family wasn’t loaded, I mean, not like Shawn’s, but we did pretty well.

“Mashed potatoes,” I said. “You can never go wrong with mashed potatoes.”

“Like, the instant kind?”

“Nah,” I said. “We can just make them from scratch.”

“We going to have Audrey mash them?”

I laughed.

“Audrey is probably freaking out right now. Maybe we should give her a break, for once.”

“That’s weird coming from you,” Isabella said as we made our way toward the produce section. “You’re not one to give her a break, usually.”
I shrugged.

“Feeling generous today I guess.”

“Well don’t let it become a regular thing,” Isabella laughed, stopping by the potatoes. “We like our Tiff bitch.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

We walked in silence for a bit, occasionally stopping to grab something from a shelf, or to look at something. A few moments later Isabella tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the deli section across the store. Audrey. Audrey was there at the cheese case with Chastity. Who were they talking to?”

“That’s Kari,” She whispered. I don’t know why she was whispering, it’s not like we could be heard from across the store.

“Kari?” I asked. “Whose Kari?”

“She’s the trans girl from Omega, remember?”

“I really try not to think about Omega,” I growled. “Bunch of nerds.”

“Okay, whatever, but Chastity has a trans friend?”

“Oh,” I said, nodding. “I guess that’s a good thing but she…she looks really good, can they even tell she’s trans?”

“It’s kind of common knowledge,” Isabella said. “I mean you’d have to be living under a rock…or...whatever.”

I watched the redhead girl, Kari, walk away from them smiling and waving. Audrey and Chastity returned their attention to the cheese case. I noticed for the first time that they worked so well together. Like, you could tell that they had chemistry, even from this far away. They’d been together for what, three years? That’s literally a lifetime.

“You know,” Isabella pointed out. “Once we tell her, we won’t have to deal with Audrey anymore. Chastity will take over.”

“Can’t happen soon enough,” I rolled my eyes. “The last few weeks have been…interesting but…I really want to go back to my life?”

“Did you really LEAVE your life?” Isabella smirked. “You’ve just been a complete bitch, like normal.”

“I am what god made me,” I shrugged as we watched Audrey and Chastity walk away and disappear into another part of the store.

“You know what?” Isabella said, grabbing the cart and walking past me. “I really need some setting powder.”

“What?” I said mockingly. “You’re going to buy makeup at a grocery store?”

“Not everyone can afford to shop at Ulta you bitch,” She replied, partially joking, partially not.

I walked alongside her, toward the makeup aisle and watched her sort through the setting powders. There were only like three to choose from but she was taking a lifetime. I wanted to yell at her to just go with the translucent one, but I just stood there, staring off into space. She was right, after tomorrow everything would go back to normal. Audrey wouldn’t be at our house as much, or at all, probably, and you know what? I was really, really happy with that. It would be good for her and better for me. Actually if we’re being honest, I wanted to walk across the store and tell Chastity to her face, right now so we could skip this stupid dinner. God it was going to be awkward. No, no, stick to the plan. I had to follow through. Aleah wanted to play her little game, and I was going to let her. She was the chapter president, after all.

“What do you think of this?” She asked as she held up a setting powder and pointed to it. “Do you think this will work for my complexion?”

“Honey,” I said. “That’s translucent, it’ll work for any complexion.”

“Oh,” She said. “I didn’t know that.”

“My god,” I said as I rolled my eyes at her. “You know, Aleah keeps wanting to make me her vice president. What she should really do is make me the house fashion coordinator.”

“Oh! I bet that would be a really good job for you!” She said excitedly, the joke going over her head as she dropped the powder in the cart.
“Uh…yeah,” I agreed. “A really…good…job.”

As we walked to the self checkout, we ran into someone I hadn’t seen out and about for a while: Olivia. She was sporting this black and white paid top and a pair of jeans, really cute I guess, but there was something different. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Hey movie star,” I joked. “What’s with the sunglasses?”

She smile at me slightly and tilted her head.

“Just trying something new!” She said cheerfully. “What’s with the roast?”

“Oh we’re…having a dinner tomorrow,” I explained. “You wanna come?”

“Oh!” She said. “Well—”

“She’s busy tomorrow,” Mike said as he walked up behind her and stared at me smugly, wrapping his arm around her.

