“Hey, cheer up Audrey,” I said as I turned onto Main street and into a row of back to back restaurants, all lit up and making my stomach growl.
“Aleah please,” She said. “I just…couldn’t I just stay at home tonight?”

“You’ve been cooped up in your dorm for three days,” I said. “You needed to get out. I’m getting you out.”

“It’s really creepy that you know that,” She said. “Don’t you guys have anything better to do than watch me?”

“Uh…yeah,” I said. “Lots of things. Lots and lots of things but…yeahhhhhh.”

I looked at her from the corner of my eye as the scenery outside flew past; she definitely wasn’t happy. Okay she was pouting like a teenager. Seriously. You know, come to think of it, that was kind of adorable. I took a hard left through an intersection and pulled into a Burger King.

“What are we doing here?” She asked me as I took the car through the drive thru.

“Getting you dinner,” I said.

“I’m not hungry,” She turned and stared out the window.

“You’ve been in your dorm for three days and we know you don’t have food in there,” I told her.

“Okay how do you know I don’t have food in there?” She turned to look at me.

“Because Courtney and Ashley have dropped you off a few times and check your fridge when they walked into the dorm with you, and you never go to the store so…”

“That’s so creepy,” She said.

“Welcome to a world where people care about you,” I shrugged. “It sucks.”

“You don’t have to care that much,” She informed me. “I’m fine.”

“What do you want?” I pointed to the menu.

“I…” She started to say ‘nothing’, but she knew I wouldn’t take that for an answer. “I guess…fries.”

I rolled my window down and spoke to the drive-thru speaker.

“Hey, can I get a number…1 with fries and a large coke?”

“Hey, I don’t need coke, that’s pure suga—” Audrey started to say, but I held a hand up and shushed her.

“Will that be all?” The drive thru attendant asked me.

“Yes please,” I said.

“Alright, please pull around.”

I released the brake and pulled around to the side of the restaurant.

“You’re gonna have to learn, Audrey,” I said as I paid for the food. “When we tell you to eat, you eat. You know, if you ate like a normal person we wouldn’t have to do this.”

“I just don’t…I don’t feel like it,” She shrugged.

“That’s called depression, honey,” I said. “You need to look into that.”

“I’m not depressed.”

“You’re something,” I said, taking the food and driving off. “Now when we get home you’re going to eat this.”

“Home?”

“Well, my home,” I corrected.

We passed the rest of the ride in silence until we reached the house. I pulled around to the parking lot on the side and a few moments later we were standing on the porch beneath the ΓΑΤ sign.

“So…why are we here?” Audrey asked. She was a little confused; it was a Saturday evening and I’d just showed up at her house and dragged her out. Not like she was doing anything other than sitting in her dorm sulking. When I’d walked in, Mason had simply said ‘Oh dear god, please just take him’, so it must have been a fun few days.

“Well Audrey,” I said, walking toward the door and pushing it open. “You’re learning to be a girl, and you’re doing okay so far, but there are some experiences you just haven’t had. Today I’m going to introduce you to one of the oldest traditions we have.”

“What’s that?” She asked nervously as we stepped through the foyer.

“Girl’s night,” I replied.

“Heyyyy Audrey!” Lauren said as we passed into the living room.

“Hey!” Audrey smiled, starting to loosen up. I think I understood her problem; it was the same for me when I first joined the house. I always felt like I didn’t belong here when I walked in, like I was being huge bother, even though I lived here. Audrey wasn’t one of our sisters, but it must have been the same for her, maybe even worse.

“Come on, take your shoes off,” I said to her. “The go eat, I’ll come get you in a minute.”

Maybe I should explain what was going on here. Audrey was born male, very male, well, maybe not that male. She was transgender, a female born in a male body. Up until two weeks ago she’d lived her life as a male, one hundred percent, and to keep up appearances she still did, but we knew her secret. One night, Audrey, in desperation I guess, broke into our house and made her way upstairs to try on some of my clothes. I’d caught her, literally beaten the snot out of her, and tied her up. Yeah, I’m a badass. I thought maybe some life-ruining was in order, but stupid me, I had to go snooping around in her phone and I’d found the transgender forums she was visiting. So now we were helping her. I needed to learn to leave well enough alone.

“Tiffany,” I called out from across the room. She was standing in the kitchen staring off into space. “Hey!”

I walked over and snapped my fingers, she immediately directed her attention to me. Normally she would have been upset at me doing that, but right now she just sort of had this hollow look in her eyes.

“Did you sleep last night?” I asked. She shook her head. “That night before?”

“I’m fine,” She said.

“Right,” I nodded. She wasn’t doing fine. Ever since the other night when we’d helped Audrey come out to her girlfriend, she’d been in a horrible, depressive mood. I didn’t know how much more of it I could take. Yeah, Audrey had lost her girlfriend, but you know what? That just meant one more obstacle out of the way to her becoming her true self. I couldn’t help but remember my friend, Jayne, from what seemed like a lifetime ago. If she’d had fewer obstacles in her way, then maybe she wouldn’t have ended up the way she did. I shuddered at the imagery of how it had all ended, but immediately snapped back into the present. Tiffany was no longer paying attention to me; she was staring at her phone. I tapped my fingernails on the counter and turned away, looking at Audrey who was nibbling on her fries at the table.

“Come on girl!” I called out to her. “Eat that food, we’ve got stuff to do!”

“I’ve got wine!” Courtney announced as she walked through the front door holding two boxes of red wine. You know, the cheap bagged kind that we should have been super ashamed to be drinking.

“Oh awesome!” Isabella said cheerfully as she walked by the table, leaning down and embracing Audrey in a sort of half-hug as she went.
“Did anyone order pizza?” I called out.

“Aren’t you doing that?” Lauren called back from somewhere in the house.

“Audrey!” I shouted. “Are you done yet?”

“Yeah,” She said. I walked over. She’d eaten half the fries.

“Oh my god Audrey,” I rolled my eyes. “How are you even still alive? Get up, we’re going upstairs.”

“Listen to me,” I said to her as I guided her up the stairs with my hand in the small of her back. “I am not your mother, I shouldn’t have to tell you to eat. If you don’t eat, you get sick. I don’t know how you’re not sick already.”

She didn’t answer me, she just kept walking until we reached the bathroom and I guided her in. I pointed to the toilet and told her to take a seat as I grabbed some eyebrow waxing strips from the cabinet.

“This is probably going to hurt,” I told her.

“What is that?” She craned her neck to see.

“We’re fixing your eyebrows,” I said pointedly. “Those things look like caterpillars.”

“Wait, what are you doing?” She asked as I applied one of the strips expertly to her left eyebrow. I raised a finger and shushed her. Then I peeled it off as fast as I could. She screamed.

“What the hell?” She demanded, holding a hand up to her face. “What did you do?!”

“You…wax your body…don’t you?” I asked curiously.

“I don’t do it to my face!” She screamed. “Oh my god that hurt!”

“Is everything okay in here?” Allie, one of our sisters poked her head in.

“Oh, yeah,” I laughed. “Just teaching Audrey here that beauty is pain, and stuff.”

“Oh this is Audrey!” She practically squealed as she barreled into the bathroom. “Wow, I’ve heard like, everything about you!”

“Wow, I’ve heard…nothing about you,” Audrey said, trying to be funny but she just came across as super shy.

“Audrey there are dozens of members, they don’t even all live in the house. You’re not going to know about all of them.”

“Why would you not live at the house?” Audrey was actually curious, I guess.

“Some people like their privacy,” Allie smiled. “I live at the house though.”

“We’re getting bigger, though,” I said. “They’re talking about getting a bigger house for us next year.”

“Just remember to keep the back door locked,” Allie grinned, looking right at Audrey who blushed, remembering her foul-up a few weeks ago.

I looked Allie over, noting her sweat-drenched GAT shirt and leggings.

“You been jogging?” I asked. Allie was a bit of an exercise freak.

“Yeah, six miles today,” She said without any particular emotion. “Going to try to do better tomorrow.”

I nodded and pulled the next strip out of the box. I saw Audrey cringe from the corner of my eye; I suppressed a grin.

“Hey, don’t worry, it’ll be over soon!” Allie reassured her.

“Yeah, then we can move on to makeup,” I said. “You gotta look like a lady for ladies night.”

“She does look like a lady,” Allie complimented. “You see all this hair?”

“Yeah, I see it, total waste on a guy,” I said.

I reached under the counter and pulled out a black makeup bag, it was pretty much full to the brim, all full of things we’d put together for Audrey. It was actually all cheap makeup but we’d been able to work some magic with it, and we figured that she could buy her own someday. It didn’t matter anyway; she couldn’t tell cheap makeup from expensive makeup.

“It’s all in the contouring,” I told her as I brushed it onto her face. “Smoke and mirrors, just giving your face a different shape…”

“Oh let me at that hair!” Allie said, grabbing a flat iron from the counter. It took about half an hour and Audrey sat still through the entire thing. She was used to this by now. By the time we were done you couldn’t even tell that she was biologically male. She had a lot going for her genetically I guess, mostly the face shape. The long hair didn’t hurt either.

“Okay…” I said. “Outfits…you’ve been wearing dresses…a lot, but I think we should try you in some skirts. There’s just more variety.”

I walked over to the hamper where I’d laid out a black skirt and a green top with a criss-cross neckline.

“Time to get cute, my dear,” I smiled at her as she put on her bra with the silicone forms we’d gotten her, and finally, the rest of the outfit. “That looks adorable.”

“Really yummy actually,” I looked up and Allison was staring at her like a piece of meat.

“Holy crap, Allie,” I said. “She just got dumped, I don’t think she’s ready to date.”

“Who said anything about date?”

“Come on Audrey,” I said, taking her hand and guiding her out of the bathroom. “Let’s get downstairs.”

Allie followed us downstairs and I looked around.

“Did like, anyone order that pizza?” I asked again. No one answered. “Uh..Lauren? Isabella? Tiffany? Courtney? Tell me someone ordered a pizza.”

“Sorry, I got the wine,” Courtney said as she pointed to the boxed wine sitting over by Tiffany in the kitchen. Tiffany was still engrossed in her phone.

“I’ve got it,” Isabella said, taking the list off the counter and pulling out her phone.

“Audrey,” I said, turning my attention to her. “Come over here, let me get a few pictures of you.”

“What for?” She asked cautiously.

“For you to look at later, silly,” I laughed. I had her stand next to the stairs and take a few poses while I snapped some pictures. I immediately sent them to her phone.

“Okay, SO!” Lauren said, walking over and resting a hand on Audrey’s shoulder. “Girls’ night! It’s probably your first one, so basically we just sit around, drink wine, and gossip.”

“Well we did watch a movie last time,” I pointed out.

“Yeah but who cares about movies?” Lauren laughed. “I want to hear more about what Audrey’s been up to!”

She pulled Audrey over to the couch and was immediately joined by the other sisters in the room. Tiffany finally stepped out from behind the counter and stood behind the couch instead. She probably didn’t want to sit down and doze off; she despised sleeping in public spaces. I guess she didn’t want anyone to see what she looked like when she was asleep; had to keep up appearances I guess.

“So what have you been up to, Audrey?” Isabella asked, trying to sound casual. This wasn’t really a show of interest I don’t think. It was more about them trying to figure out if Audrey was actually okay after we’d wrecked her relationship. A few days ago, maybe more, we’d helped her come out to her girlfriend and it hadn’t gone well. The guilt was real, at least for them. To me it felt more like a step in the right direction.

“Well, I mean…just…playing games,” Audrey shrugged. She was mad at us. I could see it. She was concealing it really well, but you know what? It was there. Could anyone really blame her?

“Are you still stuck on that Pantheon thing?” I asked kind of smugly.

“Yeah,” Audrey smiled. “I play it with Mason a lot.”

“Okay!” Allison clapped her hands. “Let’s get the wine going, it’s WAY too dry in here!”

“Audrey,” I said, walking closer to her as she sat on the couch. “What do you plan to do from here?”

“What do you mean?” She looked up at me.

“I mean…are you going to transition?”

She stared at me blankly.

“Okay,” I said. “There are…a lot of steps to take, like hormone therapy and maybe even coming out?”

“I…I can’t do that,” She shook her head. “You know there’s still Mason…and my parents…”

I nodded. I wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t just put off her own happiness for other people but we’d pushed her enough already.

“Okay, Audrey,” I said. “But I want you to know that we’re here for you if you do decide to go forward. I mean, we do care about you, even if it doesn’t seem like it sometimes, okay?”

Lauren and Isabella nodded as Allie passed wine glasses around. Just as we were about to start drinking, the front door burst open, loudly, and Olivia rushed into the living room covered from head to toe in some kind of sticky black substance. I cringed; her outfit was ruined. Tiffany simply looked up from her phone uninterested, like she was expecting this.

“It’s Tri-Pi!” She spat. “They did it again!”

“Someone get Audrey a pair of sweats!” I shouted as I ran upstairs. Our war with Tri-Pi had apparently escalated for some reason. I rushed into our room and threw on a pair of gray GAT sweatpants and a tight blue GAT top with the sorority letters written across the chest. I loved these shirts, they really made my boobs perk up.

I ran back downstairs found everyone else dressed the same, including Audrey who looked very, very confused.

“Okay, we’re putting a lid on this once and for all,” I said, trying to be motivational. I wished some of the other sisters were here, but they were all out doing their weekend thing, whatever that was.

“What are we going to do?” Lauren asked. “We’re not ready to do anything!”

“You know that trophy they keep in their living room?” I said angrily. “The stupid cheerleading trophy?”

“You’re going to steal their trophy?” Tiffany said, staring at me. “That’s the plot of every sorority movie ever.”

“Yep,” I said. “They like to go on about how their house wins that competition every year, so let’s hit them where it hurts.”

“Wait,” Audrey protested. “I don’t want to break into a house.”

Everyone in the room stopped and stared at her.

“It’s not funny,” She said, almost pouting.

The commotion in the room resumed as we planned. Allie threw down the blueprints for the TRI PI house onto the coffee able, which were of course public record.

“Okay, so they have one of those old fashioned cellars,” She said, pointing to a spot on the blueprint. “We can cut through the padlock and get in that way. They won’t see us coming. We can get to the living room through the kitchen, it’ll be easy.”

“Okay, what if any of them are up there?” Lauren asked. “If they see us it’s pretty much over.”

“Literally just rush it,” I said. “They can’t stop all of us. I mean some of us will probably die but…sacrifices must be made…for GAT. Besides, they’re supposed to be at a party tonight, over at DEM.”

“I’m not dying for GAT,” Audrey said.

“Well then live and see what they do to you,” I shrugged. “Okay, let’s go!”

We rushed out the backdoor in a very loose formation and climbed into the GAT van, which we hadn’t even used in like a month. Normally it was for grocery runs, but tonight it was perfect for all of us.

“Get in, get it!” I hissed at them as we piled in and I jumped into the driver’s seat. I suddenly realized we’d left Olivia behind, but it was probably for the best; she’d have to clean herself up anyway. I threw the van into gear and sped around the corner, leaving the GAT house quickly, and barreling toward the TRI PI house which was exactly two streets over. I parked at the end of the street, far enough away from their house, as the van had the ΓΑΤ letters painted in blue on the side. That would kind of be a dead giveaway.

“Okay,” I said as we pulled up, trying to be as motivational as possible. “Someone grab the bolt cutters, we’ll cut through a few backyards so they don’t see us.”

Somehow we managed to stay coordinated enough to rush through a series of backyards with Courtney tripping over a piece of playground equipment once and landing face first in a child’s sandbox.

“Come on!” Tiffany hissed quietly as she grabbed her by the arm and lifted her up. They stumbled with the rest of us, hopping over a white picket fence and finally we found ourselves standing behind the TRI PI house. I seriously hated their house; it was a mansion compared to ours. I should probably mention that they had this pink and white theme going on. It irritated me so much that last year I’d stolen the letters from their house; I guess they were still mad about that.

“Alright, let’s go!” I said as quietly as possible while still being loud enough for them to hear me. We barreled over the fence and ran across the yard as quickly as possible. We were like soldiers in formation, running across a huge battlefield to defeat the enemy. We were badass. We were GAT; the toughest sorority on campus. Seriously, it was a reputation that we had earned.

Isabella rushed forward with the bolt cutters, I hissed at her to be careful before she stabbed herself or someone else. She shot me a dirty look and went to work on the padlock. She struggled for a moment and then stopped, gasping.

“Give me that,” Courtney said, stepping forward and wresting the cutter from Isabella’s grasp. She had a little more muscle on her but it still took her about half a minute to cut through the padlock. It finally gave way with Courtney exhaling loudly as I threw the lock aside. Courtney and I carefully and quietly pulled the doors aside revealing a set of old concrete stairs leading down to a dark cellar. I held my hand up and someone immediately handed me a flashlight. I flicked it on and went first; I was the president, after all. They would follow me into hell but only if I actually led.

The light barely penetrated the darkness below and as we piled in, I immediately noticed that this was a huge open space that clearly ran under at least half the house. Was there anything even down here? I squinted at the beam as I swung it around, trying to locate the stairs that had been present on the blueprint. I couldn’t see anything.

“Can anyone see the stairs?” I hissed as a few other flashlights popped on. They were looking too.

“What the hell?” I heard Tiffany whisper. “They were on the blueprint!”

Before I could say anything else, we heard the cellar door slam behind us, hard, and the sound of a padlock click could be heard. Almost immediately we were bathed in white, hot light as a series of spotlights clicked on. We’d been had.

“Well well,” A familiar voice said. It was Sakiya. The TRI PI president. I hated her, she was about my height but she had this gorgeous blonde hair and this awesome body which I’m sure she didn’t even have to work for. “Look what the cat dragged in!”

As she spoke I noticed that we were surrounded on all sides by TRI PI’s holding what looked like paintball guns.

“What…is this?” I said kind of nervously but maintaining eye contact with Sakiya.

“You remember that black goo we sent your friend home in?” Sakiya batted her eyelashes. “It’s something our friends at Omega cooked up, and our guns are full of them. Don’t worry, they’re harmless, and free of animal products, but you don’t want them on you, TRUST me.”

I looked around nervously at the group surrounding us.

“You wouldn’t dare,” I said. “We would get you back and you know it.”

“Maybe,” Sakiya shrugged. “But it makes us happy for now.”

“Um what are we going to do?” Audrey asked. She was standing beside me. I glanced to her.

“Just hold on,” I said.

Sakiya looked at Audrey and studied her hard for a second before returning her attention to me.

“I tell you what,” She said with a sadistic grin. “We’ll give you a head start. We’ll open the cellar doors, maybe give you…five seconds. How does that sound?”

“Seriously,” I said. “You aren’t going to do this.”

“Do you really want to be around to find out?” Sakiya asked.

As she finished talking, I heard the sound of at least a dozen charging handles being pulled back. Their paintball guns were trained on us.
“Aaaaaand go!” Sakiya shouted as if she were doing one of her cheers. The cellar doors burst open.

“Run!” I shouted. “Just run!”

I didn’t have to tell them twice, they were hurdling toward the stairs at breakneck speeds, a few of us fell over. I watched Tiffany climb over Lauren and make her way up the stairs, and seconds later I emerged behind them.

“Go!” Tiffany screamed. Suddenly we heard popping sounds from all sides. TRI PI’s emerged from the bushes and began firing on us. I ducked and slid across the grass in my sneakers, now grass stained as I tried to find cover. The pellets were whizzing past us, one slammed into my arm. It stung, but I was more horrified with the black liquid splattered all over my sleeve.

“Oh my god!” I screamed as one smashed into the side of my head. I watched a spot of black explode on Isabella as she screeched and held her hands up over her head.