My heart skipped a beat. I don’t know why; we were in a really public place. It’s not like there was anything he could do to me. I felt nervous all the same.

“Well,” I said, trying to keep an even tone of voice. “If you change your mind, it’s at-“

“She won’t change her mind,” Mike interrupted. “She has plans.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m talking to Olivia.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Olivia said quickly. “We have to get going anyway. I’ll see you later, Tiffany.”

“Yeah,” I said as they walked away. “See you later.”

“What are we going to do about that?” Isabella asked me quietly after a moment of silence.

“He’ll be lucky if I don’t take a can opener to his head,” I said. I wanted to sound tough, but honestly? I was afraid. Really, really afraid. What could I even do about it? He hadn’t even been locked up after he attacked Audrey. What could be done at all? Was he just going to keep walking around free? Would he keep terrorizing us? I had no idea, and I was afraid.

There are five of us here for the dinner. It was in this moment I realized how shocked I was that more sisters never stayed for dinner in the house, seriously. Today is was me, Aleah, Isabella, Amelie, and Lauren. They were nervous, but I wasn’t.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Amelie asked me. She was our house mother. For those of you who aren’t up on sorority lingo, the house mother is on the payroll, she’s the person whose sort of supposed to guide us and give us advice. Amelie was a Gamma alumni, I guess she’d been the chapter president about eight years ago and now she was here to relive her old college days. She’d insisted on being here for this dinner. I don’t know why; it’s not like we couldn’t handle it.

“Yeah, I want her out of my life,” I said simply.

Amelie nodded.

“You know it might not be that simple, right?” She said quietly. “You need to be ready to deal with the fallout, if there is any.”

“There’s not going to be any fallout,” Aleah said, checking the roast in the crock pot. I’d put it in there earlier in the day; it should have been ready by now. I watched Aleah confirm it by pulling off a small piece and tasting. She nodded. We probably could have done this with takeout.

“You girls are going to have to start listening to me at some point,” Amelie lectured. “Why am I even here if you’re not going to?”

“I listen to you,” Isabella piped up.

“Yes sweetie, you’re one of the good ones,” Amelie half smiled toward her.

“Hey do we want to pull out the good dishes?” Lauren suggested, pointing toward the cabinet where we kept the ‘good’ china. You know, the kind we would pull out for Christmas, or Thanksgiving.

“I really don’t want her to think something’s up,” Aleah replied. “Just use the regular dishes.”

“I think she’s going to know something’s up when she sees someone actually cooked,” Amelie said as she pulled the plates from the cupboard and began setting the table.

“Oh you are absolutely hilarious,” Aleah rolled her eyes.

The doorbell rang. Honestly, Audrey could have just walked right in and no one would have cared but hey, she had to keep up appearances for Chastity. I had to remind myself that until Chastity knew, we had to act like Audrey had never been to this house, ever. That was going to be hard. After a brief argument over who was going to get the door I found myself walking across the living room and pulling it open. Chastity and Audrey were standing there, and I was kind of taken aback; I’d never seen Audrey in nice clothes – not male clothes anyway. I’d seen her in my clothes, obviously, but today she was wearing a nice button up shirt and pressed khaki pants; probably something Chastity had made her wear. I wondered if it upset her. I forced myself to stop thinking about that and smiled at them.

“Hey Chastity!” I said as I embraced her in a huge. “It’s so great to see you again!”

“I know!” She said, hugging me back. “We need to do this more often!”

Over her shoulder as we hugged I could see Audrey there looking horribly awkward. Maybe confused? Horrified? All of those rolled into one? I guess she’d been counting down the days, and probably not in a good way. Part of me wanted to ask if she was okay, the other part of me just wanted to watch her squirm. The latter won out.

“Oh, let me take your coats!” Amelie said, walking briskly through the living room. “My name is Amelie, I’m so glad to meet both of you!”
I smirked a bit. Amelie was as good at acting as any of us. It was no wonder she was our house mother.

“You know, I would have us sit for a while and talk but dinner’s actually ready,” I laughed as I accompanied Chastity to the dining room with Audrey following closely behind. She hadn’t said a word since she entered the house. I thought about asking her if she was okay, or maybe it would be better to watch her squirm. I chose the latter.

“Oh that’s okay, we’re starving!” Chastity said happily.

“Is that right?” I smirked at Audrey. She would be starving; she never eats. She saw my smirk and blushed, averting her gaze to the floor.

“Oh my god, Tiffany,” Chastity said as we moved into the kitchen and sat around the table. “I absolutely love your top; where did you get it?”

“Oh this old thing?” I motioned down to the silky pink scoop-neck I was wearing. “I got it on sale, it was about ten bucks, if you can believe that.”

“Jeez,” She said. “Do they have any left?”

“They might,” I laughed. “They were all in different sizes on the clearance rack though.”

“So!” Amelie announced as she lightly clapped her hands. “Ladies, tonight we have a pork roast, made by the lovely Aleah, and mashed potatoes, of course-“

“Aren’t you leaving Todd out? We’re not all ladies,” Chastity asked with mock offense.

“Oh, jeez,” Amelie said. I froze a bit. No one wanted to actually misgender Todd. Good thing it wouldn’t be a problem after tonight. “Well, Todd can be an honorary lady tonight!”

There was nervous laughter around the table from everyone but Chastity – her laughter was less than nervous.

“Well alright,” She grinned. “I’m sure Todd would make a great girl.”

More laughter. She would definitely be okay with this.

We continued talking for like an hour I think. We talked to Chastity about her classes, asked her about her plans after graduation. It was all really normal, kind of like the old days, but nothing like them. Audrey said absolutely nothing. Finally, I spoke to her.

“So um, Todd, that’s your name, right?” I said, locking eyes with her.

“Oh…yeah, heh, that’s my name,” She said, looking at me nervously.

“What do you do? What’s your major?” I passed it off as a very casual question. I knew her major was English; I just wanted to get her into the conversation.

“It’s uh…it’s journalism,” She practically squeaked it out.

“That’s…exciting,” I said. It wasn’t exciting. “What do you want to do after school?”

“Well I guess I could work for an editor, like Penguin Press or something,” She shrugged. “But you know, I’d…rather write books, and stuff.”

“Books about what?” Aleah seemed intrigued.

“Oh my gosh,” Chastity interrupted. “Todd is the BIGGEST fantasy buff ever. He reads those Lord of the Rings books…and plays those online games.”

“Oh you’re a gamer?” Isabella said, her face lighting up a bit. “What do you play?”

“I…mostly play Dark Pantheon with my roommate, Mason,” She shrugged. “It’s…I mean it’s okay, but I guess I just haven’t been that interested in gaming lately.”

“And that’s a GOOD thing,” Chastity laughed, taking Audrey’s hand and interlocking their fingers momentarily. “He used to spend ALL day on those games.”

“Yeah, I guess I did overdo it a bit,” Audrey admitted.

“A bit?” Chastity raised an eyebrow. “You spent an entire weekend on it, you didn’t even eat.”

Audrey never ate anyway.

Chastity looked at her empty plate and sighed.

“You know, I hate to do this,” She said. “But I have to get up early tomorrow so I think I’m going to split. It was great seeing you again though, Tiffany, and it was great meeting all of you!”

“Oh, yeah,” Audrey said. “We really should get going.”

No one was going to let her off that easy.

“Actually…”I started.

“We need to talk about something,” Aleah interrupted me, looking directly at Audrey who was now squeezing her eyes shut and literally quivering. Chastity looked around the table, a bit curious and finally asked.

“What is it?”

“Well it’s uh…it’s about your boyfriend,” Aleah said. I watched Amelie fold her hands on the table, simply observing the situation. Isabella quietly slid out of her chair and went to stand by the back door.

“What is this?” Chastity asked. She wasn’t mad or anything, not yet.

“Okay well, to start,” Aleah said. “This isn’t the first time Todd’s been here. We all know Todd, very, very well.”

I watched as Chastity turned and stared at Audrey whose head was still hung. She didn’t even dare to speak. Maybe she was hoping that the moment would pass with someone announcing it was all a joke. No such luck, Audrey.

“I think,” Amelie said, finally speaking up. “That maybe Todd should be the one to say it. It’s not really our place, is it?”

I looked over at Audrey who had turned probably four different shades of red and was on the verge of tears. Seriously. I felt like she wasn’t even capable of speaking at this point.

“Todd you’re going to have to say something,” Said, staring at her until she finally made eye contact with her. “She needs to know, it’s not fair of you to do this to her, seriously.”