“Come on little GAT’s!” I suddenly heard Sakiya’s voice blare from above. I turned and looked up; she was standing on the third floor balcony with a megaphone. “Why don’t you dance a little bit and show us that school spirit!”

As she spoke, the pellets began to explode at our feet.

“Why are you doing this?!” Courtney screamed as she literally began dancing to avoid the pellets.

“Don’t ask questions just keep RUNNING!” I screamed.

“Come on, you can do better than that!” Sakiya patronized from her balcony.

“Is this a thing?!” I shouted as we shot toward the white picket fence. “Is this a thing that’s happening to us?!”

We made it across the fence with Allie falling on her face as soon as she cleared it. I helped her up and dragged her along as if she were a wounded soldier while the TRI PI’s continued to pelt us from behind. Eventually we were beyond their reach and heading back the way we’d come. We accomplished nothing and I felt completely defeated as we piled into the van. I looked at myself in the mirror; my hair was matted with the black goo and the rest of us didn’t look much better. I slammed my fist on the steering wheel and screamed like a mad woman.
“Calm down,” Tiffany said. “Let’s just go home.”

Fuming, I drove the GAT van back to the house and pulled into the designated parking space. As soon as I turned the key, I heard my phone ringing. I frowned and pulled it out; a number I didn’t recognize.

“Hello?” I said as I answered.

“Hey bitch,” I heard Sakiya’s voice on the other end.

“Oh my god,” I replied. “Haven’t you had enough fun for one night?”

“Not quite!” Sakiya said cheerfully. “Nice try tonight, but now it’s our turn. If you want your pledge back you’re going to give us the letters you stole last year.”

I frowned and turned around in my seat to see all of the girls staring intently at me.

“Pledge?” I said. “We didn’t bring a pl—”

I suddenly developed a lump in my throat as I looked through the van. Audrey wasn’t there.

“I’m not giving the letters back,” I said adamantly to Tiffany as I finished scrubbing my hair out. It had only taken a few hours but oh my god it had sucked.

“So you’re just going to leave her there?” Tiffany raised an eyebrow.

“They’re not going to actually keep here there,” I was confident that she’d come back the next day.

“Um yes, they will,” Tiffany said. “It’s TRI PI.”

“I’m not giving the letters back, and that’s final,” I began to brush my hair out and dry it. It was such a long process.

“Okay you know what?” Tiffany said. “She’s safe for now. So what about your other problem?”

“What other problem?”

“You know what other problem,” Tiffany scolded. She was talking about my past-due tuition fees. I hated talking about that. What was I supposed to do about it anyway?

“It’s crap,” I said. “I’ve been paying out of pocket for four years. So what if I was a little late this year?”

“Do you have the money?” Tiffany looked at me quizzically.

“Of course I don’t have the money,” I said. “If I had the money I would have paid by now.”

I’d tried to pay at the beginning of the semester but somehow my account had become overdrawn; it went through initially but it bounced back pretty quickly. I was skating on thin ice as it was. I figured I had maybe another week before it became a serious problem.

“What about your parents?” Tiffany asked. I shook my head.

“They wouldn’t help me out because I didn’t become a doctor like they wanted. They told me I’m on my own.”

“Well admittedly, doctor sounds a lot more exciting than business administration,” Tiffany chuckled a little. “So what are you going to do?”

“I shrugged,” I have no idea. “But we have other things to worry about. We’ve got a community service project coming up, we can pick out of three…I’m thinking we do the preschool again.”

“Kids again?” Tiffany groaned.

“Well it’s that or the nursing home, or pick up trash. The photo op is better with the kids anyway, or at least it makes us look better.”

“That’s true,” Tiffany said. “I’m counting the theater thing as an extracurricular.”

“What time is it?” I said looking around for my phone. It wasn’t here.

“9:15,” Tiffany said. “What are you thinking?”

“Line up the pledges,” I said. “They’re getting too comfortable.”

“Audrey’s missing and you’re going to just haze the pledges like nothing’s happening?”

“Yeah,” I nodded and walked out of the bathroom.

I walked downstairs and found my phone on one of the endtables. A group text had been sent out by Tiffany ordering the pledges to line up in front of the house in ten minutes wearing white and to bring nothing. Worked for me. I took a seat on the couch and pulled out a binder, flipping through the list of pledges.

“Hey Allie,” I called to her in the kitchen. She turned around and looked at me. “It says Hailey weighed 187 as of last check, she can probably get that down to 150, right?”

“Um, are you serious?” Isabella said as she walked down the stairs. “You can’t just control people’s weight, I mean…what the hell?”
She was actually getting angry, I didn’t care.

“If they want to be in Gamma they have to look good,” I stated. “You know that.”

“Um, you didn’t do that to me when I was pledging!” Isabella crossed her arms and looked at me sternly.

“Didn’t have to,” I told her. “You could blow away if a strong wind came through and you know it.”

“You’re actually disgusting,” Isabella told me.

“You need to be careful how you talk to her,” Allie said, stepping out from behind the kitchen island. “That’s your chapter president.”

“I don’t really care who you are,” She said to me. “This is disgusting. You’re disgusting. You can’t just body shame people like that.”

“Grow up,” I sighed. “You joined a sorority, not a preschool class.”

“Fine,” Isabella spat. “But you know what? It’s going to come back to bite you someday, and That’s going to be absolutely hilarious.”

“Until then,” I said, waving her off. “About Hailey?"

“We could put her on a diet,” Allie suggested. “All protein, salad, no dressing, maybe make her exercise…a lot?”

“Good start, good start,” I nodded, making notes on a separate piece of paper. “We’ll have her start sending pictures of her meals. Okay, what about…Liz…I don’t like the way she talks.”

“That’s an Appalachian accent,” Allie explained “She’s from Virginia.”

“I don’t like it,” I said. I glanced up and peered through the front window. The pledges were lined up. I looked back down at the binder. They could wait. “We’re going to fix that.”

“Why did we give some of these girls bids if-“

“Because we get TRI PI’s leftovers, Allie,” I rolled my eyes. “Sure, they’re not great, but we’ll whip them into shape.”

“You’re never going to get anywhere if you keep competing with TRI PI,” Isabella said condescendingly. “We have to be different.

“How can we not compete with them?” I said, standing up and closing the binder. “They literally stole our…Audrey.”

“You stole their letters,” Isabella pointed out. “Fair is fair I guess?”

“I…am not sure a human being equates to a set of cedar letters,” Isabella raised an eyebrow.

“You know what,” I said, walking toward the door. “I’m officially done with this conversation. TIFFANY GET DOWN HERE!”

“Don’t call me like I’m your dog,” Tiffany said as she strutted down the stairs. I don’t know how she’d pulled it off, but she was completely clean, hair perfect, and made up like a Victoria’s Secret model.

“Heel, girl,” I said as I pulled the door open and strode out onto the porch. Standing next to Tiffany I looked completely underdressed wearing the Woodcrest sweats and sweater.

“Good evening, pledges!” I shouted. “I hope we didn’t interrupt your nightly activities?”

I stood there in silence, expecting a response but got none.

“I SAID, I hope I didn’t interrupt your evening?!” I repeated, this time putting more emphasis on the sentence. They looked at eachother nervously.
“No Miss Aleah!” They shouted somewhat in unison.
“Well that’s good!” I snapped, looking over the lineup. All twenty of our pledges were here. I paused for a moment, something was wrong. Oh, wait, Audrey wasn’t here, duh. “I would feel terrible if I interrupted a hot date, or homework, or something equally stupid. I didn’t do that, did I?”

“No Miss Aleah!” They shouted again, this time looking a little more nervous.

“Great!” I said. “Now you’re all going to head over to the practice field! Be there in half an hour, or there WILL be consequences!”

“Yes Miss Aleah!” They responded, all running off in the direction of campus. Perfect.

“What’s next? You going to make them run back here?” Tiffany asked, rolling her eyes. “Whatever you’re going to do, you probably could have done in the yard.”

“Yeah but I don’t want to ruin our yard,” I shrugged.

“Oh wow,” Tiffany said with mock appalment. “Do I even want to know?”

“Just get to the van,” I said. “Before they get to the field.”

Leaving Lauren and Isabella behind, Allie, Tiffany, Courtney, and I rushed to the van and piled in. I immediately noticed the smell as I buckled my seatbelt and threw the vehicle into gear.

“Oh my god that stuff STINKS!” I exclaimed, gagging and holding my nose.

“I’m going to KILL those Omegas!” Tiffany growled from the passenger seat.

“So what are we doing?” Allie asked, leaning forward between the seats.

“Greek alphabet,” I said, handing her my binder. “You guys are brushed up, right?”

“Kinda hard not to be in Gamma,” Courtney laughed.

“True,” I pushed on the accelerator and took a hard right, taking us the back way into the practice field. I didn’t even bother parking properly; no one else was here. I just stopped in the middle of the gravel parking lot and jumped out, breaking into a full run toward the field. Normally we were more organized for these things, but I’d done this on a whim, and it was obvious. Maybe I was angry and taking it out on the pledges. Oh well, it would toughen them up a little.

We somehow managed to make it to the field before any of them showed up and the Allie started by grabbing the nearby water hose. She knew what to do.

“Here they come,” Tiffany said, tilting her head to indicate the far left side of the field. They rushed in, streaking across the gravel looking absolutely exhausted.

“Line up!” I shouted. “Come on, hurry up, on the field!”

They were clumsy. Really clumsy. Liz ran right into Hailey and literally bounced off of her, falling butt-first into the grass. I rolled my eyes.
“Come on!” Courtney stepped forward, clapping her hands. “Is this what we have to work with? Are you Gamma Omicron Epsilon material or not?!”

They finally managed to line up, I had no idea how they pulled it off. They were such a mess.

“Alright ladies!” I shouted, stepping forward. “You’ve all opted into Greek life, so you should know the Greek alphabet, am I right?”
They looked at eachother nervously. None of them knew the Greek alphabet.

“We’ll start at the beginning,” I said with a slight smile. “Everyone down, on the ground, face down, get ready to crawl!”

They all gave eachother nervous glances again, none of them moving.

“I didn’t stutter!” I shouted. They immediately hit the dirt, some a little more cautiously than others. “Okay, repeat after me, everytime you say a letter, you can crawl forward: Alpha!”

“Alpha!” They repeated.

I nodded to Allie who nodded back and let loose with the hose, immediately soaking all of our pledges. I heard a few screams. I didn’t care.

“Beta!” I shouted. They repeated it back and moved forward a pace. At this point the dirt was wet, turning into mud. I could hear groans, and I think at least one person was sobbing.

“Come on!” Tiffany shouted. “Let’s see that Gamma spirit! Show us some actual resolve!”

“So uh, question,” Courtney said, stepping closer to me.

“Shoot,” I said as I let Tiffany take over.

“You just like…left Audrey behind with the TRI PI’s, you really think that's okay?”

“Probably,” I shrugged.

“What if they figure out she’s trans?”

“Unless they’re blind they’ve already figure it out,” I watched the pledges. They were slow.

“Won’t they like…tell everyone?” Courtney asked, I could hear a little bit of concern in her voice.

“Probably not,” I concluded. “There are like a million LGBT students on campus, she’s just another one.”

“Good point,” Courtney said, walking away and returning to the lineup.

“Hey,” Tiffany said, walking over to me. Courtney took over directing the pledges. “You know, if you need the money I can help you out. I might not be the nicest person in the world but we’re still sisters. We look out for eachother.”

I looked at her.

“You know I don’t like to ask for help,” I said stubbornly.

“Yeah I know,” She shrugged and nodded. “But the offer is there, if you want it.”

“I appreciate that but I think I can handle it,” I walked forward, back toward the pledges. “Come on Hailey! You need to lay off the cheesecake!”

“You know what I could do,” She said, staring off at the field. “I could get you a job.”

“What, working for Shawn’s dad?” I snorted. “No thanks.”

“He’s not a bad guy, Aleah,” She insisted. “It’s not like you’d be doing anything illegal. I think he has a secretary position open.”

“You want me to work for the biggest crime boss in Woodcrest,” I raised an eyebrow. Everyone knew that Michael Derringer was loaded but his business practices weren’t exactly the most ethical. Yeah working for him might get me tuition money but it might also get me a jail sentence.

“It’s either that,” She said. “Or go back to Ohio and…what could you do there again? Work at a gas station? Flip burgers?”

I rolled my eyes, but secretly I was really considering it. I couldn’t imagine going back to Dayton and working some mediocre minimum wage job. It might sound a little conceited but I really thought I was better than that. Seriously, I was in my senior year as a business administration major. I wanted to work for a Fortune 500 company and live in a high-rise apartment. I wanted to eat caviar and drink three-hundred dollar glasses of Moscato. All of that was at stake right now because of a stupid money issue. I sighed.

“Get them up,” I said. “I’ve had enough.”

“I’m afraid there’s really nothing we can do for you,” Sherry, the financial aid officer told me, closing my folder and pushing it back across her desk toward me. “The best I can do is give you until the end of this week to come up with the money.”

“It’s a lot of money,” I said, quietly protesting.

“Well college is expensive,” Sherry said. “And this is only a fraction of your actual tuition; your financial aid helped out quite a bit.”

“And yet it couldn’t cover the last $800,” I said, staring at her and rolling my eyes. “Look, I’m the president of Gamma, isn’t there like, an exception or something?”

“Aleah,” She said, folding her hands on the desk and making direct eye contact. “I’ve heard plenty of rumors about how GAT is run, and honestly, they’d probably be better off without you.”

“Wow,” I said, raising my hands up. “Wow, that’s just…I don’t know where you’re getting your information from but you’re totally off-base.”

At least there was nothing she could prove. I would say that our level of Greek tradition wasn’t on par with TRI PI but that doesn’t really mean anything; at least we were representing ourselves well and doing our community service. Not to mention we looked pretty damned good while we were doing it.

“Regardless,” Sherry said, handing me a printout of my tuition bill. “You owe us eight-hundred dollars by the end of the week or we’ll be forced to suspend your enrollment here until you can pay.”

“You’ve got to be kidding, I mean you’ve really got to be kidding.”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life, Aleah,” She said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another student waiting on me.”

I would like to say I walked out of the office calmly but the truth is I sort of stormed out. The four people waiting outside looked up from their phones to stare at me as I slammed the door and made a beeline for the exit. I hated the administration building. Well, I hated it even more now. I tore through the reception area and was just about to walk through the glass double doors when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Whoever was touching me was about to die, I didn’t care who it was. I spun around and started to say something about messing with me on the wrong day, but stopped short. It was Mason, Audrey’s roommate. Mason had absolutely no idea that his roommate ‘Todd’ was actually a girl named Audrey. We’d kept it pretty quiet; honestly, though GAT was bad at a lot of things, it never struggled to keep secrets and it always kept gossip to a minimum. That was our strength and one that TRI PI didn’t share. The problem was that I didn’t know how much longer it would stay a secret. Eventually Audrey would just pop, Mason would find out on his own, or TRI PI would slip up. On that subject, I wondered what TRI PI was actually doing with Audrey. She hadn’t come back to the house, hadn’t contacted any of us, so she had to still be there.

“Hey,” Mason said, ignoring my near outburst. “Have you see Todd?”

“Todd?” I struggle to think of something to say that didn’t sound like complete crap.

“Um yeah, my roommate? Todd? He hangs out with you guys all the time, you can and got him last night and he hasn’t come back.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I said. “Sorry about that. One of our sisters had to go out of town and he…went with her. I’m sure they’ll be back in a few days.”

“He’s just going to miss class for a few days?” Mason stared at me. “And why isn’t he answering his phone?”

Because her phone was sitting on the coffee table at our house.

“Yeah, I really don’t know,” I tried to brush it off. “But I can try to get ahold of my sister if you want?”

“Yeah, do that,” Mason said. “Let me know what you hear. If he isn’t back by tomorrow I’m calling campus police.”

“Don’t jump the gun,” I said defensively. “They’re just on a little road trip.”

“Todd wouldn’t leave without telling me,” He said.

“Look,” I said, putting my hand on Mason’s shoulder. “I know you’re both Freshmen, and I’m sure that you two have been pretty much inseparable for god knows how long, but the fact is you’re both at college now. You’re adults. People don’t always tell eachother where they’re going. I don’t know where my best friend, Tiffany is half the time. Sorry Mason, you just need to grow up, and for god sake, don’t call the police ever time Todd goes out to dinner or something. It’s rude.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” He said. “You’re right but I’m just worried about him.”

I stepped away from the door a little to allow others to pass through. This was going to take a minute.

“What…exactly are you worried about?” I asked, feigning concern as best I could.

“Well he’s been…different. Like I told Tiffany, he’s not interested in playing Pantheon much anymore and he’s quiet. Really quiet. Quieter than normal. It’s like he has his mind on something else.

I’m sure he did.

“Alright, Mason,” I sighed. “I’m going to level with you, alright?”

“Please do,” Mason said.

“The truth is that there IS something going on. It’s pretty life changing, but he doesn’t want to talk about it yet. It’s not my place to tell you either.”

“I don’t get it,” He was starting to get angry. “I’m his best friend, but he can’t come to me? But he can go to a bunch of sorority girls that he didn’t know until a few weeks ago?”

“Okay, Mason,” I said. “Picture people like…tools. You pick the right tool for the job. For this job you weren’t the right tool. Do you think a hammer gets upset when it can’t be used to paint a house?”

“So you’re telling me I’m a hammer?”

“I’m telling you that you need to be patient. Todd is your best friend, he’ll tell you what’s going on eventually.”

Maybe we could do it over pot roast.

“Okay,” Mason resigned. “I’m going to trust you, for now, but I can’t hold out forever. I need to know what’s going on with my friend.”

“If you’re really his friend then you’ll let him work it out for himself. It’s what he needs right now.”

Well, what she probably needed right now was a swat team to break her out of the TRI PI house.

“Fine,” Mason said. “Let me give you my number though, I want to keep in touch.”

I nodded and exchanged numbers with him, then he was gone. He was getting way too curious. How much longer could we really keep Audrey’s little secret? I heard my phone beep and looked down, it was the calendar. Officer meeting today, great.

I left the admin building and drove right back to the house. Everyone was already there. Courtney, Allie, Isabella, Amanda, Lauren, and Rebecca, all seated at the table in the conference room and waiting for me. Well, at least they were on the ball. I walked into the room and dropped my purse on the floor as I sat down.

“Where’s Shauna?” I asked, looking at the group. This was great, I had no VP because no one wanted to step up and now my external VP was gone?

“Kidnapped by TRI PI too, probably,” Lauren shrugged.

“You are so very funny,” I rolled my eyes.

“I like to think so,” Lauren nodded in agreement.

I opened a folder that had been left for me and thumbed through the agenda.

“Our council looks like swiss cheese,” I said, referring to the vacant positions. It wasn’t that we hadn’t tried to take care of it, it was more like we’d had a slew of resignations and no one wanted to step up. “I bet TRI PI is on top of their stuff…”

“Do you want to go join TRI PI?” Courtney suggested? Giggles all around.

“Ha ha,” I said flatly. “Okay first item on the agenda is the upcoming mixer with DEM-“

“We need to talk about Audrey,” Lauren interjected.

“I need suggestions on a theme, something different from last year-“

“What about abducted transgender women?” Isabella asked. “Is that a theme?”

“Last year we did the ‘under the sea theme’ so I was thinking-“

“Wait,” Allie said. “What about ‘pranks gone wrong’? That could be a theme.”

I slammed my folder down on the table.

“Skipping THAT for now,” I said angrily. “Okay, Rebecca, let’s talk about the health and safety concerns. We had a patch of mold removed from the living room last month, is that situation –“

“I’m more worried about the health and safety of the people you leave behind during poorly planned pranks,” Rebecca looked at me with a smirk. I hated that bitch.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” I said looking at them. They were all staring at me; I felt like a deer in headlights. “It’s really sad what happened to Audrey. I like Audrey, a lot. She’s cool, but at the end of the day we’re a sorority, not a daycare. It’s not like they took one of our sisters and are holding them in their basement, alright? Audrey will be fine.”