“I…” Audrey started to say, but the rest of her words came out as some kind of choking sound.

“Are you…are you cheating on me with one of them?” Chastity demanded, turning to Audrey as she moved to stand up from her chair.
“Oh, I wish it were that simple,” Lauren said from across the table.

“Well if you’re not cheating then what is it?” She demanded. Her voice was getting heated, really heated. She was almost angry.

“Todd, say it,” I pushed. “Just say it.”

“You…you can’t make me do this,” Audrey stammered. “I needed more time…”

“More time for what?” I said sharply. “How long were you planning to date her before you said something? Do you really want her to find out that your entire relationship was a lie ten years from now?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Chastity finally pushed her chair back and stood up from the table, glaring down at Audrey who was now practically cowering in her chair. “Todd, whatever it is you’d better say it right now or I’m walking out, and don’t you even bother to call me.”

Audrey snapped to life and tried to stand, but forgot to push her chair out first. She stumbled as it fell backward and slammed into the kitchen floor. She grabbed the table for support.

“Chastity,” She gasped. She was crying now. “I don’t…I don’t…”

“You don’t want to what?” Chastity demanded. “Would someone tell me what’s going on? I’m about to leave, seriously.”

Audrey looked at me, her eyes pleading.

“Do you want me to say it?” I asked her. She knew I was the only person in here that would do it. She nodded slowly.

All eyes were on me now. You know, from everything I’d read online, what we were doing now wasn’t really a good idea. In a way we were kind of forcing her to come out to Chastity but, honestly, could we let her keep lying? She was basically leading her on even if that wasn’t the intent. Was this okay? Was it our business? Well, technically she made it our business when she broke into our house, I guess.

“Aleah,” I said. “The pictures.”

Aleah unlocked her phone and handed it to me with one of the pictures already up. I glanced at it for a second before holding the phone out for Chastity to take. Audrey looked completely mortified. I almost felt bad for her. Almost. Chastity locked eyes with me as she took the phone, and them glanced down at the screen.

“Well she’s really pretty,” Chasity said, her eyes moving over the screen “But who is she?”

She looked up from the phone, and back to me, then back to Aleah. Aleah raised a finger, pointing across the table at Audrey who was now leaning against the wall with her head in her hands. Chastity looked back at the phone, and then back at Audrey.

“No it isn’t,” She said accusingly. “What is this? What’s going on?”

I sighed.

“Chastity, Todd isn’t…a guy. Never has been, she’s a trans girl, her name is Audrey. There, now you know. Maybe you two should talk about it.”

“That’s…that’s not even possible,” Chasity said, looking from Audrey, to the phone, and then back to me. “I would have known.”

“Well to be really fair to you,” I said. “We just though she was some kind of pervert. She’s super quiet, never talks to anyone; I’m not even sure how she ended up with you. Like, we didn’t even know until last week.”

There was a moment of awkward silence as Chastity digested the information, and then finally turned to Audrey.

“Todd,” She said firmly. “Look at me. Take your head out of your hands and look at me.”

Audrey slowly lifted her head and finally made eye contact with Chastity who was glaring at her. You would have needed a chainsaw to cut through this tension.

“Yes,” Todd whispered. It was like a complete repeat of the scene last week, just with more people present. We were all staring intently at Chastity, wondering what she would do next. We probably hadn’t handled this very well. Oh well, a little late for regrets now, right?

“So you’ve been lying to me,” She accused. It was true, technically, though that approach was a little harsh.

“I didn’t…didn’t want to lose you,” Audrey said. “I thought…I just thought—”

“How long?” Chastity demanded. “How long have you known?”

“I…since I was six I guess?”

“And you just…decided not to tell me before we got together?”

“You know, it can be really hard to come out with this sort of thing,” Aleah tried to help. “I don’t think she meant to hurt you.”

“He,” Chastity corrected.

“Excuse me?” Aleah said, pushing her chair back and standing up from the table. From the corner of my eye I saw Isabella begin to move back toward us.

“Look,” Chastity said. “If you have a penis you’re a boy, if you have a vagina, you’re a girl. You might think you’re a girl, Todd, but that just means you need help, serious help.”

“Um, woah,” Lauren interjected, she stood up alongside Aleah. “That’s like…not even…wow.”

“That’s kinda not what I expected you to say,” I looked at Chastity. I was genuinely surprised. Seriously.