“She will be fine,” Amanda spoke up. “Because you’re going to give them back their letters.”

I glared at them. We had actual business to discuss and they were stuck on this.

“Audrey doesn’t have to dominate every conversation we have,” I said. “We are a sorority, we have business to attend to. That is what sororities do, so let’s—”

“She kinda does,” Lauren said accusingly. “You know how you were worried we would get a bad reputation for almost letting her get killed? How do you think our reputation is going to hold up when people find out you left her behind like that?”

I think my blood was actually boiling.

“You know,” I said. “TRI PI is having their officer meeting today too. They’re probably over there talking about things that affect them, like their community service, health and safety issues. I mean we have to meet with the student advisory board next week, does anyone want to talk about that? Oh, and get this, three sisters haven’t paid their dues and we’re already full three weeks into the year.”

I looked around the table. None of them were that interested in what I had to say. Let’s be honest, neither was I. I had way too much on my mind to really hash out all of the issues on the agenda. I closed the folder.

“Okay fine,” I took a breath and laid my palms on the table. “You want to talk about Audrey? Let’s talk about Audrey. Audrey is a grown wo-“

“Audrey is learning to be a woman,” Lauren interrupted me. “Would you have left her there if she were your little sister?”

“I don’t have a little sister,” I pointed out.

“Hate to say it, but she’s right,” I guess Allie was against me too. You know, normally I would be all about getting Audrey out of danger but first of all, she wasn’t in danger. Secondly, giving the letters back to TRI PI would be admitting defeat and I wasn’t about to do that. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t let her go eventually anyway.

“How about this,” Lauren said. “We put it to a vote.”

The others nodded in agreement. This was ridiculous; Audrey wasn’t going to be hurt by TRI PI; she was absolutely fine.

“Alright,” I conceded. “You know what? We’ll put it to a vote. All in favor of giving in to TRI PI and potentially destroying our reputation, raise your hand.”

Everyone at the table but me raised their hand. I fumed.

“Fine,” I said, opening the folder again. “Now, moving on. Let’s talk about the semi-formal coming up next week.”

I hovered my mouse over the ‘call’ button for a good minute before I finally closed my eyes, sighed, and worked up the nerve to click. It took a second for my laptop to register what I’d done but soon enough the familiar ringtone broke through and I could see the word ‘connecting’ on the screen. I waited for ten, twenty seconds thinking they weren’t going to pick up. I think I was hoping they weren’t going to pick up; my parents were never pleasant to talk to and even less so since I’d unexpectedly changed my major.

The ringtone stopped and my father’s face appeared on the screen. I gulped but made sure not to betray too much emotion.

“Aleah,” He said pleasantly. “I didn’t expect to hear from you this week.”

“Sorry I’ve been so busy lately,” I patronized him a bit. “I have a lot of responsibilities over here.”

He nodded and sort of smiled.

“Being the president of a sorority chapter is a huge responsibility,” He acknowledged. “It looks good on a resume though.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Speaking of which, I was wondering if I could get some help from you, I’m a little-“

He cut me off with a raise of his hand.

“Aleah we’ve been over this,” He said. “You went off on your own when you decided to change your major. I had everything set up for you; a college fund, a clear path through Harvard. Everything was there for you and you walked away for…good god Aleah, business administration.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I like it, I really like it, I just need you to support me.”

“And Woodcrest?” He scoffed. “Of all the places you could have gone you chosen, Woodcrest?”

“Okay look,” I said defensively. “I know it’s not an Ivy League school like Brown or Harvard but it’s not like a degree from here is useless. Plus I’ve made a lot of good friends here. Dad, I’m actually enjoying my life for once.”

“College isn’t about enjoying life, Aleah,” He told me. “It’s about setting yourself up for success so you can enjoy the rest of your life and do something that you can be proud of – something that makes your family proud. Think about that.”

“So you’re not going to help me?” I should have been angrier but this is exactly what I’d expected.

“You know how I feel about it,” He said adamantly.

“And you know I’ve told you how many great opportunities there are in business admin,” I said. “I could work in a Fortune 500 company—”
“But you’re not going to!” He slammed his hand down on the desk. “We both know why you’re doing this and it’s ridiculous!”

I sighed. He was right. Not about it being ridiculous of course; I would never agree with him on that. On my motives though, he was right.
“There’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing,” I said angrily. “What’s wrong with wanting to work for a non-profit?”

“You have a bleeding heart and you need to put a band-aid on it, that’s what’s wrong. You aren’t going to get anywhere, you’re not going to be anybody if you just spend your time handing your labor out for free.”

“It’s not always about a paycheck, Dad,” I fumed.

“You’re still upset about you friend, Jake,” He asserted. “It wasn’t your fault. His parents did all they could—”

“Her name was Jayne!” I said firmly and full of anger, slamming the laptop shut.

I stood from my desk and grabbed my phone. Quickly and pretty angrily, I dialed Sakiya’s number. She picked up on the first ring.
“Well well, hello there little Gamma,” She said smugly. “What brings you to my phone this lovely afternoon?”

“Tonight,” I said. “8 PM. We’ll bring the letters you bring our pledge.”

“Well it sounds like someone finally came to their senses,” Sakiya gloated. “Meet us by the practice field.”

“Done,” I said, hanging up on her. The practice field, that was rich. The same spot I’d just hazed our pledges, I was practically going to be hazed myself. I really needed to get my life under control; this was getting out of hand.

“Tiffany!” I shouted as I exited the room. “We’re going to the storage unit!”

“Finally!” She called back.

I grabbed my purse and walked downstairs; she was perfectly make up, as always. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen her at her worst.

“My car or the van?” She asked as she followed me to the door.

“Van, obviously,” I said matter of factly.

“Hey wait, I’m coming too!” Isabella called after us as she followed. Whatever, she could lift the letters into the van. Not that they were heavy.

“You’re really doing this?” Tiffany asked quizzically as we climbed into the van and pulled out of the driveway.

“I’m really doing this,” I confirmed, keeping my eyes on the road.

“What made you change your mind?” Isabella leaned forward and perched herself in between the two front seats.

“As much as I like having the letters and TRI PI’s pride shoved in a storage unit,” I said. “Audrey is still a human being and she trusts us.”

“You’re still feeling guilty about Jayne,” Tiffany stated.

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “I’m still feeling guilty about Jayne.”

“Is anyone ever going to fill me in on the Jayne thing?” Isabella asked.

“It’s um…” I started. Tiffany was staring at me from the passenger seat. I was seriously on the spot here. “Just…another trans girl I knew, when I was in high school. Well I mean I grew up with her. I knew her since…middle school. Before she knew she was a she. Okay she said she always knew she was a she, but before she told me…”

“What happened to her?” Isabella asked. I didn’t want to answer that. I can’t describe how much I didn’t want to answer that. I concentrated on the road ahead, paying attention to the upcoming traffic lights and watching how they reflected against the wet road. I gave my windshield a single wipe, getting rid of the light water buildup. It wasn’t quite raining; more of a light sprinkle. We rode in silence; Isabella didn’t push the issue.

I flipped my turn signal on and took a left into the storage unit; the house paid for it, it was where we kept all of our excess crap. Extra pledge shirts, tables and chairs for events, you name it. Stopping at the gate, I rolled down my window and typed in our code at the keypad. The gate rumbled open and allowed us entry. After a bit of driving we finally pulled up to unit 186.

“Here we are,” I said.

“I can’t believe you put them in the house storage unit,” Tiffany shook her head.

“Last place anyone would look,” I said with a slight shrug.

“Yeah,” Tiffany said. “Because we’d get our asses handed to us if anyone found them.”

“Then it’s a good thing no one ever comes here besides us,” I said sarcastically as I opened my door and climbed down onto the blacktop. The sprinkling had stopped but the air was still heavy with moisture; this was going to wreak havoc on my hair.

“You have the key, right?” Tiffany asked just as we stood at the storage unit door.

“Oh crap,” I said, patting the sides of my pants.

“Aleah, your hands don’t have pockets,” Tiffany crossed her arms.

I chuckled a bit and reached into my purse, pulling out the key. It was a silver padlock key attached to a huge GAT keychain. It was really tacky, but hey.

Tiffany held the padlock up for me, I turned the key and she pulled it off.

“After you,” She said, waving her hand toward the door.

“Hey, I turned the key,” I argued.

“And I took the lock off,” She shrugged. We both turned to look at Isabella standing behind us.

“Seriously?” She said. “You can’t just open the door?”

“I could, but you know what?” I said. “We’re sisters, we work together.”

“You opened a lock and I have to lift a heavy door. That’s what you call working together?”

“Okay,” Tiffany smirked. “If it makes you happy we’ll all lift together on three.”

“You two are ridiculous,” Isabella rolled her eyes as she walked between us and gripped the handle on the bottom of the door, pulling it open.

“Where are they?” Tiffany asked me, walking in and flipping the light switch. The unit was bathed in a yellow light, plastic totes with the GAT letters written on the sides appearing before our eyes. It was one of the larger units so we had plenty of room to walk around. I could see the letters; I’d placed them against the wall in the back and covered them with a tarp. At the very least they weren’t going to be water damaged.

“Okay, help me get these,” I said to Tiffany as we made our way toward the back. Just as we reached them, I heard a rumbling behind me. I turned just in time to see Isabella slamming the door shut behind her. Tiffany and I stared at her.

“Here’s the deal,” Isabella said. “You’re going to tell me about Jayne or we’re going to be here all night.”

“Bitch, I can just throw you out of the way and open the door,” Tiffany started moving toward her, but I put a hand on her shoulder.
“Why does it matter?” I asked curiously.

“It matters because Jayne, whoever she was, seems to be your entire motivation for helping Audrey. Badly, I might add.”

“We’re not that bad at it,” Tiffany growled. “She’s not in jail, right?”

“No but I think she might have some serious trauma,” Isabella argued. “I mean unless that was your intent.”

“Oh come on,” I huffed. “Name one thing we did wrong with her.”

“You…need me to reiterate the current situation?” Isabella raised an eyebrow. “You two are supposed to be people that she trusts and you literally left her in the hands of TRI PI. Like, oh my god, seriously?”

“TRI PI isn’t going to hurt her,” I said defensively.

“Do you think her secret will be safe? Do you think she’s going to trust you again?”

I shrugged to both.

“Listen to me,” I said. “If I thought TRI PI was going to hurt her physically or emotionally I would have broken down their door THAT night. I know what can happen.”

“Why do you know?” Isabella crossed her arms and glared at me. “I really need you to help me out here because this is really concerning. Tell me about Jayne.”

“I can take her,” Tiffany said to me. “You don’t have to tell her anything.”

“Wait,” I said raising my hands in frustration. “We’re all sisters here. No one is going to ‘take’ anyone. I’ll tell you about Jayne.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Tiffany stared at me.

“Isabella is just as invested in Audrey as I am. She deserves to know where I’m coming from.”

“It’s your show, then,” Tiffany said as she took a seat on a stack of boxes.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath; I could feel Isabella staring daggers into my soul from the front of the storage unit. I finally opened them again, she was still staring at me. Tiffany regarded me softly; she knew this was more than a touchy subject for me.

“Her name…when she was a guy…was Jake. That’s how I knew her at first. You know, back in the old days. We started dating around eight grade. I didn’t know he was a she. I wish I did, because you know, then I could have done something,” I paused and swallowed, thinking as the wind outside pounded the door of the storage unit briefly. The rollers rattled against the track, the light above our heads flickered.

“There’s nothing you could have done,” Tiffany said adamantly. I ignored her.

“I remember our first date,” I laughed. “We went to this stupid roller skating rink. I fell down a hundred times, she was always there to help me back up. She didn’t laugh at me, she was just…so gentle. She always listened to me, she talked to me, she…genuinely cared about my life. For my first boy…girlfriend I mean, that’s so special. I’ve never had anything like that since then. I don’t think I ever will again.”
“Remember the cheesecake?” Tiffany chuckled a little. I laughed. I remembered the cheesecake.

“Yeah, when I dropped mom’s cheesecake on the floor and Jake…Jayne came over and made a new one, just like it so she wouldn’t notice. She just dropped everything and came over. But it wasn’t big things like that…it was…that smile she would give me when I was stressing out or worried, or upset. It wasn’t condescending it was like…letting me know that it would be okay and that…that she would be there for me.”

I was crying. I could feel the tears forming and running down my cheeks. Isabella’s hardened expression was diminishing. I could feel Tiffany’s hand slowly sliding into mine. I appreciated the warmth; I squeezed it. She squeezed back.

“What happened to her?” Isabella asked softly, moving toward us, away from the door.

“That’s…that’s where things get really messed up,” I locked eyes with Isabella. “She came out…as trans. To me first. We were laying on this blanket in my backyard and she said it so…simply. She just said ‘Aleah, I think I’m a woman’. That was it. It was such a small thing but you know now that I think back it’s like…what did it take for her to get to that point? To a point where she was just okay with saying it out loud? I guess that’s why I’m so sympathetic with Audrey. I mean yeah she broke into our house and it was a little creepy-“

“A lot creepy,” Tiffany corrected.

“Okay, a lot creepy but maybe it was all she thought she could do. Maybe she was SO trapped inside her own head that it didn’t occur to her to ask for help. But who would she even ask for help? She didn’t know who she could trust. I just think…yeah, Audrey needs a lesson in what’s appropriate and what isn’t but she also needs to be handled…gently.”

“You let her get…kidnapped,” Isabella said quietly. I ignored her. The wind pounded against the door again. It was going to storm. I checked my phone; it was 6:45. We had to wrap this up soon.

“When she…when she came out,” I continued. “I mean I was confused, really confused. I didn’t understand what trans was or what she was feeling but she was so patient with me. I did so many stupid things and I said…things that I regret SO much but she…she stood by me and helped me learn, even though it wasn’t her place to do that. She should have just walked away from me but she didn’t. I remember when she came out to her parents, finally. I went with her and…”

“And what?” Isabella asked after a literal two minutes of silence. “What happened?”

“They blamed me. They said I put the idea into her head,” I felt the tears pouring down my cheeks. I could hear them splattering against the floor. I was so acutely aware of everything. The howling of the wind outside, the suffocating warmth inside the storage unit, the denim material of my jacket clinging to my heavily moisturized skin. I so didn’t want to be here. I so didn’t want to be going through this again but maybe it was good to get it out. “They screamed at me, they told me to get out. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to her. They were calling the police on me. I…got up and ran…I shouldn’t have. I should have held her. I should have told her it was going to be okay but I thought…I thought I was going to see her at school in the morning. I didn’t. They pulled her out of school and they sent her somewhere…to some place.”

“What?” Isabella frowned. “Where did they send her?”

“Some kind of re-education thing,” Tiffany answered for me. “Like, a church run thing. They teach you not to be gay, or trans or whatever.”

“I don’t know what happened to her there,” I said, shaking my head. “But she came back in the summer and…I tried to talk to her. She was different. She told me she didn’t want to be with me. I…it’s not…it wasn’t fair!”

I screamed. I turned and punched one of the crates as hard as I could. I punched it again, and again, and again. I could feel Tiffany and Isabella’s hands on me, pulling me back, embracing me. I struggled hard but eventually fell into the embrace, sobbing into Tiffany’s shoulder.

“I loved her,” I shouted into the fabric of her windbreaker. “I loved her and they took her from me. I loved her. I loved her. I loved her. Why, god why did they take her from me?”

“It’s okay,” Isabella said. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

“It’s not okay!” I screamed, pulling away from Tiffany and turning to face Isabella. “They made her live like that…like a man. She started going to church, and…talking about how she’d been cured, and how she was happy. And then what? Then she hung herself, in her closet. She HUNG herself. She was such a beautiful person inside and out and she died in the back of a stupid closet. How dare you tell me it’s going to be okay? It’s not going to be OKAY you stupid bitch!”

“Calm down,” Tiffany put a hand on my shoulder. “Concentrate on what we’re doing now. Think about Audrey.”

“Yeah, Audrey,” I said. “Audrey isn’t her.”

“So you’ve said,” Tiffany reminded me. “To her face.”

I wiped my eyes.

“Let’s just get the letters,” I said. “We have to finish this before it starts storming.”

“That’s it, right there,” Tiffany pointed from the driver’s seat. “It’s Sakiya’s car.”

How could I miss it anyway? It was a deep red and white convertible; painted the colors of Woodcrest. Her obsession with this place was disturbing. She was standing there, leaned against the car in her pink and white TRI PI outfit. Like us they had this standard outfit for all of their members; it was a pink sweater with a white collar and a knee-length white skirt. All of the pledges wore it to events but Sakiya often wore it obsessively. Her long blonde hair was tied up in a high ponytail and her arms were crossed. From here I could almost see the smirk on her face. Yeah, okay, she’d won.

“Hey Sakiya,” I said as Tiffany, Isabella, and I crossed the parking lot.

“Hey beautiful,” She smirked. “You got the stuff?”

“Maybe,” I said cautiously. “Do you have my pledge?”

Sakiya glanced back toward the car, then pushed off and walked toward us, meeting us halfway.

“That’s not your pledge,” She said, looking at us smugly. I sighed.

“No, she’s not our pledge,” I said. “Did you figure that out all by yourself?”

She smiled broadly. I wanted to smack her.

“More importantly,” I sighed. “Did you tell anyone?”

Sakiya raised an eyebrow.

“No I didn’t tell anyone,” She said almost defensively. “What kind of monster do you think I am? We kept her in a private room and let her watch movies. You got my letters or not?”

“They’re in the back,” I said. I glanced at Isabella and Tiffany who walked back to the van.

“I assure you,” Sakiya said smirking. “We treated her JUST like any other GAT bitch who happened to be staying over.”

“That’s reassuring,” I said plainly as Tiffany and Isabella came back carrying the long cardboard box.

“You can put that in the backseat of my car,” Sakiya said. She waved her hand toward the car and out stepped another TRI PI accompanied by some girl who I hoped was Audrey. As she stepped closer to us I could see that it was in fact Audrey but she was wearing the TRI PI pledge outfit which was similar to Sakiya’s, but had the three PI symbols etched across he chest. She was also made up really, REALLY well. She passed as a woman better right now than she ever had. Damn. The next thing I noticed was that she was limping.

“What did you do to her?” I said accusingly.

“Nothing,” Sakiya laughed. “When you tried to pull your prank she sprained her ankle on the way out of the basement. We took care of her.”

“Wait, so you didn’t kidnap her?” I said incredulously.

“She was free to leave whenever she wanted,” Sakiya shrugged. “It was just hard for her to do on a sprained ankle.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Unbelievable,” I said as I watched the letters being loaded into Sakiya’s car. “Hey Audrey.”

“Hey,” She smiled. She looked so happy. I felt so pissed. “Great to see you!”

She was speaking with a better upward inflection than usual. They must have seriously worked with her. Putting us to shame.

“Hey Audrey,” I said. “Head to the van okay? I need to talk to Sakiya.”

“Okay!” She said happily. Tiffany and Isabella stood on either side of her and helped her toward the van.

“Look um, “ I said to Sakiya as soon as they were out of earshot. “Thanks for…taking care of her.”

“You don’t need to thank me for human decency,” She said, still smirking. “But you do need to keep your hands off our stuff.”

“No promises,” I said, turning on my heel and walking back toward the van.

“Did they feed you?” I heard Isabella asking Audrey as I climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Yeah!” Audrey said. “Sakiya showed me how some cool stuff, like eating meat and vegetables instead of bread.