“How exactly did you think I would react?” She snapped at me.

“I guess…I thought you would be okay with it,” I said, shocked. “I mean you’re…bi and everything, right?”

“That doesn’t mean I’m okay with freaks!” She practically screamed. “And that doesn’t mean I want my boyfriend to…wear dresses! Oh my god!”

“Chastity…” Audrey said, reaching out to touch her arm. Chastity jerked backward and glared at her.

“Stay away from me!” She shrieked. “Don’t touch me!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Audrey wailed. “I didn’t…I don’t…”

She was just blubbering at this point. Tears were streaming down her face. I’d seen her upset before but never anything like this. Her eyes were empty, it was like the soul had been sucked out of her body in a single instant. A lump was forming in my throat as I stood there surveying the scene, rife with mental anguish, and it was beginning to dawn on me that it had been my fault. I’d pushed her, I’d done this.

“Audrey,” Aleah spoke. Her voice was firm, but gentle. “Go with Lauren, upstairs to the bedroom. Don’t leave that room until I come for you.”

“But—” Audrey protested, still staring at Chastity who was glaring at Aleah.

“GO,” Aleah commanded.

Within seconds they were gone, Lauren walking behind Audrey up the stairs. We could hear Audrey’s quiet sobs as she disappeared onto the second floor. We returned our attention to Chastity. Aleah’s hand was balled into a fist.

“You listen to me,” Aleah said. “You know who we are, Gamma Alpha Tau. You know what we can do. If you breathe a single word about this to ANYONE, your friend, your teachers, your mother, your pet goldfish, we WILL know, and you can kiss your scholarship goodbye.”
“Wait, so you’re blackmailing me?” Chastity shook her head. “I just had my life RUINED and you’re telling me I can’t TALK to anyone about it?”

“Your life isn’t ruined,” Aleah said. “Hers might be.”

“Hers?” Chastity growled. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I suggest,” Aleah said. “That you lean to keep a journal, and talk to that, because you’re not telling anyone about her.”

Maybe we should follow our own advice next time.

Chastity stormed around the table and made her way to the living room, grabbing her purse from the couch and her jacket from the hook by the door.

“I won’t tell anyone,” She said, turning around to face us one last time as we followed her as far as the couch. “He’s your problem now.”

I stood there, my feet frozen to the floor as I stared at the front door. Jesus Christ, what had we just done?

“Audrey?” Aleah gently shook nudged her shoulder. While we’d been downstairs, she’d fallen asleep on the bed, her head buried in Lauren’s lap. “Wake up sweetie.”

She opened her eyes slowly, rolling them to look up at Aleah. She remained silent until Aleah finally spoke again.

“You’re staying here tonight,” Aleah said finally. “We don’t…usually allow that sort of thing, but...we don’t want you to leave…like this, okay? You’re staying here. I need you to get up though so you can change.”

She sat up but she didn’t speak. I watched her as she changed into a pair of Aleah’s pajamas. She seemed so fragile, much more so than before. I was having trouble processing it; I mean yeah, she was pretty easygoing, but at least she had a personality before. Now I felt like I was looking at the empty shell of a person. She was shattered, defeated, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

“Okay, just climb under the covers, okay?” Isabella covered her up. Still, not a peep from her.

“Okay, if you need us we’ll be downstairs, okay?” Aleah reassured her, but she might as well have been talking to a wall. It was still early, so this room was relatively empty, but it actually had ten beds, just like the other four bedrooms. I saw Aleah pull out her phone and send out a group text, warning them that Audrey would be there tonight. At least she had her bases covered.

We walked downstairs in silence and took a seat on the sectional couch.

“Oh my god,” Aleah spoke first. “What the hell did we just do?”

“We just broke her,” Lauren said. “We broke Audrey.”

“So, what do you plan to do now?” Amelie asked. She seemed to be keeping her distance from the situation.

“Damage control,” I said. “We have to make sure we don’t hurt her any more than we already have.”

“You seem to care a whole lot all of a sudden,” Isabella observed.

“I care about the house, and my scholarship,” I told her. I was lying. “Both of which could be gone if this got out.”

“You know,” Lauren said. “What we did wasn’t technically against any rules.”

“It just wouldn’t look good,” Aleah said, and Amelie nodded. Even if it didn’t hurt our chapter’s standing with the sorority, it would kill our reputation on campus. I know Aleah cared about Audrey, but I swear the rest of us were just doing this to keep our reputations intact. That wasn’t immoral, right?

“Okay, so I have a question,” Isabella said. “This is going to sound really, really stupid but-“

“No question that ever started that way ends well,” Aleah glanced at her as the words came out of her mouth.

“Okay, but seriously,” She said. “I get that Audrey wants to be a girl but…if it’s causing so many problems, then why can’t she just…be a boy?”

“Oh god, if it were that simple,” Lauren sighed.

“Isn’t it that simple?” Isabella looked at all of us. “I mean…wear pants and drink beer and…I don’t know, be a lumberjack or something?”
I snorted. That was kind of funny, admittedly.

“You know,” I said. “Everyone here knows I’m not the most sympathetic person. Like, well…but this is a real thing. How do I explain this? If a person doesn’t identify with their birth gender it starts to like…get to them…I guess. Like I’ve met a lot of trans people, before and after. I was really skeptical about it at first, and I don’t really understand it but I can tell you they’re happier after they put the clothes on and start acting like the gender they think they are.”

“More like the gender they know they are,” Aleah stared at me.

“Whatever it is,” I rolled my eyes. “People deserve to live however they want as long as it’s not hurting anyone.”

“Okay, so…tell me this…how do we know Audrey is actually…trans and not just going along with what we want?” Isabella looked at each of us again with a serious look on her face.

“There were the forum posts on her phone,” Aleah pointed out. I had a brief flashback to that moment a week ago. After we’d caught her in our room, we’d tied her up and taken like, fifty pictures of her in Aleah’s dress. Then, with her phone, we’d been planning to send the pictures to all of her contacts, including her parents. Just before we’d started that, Aleah accidentally tapped the ‘browser’ button on that shitty phone screen and the Transgender Hope forum had popped right up. Audrey had made literally thousands of posts and comments. To me, that didn’t really mitigate the fact that she’d broken into our house, but you know what? Everyone deserves to be happy.

“And, also,” Lauren said pointedly. “Audrey did literally everything we asked without really complaining. We made her work a party, in a dress. We’ve had her dress as herself every time she’s come over here, and she’s never thrown a fit. Do you think a man who is…a man would let us do that?”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “Try doing that to one of the DEM brothers and see how they react.”

“What about the pictures?” Lauren said, still half-convinced she was right. “Like, could she think she’s being blackmailed.”

“I deleted the pictures from the first night,” Aleah shook her head. “And I made sure to tell her that I did.”

“She’s here of her own free will,” I said. “She could walk out the front door right now and no one would stop her.”

“Yep,” That was all Aleah had to add.

“So then…what do we do?” Isabella asked.

“About?”

“About…Audrey?”

“Well, we messed up,” I said. “We pushed her into something she wasn’t ready for. I think we just keep supporting her. One day she’ll be ready to come out, to everyone, and that’ll be cool, but until then…”

“We just keep playing dress up with her?” Isabella raised an eyebrow.

“Well just think of it this way,” I said. “We help her transition, and when she finally comes out, we could have her pledge to Gamma. Suddenly we’re the most progressive sorority on campus.”

“You’re literally talking about using her,” Aleah stared at me.

“You wanted her in, remember?”

“Not like that!”

“I don’t think she’s going to care either way,” Lauren said. She was probably right.

“Let’s just get some sleep,” I said. “I have to study tomorrow and Audrey has to…do whatever it is Audrey does when we’re not ruining her life.”

We all dispersed and went to our rooms upstairs. I laid down in my bed and stared at Audrey, sleeping across the room. Slowly, and quietly, I wrapped my arms around my pillow and buried my face in the soft fabric, quietly sobbing to myself and hoping to god no one else could hear me. I hated myself so much, and this was only the beginning.

I nodded to Sakiya as I sat down at the table in the quad. She was nicely dressed, as usual. Tri Pi’s fashion sense had always been a little more refined than ours, I guess you could say. Yeah we were on top of the latest trends, but every Tri Pi girl looked like they could wake up in the morning and walk into church every single day of the week, it was disturbing, or even kind of Stepfordy.

“So,” She said. “I’m going to cut right to the chase, how can I help you exactly?”