“Great,” I threw the van into gear and pulled out of the parking lot. “Little over two days and they put you on the keto diet.”

“The what?” Audrey said questioningly.

“Never mind,” I shook my head and turned onto the highway, taking us through a row of lighted restaurants and stores as the rain started to cut through the night. I flipped the wipers on and cringed as they squeaked across the glass. Audrey chattered to Isabella in the backseat about makeup and things she’d learned; she seemed happier than usual. That was good. After a few blocks I turned into the Wal-Mart parking lot.

“Um, what are you doing?” Audrey asked. I could see her eyes widening in the rear view mirror.

“I need shampoo,” I told her. “Like, a lot of it.”

“I…can I wait in the van?” Audrey’s voice was panicked. I frowned.

“Remember what I said about not leaving you alone?” I pulled into a parking space beneath a street light and turned back toward her.

“Well, I mean,” She stuttered. “Maybe you can drop me off at the house and you can come back out?”

“I’m not wasting gas like that,” I said, getting irate. “What is wrong with you?”

“Audrey,” Isabella said, placing her hand on her shoulders. “Why don’t you want to go into the store?”

Audrey lowered her head and focused her eyes on Isabella’s knees.

“I…” She started to say, but choked on her words.

“You what?” Tiffany turned around and stared at her.

“I’m afraid people will laugh at me,” She said quietly. I couldn’t see her face but it sounded like she was on the verge of tears. I could see her literally shaking. Isabella took her hand.

“Audrey?” Isabella said, looking down, trying to make eye contact with her. “Do you trust me?”

She continued to shake like a leaf but she finally nodded, just slightly.

“Okay, Audrey?” She spoke her name again, softly his time. Audrey raised her head, allowing Isabella to make eye contact. “You look like a girl, hun. When we walk into that store no one is going to see anything but a girl. No one is going to laugh at you. I’ll stay by you and hold your hand the entire time, okay?”

I swear even under her makeup I could see her turning pale. God, I hoped she wasn’t going to throw up in our van. She’d be cleaning it if she did. Finally she nodded again. Isabella turned and slid the passenger door open, stepping out onto the damp concrete. The rain had mostly subsided. She held her hand out to Audrey.

“First step is the hardest, right?” She said with a soft smile. Audrey gingerly took her hand and took that first step out of the van and onto the blacktop.

“Okay,” I said, stepping out and locking the door. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Aleah, can I talk to you?” Isabella stared at me as I walked toward the store.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Listen,” She said in a whisper. “This is just a shopping trip to you but this is Audrey’s first time really out in public. She’s scared to death. We need to stay with her.”

“She’s…an adult,” I shrugged. “She can handle herself.”

Isabella pursed her lips and glanced over her shoulder at Audrey who was huddling behind her.

“Right now, she’s not,” Isabella said to me sharply. “Think of her as a kid. That’s the position she’s in. This is all new to her.”

“Like a kid,” I repeated back slowly. Maybe she was right; I thought back to Jayne; I remembered her dressing in my clothes back in the day and going out with me. She’d never seemed that nervous about it. Maybe it was different for everyone. “Alright, um, we’ll just…stay together.”

As we passed through the airlock and into the store I noticed Audrey making a very clear attempt to stay behind me. She didn’t want to be seen. I turned and placed a hand under her chin, locking my eyes with hers.

“Keep your head up,” I said quietly so that no one else around us would overhear. “Don’t look down at the floor like that. You’re a woman, act like one, be proud.”

We walked toward the personal hygiene section, passing by several shelves of razors, travel shampoo, and stupid promotional products with the ‘As Seen on TV’ logo emblazoned on them. More of a money sink than anything else.

“I think—” I started to turn into the shampoo aisle, and then I stopped dead in my tracks. Mike was walking toward us from the end of the aisle. Yeah, like he needed shampoo for that mop on his head. I should explain this a little. Weeks ago when we first took Audrey in, so to speak, Mike, the overbearing asshole assume that Audrey was on our porch to hit on his girlfriend. I don’t really understand the logic behind it, there were over thirty other girls in the house that she could have been hitting on but Mike had some serious control issues. Long story short: Mike beat the crap out of Audrey and landed her in the hospital; the police had yet to do ANYTHING about it. It should be safe right now though; when Mike had beaten Audrey up before, she looked like a guy. Right now, she didn’t. I mean seriously if I didn’t know who she was I wouldn’t have known she was trans. I wished I could convince Audrey of that because she was standing beside me shaking again, her eyes locked on the floor.

“Hey, hey!” Mike waved at us like we were old friends. I wanted to snap his neck and mount his head on a wall. Not my wall, just, any wall. Preferably a wall I didn’t have to look at. “GAT’s out on a shopping trip, huh!”

“Yeah,” I forced a laugh. “We come to stores like normal people, who knew, right?”

He immediately looked past me, staring straight at Audrey. Oh dear god.

“Who do we have here?” He said with a shitfaced grin. “I don’t think I’ve seen her before. One of your new pledges I guess. What’s your name?”

Audrey started to look up. Mike was staring at her, expecting a response. I didn’t know how well Audrey’s voice would pass for female.
“Her name is Audrey,” Tiffany said quickly. Audrey’s sigh of relief probably could have moved mountains.

“Why don’t you let the lady answer for herself?” Mike smirked. The way he said lady, pretending to be respectful. He couldn’t even be respectful to his mother. He suddenly reached out and put his hand under her chin, lifting her head up the way I had, but my god he had no business touching her. “Hey, why don’t you look at me when I’m talking to you?”

Audrey wasn’t just mortified, she was terrified. I could see it in her eyes. Suddenly, Mike had his hand on her waist as if he was trying to pull her in. It was subtle, but he was damn sure doing it. Enough. I stepped in between them and cupped my hand, throwing it forward and slamming it into Mike’s crotch. I squeezed as hard as I could. He paled and tried to pull back but I kept my grip. As soon as I did it, Tiffany casually stepped behind him and interlocked her arms in his, pulling them behind his back and forcing him back into the aisle, away from prying eyes.

“Get off of me you bitch!” He hissed. He didn’t want to be too loud; there was no way he’d want people to know his was happening to him. I found a sensitive spot and squeezed it with my thumb and index finger. He rocked his head back, slamming it into Tiffany’s shoulder.
“Behave,” She told him, looking down at him.

“I don’t know who raised you,” I said sternly. “Probably some farm animals in incest county or whatever but here in the civilized world we don’t just walk around touching people.”

“You’re crazy!” He glared at me. I squeezed harder and leaned into him.

“Apologize to her,” I gritted my teeth and jerked my head, indicating Audrey.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” He croaked.

“And you won’t do it again, right?” Tiffany said from over his shoulder.

“Right,” He said with a cracking voice.

“Promise?” I asked. “Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Yes!” He said desperately. I squeezed more.

“More detail,” I smirked.

“Cross my heart and hope to die!”

I nodded to Tiffany, we let go at the same time and dropped him to the floor.

“Let’s go,” I said to the others, forgetting about the shampoo. We made a beeline for the exit, keeping Audrey safely between us. Crossing the parking lot took forever. Okay maybe it really didn’t but it sure seemed like it. I could hear Audrey breathing as we passed by parked cars making our way to the van. She was going to hyperventilate before we got there, or she was going to choke; I could hear her quiet sobs starting to cut through every breath she took. We made it. I tore open the door and I Isabella loaded her into the van. Tiffany and I ducked, following her in. Thank god it was a cargo van; we had more than enough room.

“Audrey,” Isabella said, taking both of her hands as I knelt in front of her between the seats. “Are you okay?”

Audrey’s answer was a series of sobs and chokes as she trembled and tears destroyed her mascara.

“Talk it out hon,” I said. “Tell us what you’re feeling.”

She tried to talk but it just wasn’t working. I laid a hand on her knee. She looked at me with tear stained eyes.

“Come on,” Audrey,” Tiffany said from behind Isabella. “We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going through your head.”

“I don’t…I don’t…I…” Audrey stammered. “He just touched me like…like I was…”

“A piece of meat?” I finished for her. She nodded.

“Can you tell us what you’re feeling?” Isabella asked gently. “Sometimes it helps to talk it out, okay hon?”

She didn’t need to explain it to us, we already knew. That look on her face; I’d worn it so many times. I was used to it by now. She felt violated; used. As if all of her power had been taken from her. Sure not much had happened, but it had been enough. It was weird for her, really weird. She’d spent her entire life in that male ‘bubble’. I mean yeah she wasn’t exactly a prime male specimen but she was still spared things like this. Now that bubble was broken. She was exposed, vulnerable. The ultimate downside to being a woman.

“We’re going home,” I announced, crawling between the two pilot seats and taking my seat behind the wheel. I slammed me head against the headrest and sighed, feeling my own heartbeat against the sound of Audrey’s sobs. If we’re going to be honest, I’d forgotten. I’d completely forgotten that she was going to experience this. That she had to experience it. How was I even going to protect her? I couldn’t, and it hurt. But I would try. From now on I swore to god I was going to try, no matter what it took.

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

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

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

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

“Why? Don’t you need to get home?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

I watched her leave, and Tiffany entered the bathroom.

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

“What about?” I asked.

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

Tiffany frowned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tiffany rolled her eyes.

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

“That’s different,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s that?” I crossed my arms.

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

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

“So what are you saying?” I asked.

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

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

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

Tiffany crossed the bathroom and handed me a business card.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Les Miz,” Audrey corrected.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“YOU volunteer?” Tiffany raised an eyebrow.

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

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

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

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

Check this link

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

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

“How do the Garrons even have a million dollars to donate to Woodcrest?” Tiffany asked me as I took exit 78 onto the freeway. I’d brought her with me for emotional support, and for directions. Mostly emotional support; I could have used my GPS to get to Derringer Inc., this place where I was supposedly going to be landing a new job.