“Okay so, Gamma ran into a little problem, it started with this guy named Todd, he’s uh…an English major I think?”

“I know exactly who you’re talking about,” Sakiya nodded. “Kind of a creepy guy, was dating Chastity, not sure how he ended up with her but I’m glad she dumped him, I kind of feared for her life.”

“Yeah, well, about that…” I said. “I wanted you to know that I came to you with this because you’re the president of the LGBT club, and maybe—”

“Wait,” She stared at me. “Are you saying Todd’s gay?”

“Uh…kind…of?” I said, cocking my head a bit. “I mean uh…it’s…he’s…”

“I’m on a schedule here,” Sakiya pointed to a nonexistent watch on her wrist. “You’re going to want to spit it out, whatever it is.”

So I told her. I told her everything from the beginning. I think it took all of twenty minutes to unfold the entire tale and by the time I was done she was staring at me blankly. Had she heard what I’d just said? Any of it at all? There was an awkward silence and then, she suddenly cleared her throat and brushed her bangs from her face before speaking.

“Tiffany, do you hear that?” She asked, staring intently into my eyes with a finger resting against her chin as if she were simultaneously deep in thought.

“Hear…what?” I asked. I listened, the area around us was actually pretty quiet. “I don’t hear…anything.”

“Oh!” She said. “It’s that tree over there! It’s lamenting the fact that it had to burst forth from a seed, survive life as a sapling in this cruel, unforgiving world, and managed to defy the odds, growing into a huge oak tree just so it could provide oxygen for your mentally deficient self.”

“Excuse me?!” I demanded, slamming both hands on the table. “I didn’t—”

“You did!” Sakiya shouted at me. “You took a perfectly nor—okay you took a trans girl and you traumatized the fuck out of her! Like do you know how many years of therapy it’s going to tak…UGH! I don’t even have words for how mad I am at you. You are so…all of you are so STUPID! GAT has always had a bad reputation, I don’t know why they even allow you onto the Greek council, but holy fucking Jesus Christ on an English muffin you daft fucking prick!”

“Wow…um…I’m…sorry?”

“You’re sorry?” Sakiya raised an eyebrow. “What exactly did you think you were doing? I could understand playing a little bit of dress up. Trans girls love being helped with the whole clothing thing, and maybe you could have just taught her to do her makeup. A little pet project never hurt anyone, but you MADE her come OUT to her fucking GIRLFRIEND?! I can’t believe I have to tell you that this is wrong!”

“You know,” I said. “We were just playing it by ear, we’ve never really run into anything like this before, and Todd- I mean Audrey seems to like it with us—”

“Are you sure that’s not Stockholm Syndrome?”

“I don’t know what to do Sakiya,” I said, throwing my hands up in frustration. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

“Um…did you try directing her to a therapist or maybe the fucking LGBT club? Did you try…um…I don’t know…ANYTHING but what you did?”

“Sakiya, serious, help me,” I pleaded. “Ever since we…did…that she’s been super depressed. I’m literally afraid she’s just going to kill herself.”

“Oh I’m going to help you,” Sakiya said condescendingly. “But first you’re going to do something for me, well, two things. Stand up, walk over to that tree, and apologize to it.”

“What?” I demanded. “You want me to what?!”

“Go apologize to that tree for wasting its life. Tell it you’re going to try to be a good girl, and that this Christmas you’ll give Tiny Tim the money to buy the Christmas goose. Get up, go to the tree, I’m on a schedule.”

I searched her face, trying to find anything resembling sarcasm. She couldn’t be serious, right? The longer I stared at her the more insistent her expression became. I finally sighed and stood up from the bench, biting my lower lip as I took a few steps backward and the did a full 180 toward the tree.

“I’m…sorry…” I said to the tree. I felt like a complete idiot.

“Tell it what you’re sorry for!”

“I’m…sorry that…you have to produce oxygen for me.” What the hell, this was so stupid.

“Now apologize for global warming!”

“What the hell Sakiya, it’s not even real!” I spat back.

“Okay, and then apologize for being a republican!”

“Okay…tree,” I sighed. “I’m sorry for global warming and I’m sorry for my political views.”

“Get back over here,” Sakiya sighed. I walked back toward the table, rolling my eyes as I went.

“Okay,” She said to me as I sat down. “Listen to me very closely, because this is what we’re going to do.”