“A few years ago, Alexander invested in this pharmaceutical company, um…Miratran, I think. They were making um…oh what was it? Right, an alternative for therapy or something, you like, take the pill and it fixes everything that’s wrong with you…somehow,” I explained. “I’m not really supposed to tell you that, but Jayne filled me in when we were hanging out one day. The problem is that the pill worked but there were like three human rights groups that gave him the smackdown.”

“Then how did it make money?” Tiffany raised an eyebrow. “How is he loaded?”

“The pharmaceutical company paid some people off. It’s not really in use but…it’s out there.”

“Sounds like something I could use,” Tiffany laughed. I pulled off the freeway and took a right.

“Couldn’t we all,” I rolled my eyes. “Give Audrey some of that shit.”

“She’s going to need it too, after everything we’ve done to her,” Tiffany said, a tinge of irritation and worry present in her voice. Yeah, I was a little worried too.

“Okay, here we are,” I said, pulling off the main road and into a parking lot. As I passed by an empty guard house I internally gasped at the size of the steel and glass structure in front of me. This thing was huge, and I do mean huge. Steel and glass with a wavy construction, this one building extended forever as it towered over the parking lot and as I understood it, this was only the main campus. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Tiffany said nonchalantly, answering a message on her phone. “Derringer’s way more loaded than the Garrons.”

“Uh, is that why you date him?” I pulled into an empty parking space, considering myself lucky that I was actually able to find one.

“At first,” She admitted. “But it seems…a little more complicated than that now.”

“Complicated how?”

“I…like him?” She shrugged.

“Well that IS complicated for YOU,” I smirked, turning the car off. I was doing my best to keep my mind busy; I’d been having a mild panic attack ever since I’d read the news about the Garrons practically buying their way into the Woodcrest board. It made sense because they kind of lived around here but I didn’t know how I felt about them having that kind of control over my college experience. “Where are we going again?”

“Floor 3A,” Tiffany informed me as she began to walk briskly toward the building. I quickly caught up and walked beside her, clutching my purse and the folder in my right hand. “Don’t freak out, you’ve got this. I’m pretty sure you already have the job.”

“We’re not going to know that for sure until I get in there,” I sighed. “Let’s just…get this over with so they can reject me, alright?”

“You’ve got it,” Tiffany grinned as we continued to walk toward the entrance. We passed a sign that pointed visitors in multiple different directions; the green arrow pointed toward the main entrance, a massive aqua tinted window with a series of built-in revolving doors. I could feel the pressure change the moment we stepped inside; a woosh of air connected with the entirety of my body and I immediately felt a little more comfortable than I had outside. We exited the revolving door and emerged into a marble lobby, the entire space bathed in the aqua colored light emanating from the plate glass windows. The entire lobby was flanked with white walls, steel columns, and flat OLED displays showing off products. This place was impressive.

“Can I help you?” A short-haired receptionist called out to us as we approached the front desk.

“Hi, my name is Aleah Simms I’m here for—”

“Oh yes, the interview!” The receptionist said. “Why don’t you two have a seat over there and Veronica will be down in a few minutes. Can I get you anything? Coffee, Soda, Food?”

“Uh…” I said, thinking for a moment. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Great!” She smiled, chipper as all fuck. “Just have a seat and she’ll be right down!”

“This place is incredible,” Tiffany remarked as we took a seat on the U-shaped couch off to the right. “I had no idea.”

“You’ve never been here?” I asked, a little confused. “Aren’t you dating Shawn?”

“We haven’t quite gotten to ‘take me to your daddy’s work’ yet,” She shrugged. “In fact I JUST started calling him Daddy—”

“Um…moving on,” I said quickly. “What about that news? That’s a little insane.”

“I know, right?” Tiffany said as she scrolled through her phone. “Look at this, news from our sister campus, Bellcrest. Remy Francis set the record for volunteer hours.”

“I’m not talking about that news, and you know it,” I sighed. “The Garrons worming their way into Woodcrest is a disaster.”

“Woodcrest is a private school,” Tiffany said, trying to be reassuring. “It’s not like one person on the board can do anything.”

“You would think,” I said. “But I looked into the board members, most of them lean pretty conservative, Garron throws them over the top.”

“What are you thinking?” Tiffany raised an eyebrow.

“I’m thinking they could ban LGBT clubs on campus, change the dress code…I never believed one person could make a change, but this…this guy is pure evil,” I shuddered a bit at the thought.

“Excuse me,” A woman said, approaching us. “Aleah Simms?”

“Ah yes, that’s me,” I confirmed, standing up to take the woman’s hand. She was a brunette, kind of nerdy, a lot smaller than me. Her face was framed by her long, super straight brown hair and a pair of pink cat-eye glasses. She looked anything but professional.

“Hi Aleah, my name’s Veronica, Mr. Derringer’s personal assistant, if you’ll follow me, we can get started with the interview!”

‘Good luck’, Tiffany mouthed to me as I followed Veronica away from the reception area and toward an elevator. We rode in silence, not even a hint of elevator music, all the way to the third floor. As we emerged from the carriage we passed onto a balcony that put the whole of the lobby on display, from a massive fountain in the center to the swath of OLED screens illuminating each wall in the light of rampant commercialism. I could see Tiffany below, lost in her phone.

I continued to follow Veronica until we reached an office – not a very discreet one; you could see into it from the outside as the entire wall was made from plate glass. Inside was a thin onyx conference table flanked by modern styled chairs; she led me inside.

“Have a seat,” She smiled as she gestured to one of the chairs. As we sat down, she lifted a small remote from the table and pressed a button. Instantly, the glass shifted from being transparent to entire opaque. Shit, that was neat. “Just wanted to give us a little bit of privacy.”

“I appreciate it,” I tried to mirror her chipper attitude but I just couldn’t pull it off.

“Okay, there are a few things I want to go over here,” She said. “You currently run the Gamma Alpha Tau sorority over at Woodcrest, and we’ve seen your work history which is spotty at best. Fortunately for you, that’s not what we’re looking at.”

“It’s not?” I looked down at the folder containing my resume. Did I bring this for no reason?

“We’re actually looking at your activity in the GAT house, particularly member dues,” She began to scroll through information on a tablet in front of her. “I know that the GAT membership is $450 per semester, per person, which is pretty cheap for a Greek house, but it looks like you’re collecting $550 based on information we found.”

My eyes went wide; I could feel the lump in my throat forming. How could they have possibly gotten their hands on that information? It’s not like it was written down anywhere, holy shit.

“I um…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said as I tried my best to maintain my composure.

“I see,” She said. “So how are you handling the money? What’s the reason? We’re not going to report you, we’re just curious,”

I sighed. I was caught, this wasn’t good. Best to just come clean. It wasn’t like I would be in school that much longer anyway, especially if I didn’t get this job.

“So, when my parents cut me off financially I knew that I’d have to pay for school so I started skimming off the top. I took the money and put it into gift cards instead of putting it under my mattress, or in a bank account. I can’t really cash it out and use it though, because if it looks like I suddenly have money there would be an investigation.”

“That’s embezzlement, and money laundering,” Veronica said, staring straight at me. “You do know you could spend time in federal prison for that, right?”

“It’s better than spending the rest of my life flipping burgers because I couldn’t pay for college,” I said defensively. “I don’t know what I was supposed to do. I guess I’m going to jail now, so thanks for that.”

“Actually, that little scheme of yours is why you’re being given this interview,” Veronica said matter of factly. “We have secretaries, we have EA’s, we have all kinds of people to do grunt work. What we have a lack of is people who’ll do whatever it takes to succeed. You think you could bring some of that ingenuity to our organization, Ms. Simms?”

I started at her in shock. She was dead serious. Was this actually happening?

“I…could…” I said. “For the right price.”

“Ah yes, the right price,” Veronica tapped on the tablet a few times and slid it over to me. “Would that be the right price?”

I looked at it, my eyes were completely bugged out.

“Um…I…I think that’s the right price,” I nodded slowly.

“Then welcome aboard!” Veronica smiled wide and reached out to shake my hand. “I have a non-disclosure agreement for you to sign and then we’ll get started on your employee paperwork, I just KNOW that we’re going to get along!”

I stood outside the GAT house, leaning against the railing and staring at the far off stadium lights. Football season would be starting any day now and you know, while I wasn’t a big fan of the games themselves I couldn’t help but be addicted to the energy. The screaming fans, the crudely drawn paper sighs, and oh god, the after-parties. I couldn’t tell you how much I was looking forward to getting completely smashed at the DEM house and waking up with a random stranger, especially after the events of the last few weeks. I felt like I’d destroyed Audrey and sold my soul to Derringer’s company but you know what’s strange? I didn’t feel that bad about it. Okay, maybe Audrey, but the other thing? Not so much. Maybe my parents had pushed me too far, maybe it was time to become the monster that they’d always imagined me to be. Maybe that was okay.

“What are you thinking about?” Audrey asked. I nearly jumped out of my skin. She was sitting on the steps, three feet from me and I hadn’t noticed her. She was presenting male, well, sort of androgynous, but you get the picture.

“Audrey what the hell are you doing? When did you get here?”

“I’m here a lot, if you didn’t notice,” She shrugged. She had her feet set on the steps with her knees close to her chin; her arms were wrapped around her denim covered legs.

“I was…actually thinking about you,” I admitted. “Everyone’s been kind of worried about you. What happened with Tri Pi?”

“You mean you’re worried because you just left me there for like two days?” She smirked. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. She was becoming really, really aware of the things that were happening to her. She wasn’t the scared little girl I’d met in my room a few weeks ago, that was for sure.

“Yeah,” I said. “What happened at Tri Pi when I left you there?”

“Mostly just hung out,” She shrugged. “I played my game, worked out some transition things-“

“Transition?” I raised an eyebrow. “I talked to you about transition the other day and you said-“

“I think I’ve changed my mind,” She interrupted me. “I mean…we all know I want to be a girl. I just…think it’s time to start pursuing it, you know? Before I get old and wrinkly.”

“I have SO much to do before I get old and wrinkly,” I sighed. “How are things going with Chastity? Have you talked to her?”

“You pretty much sunk that like the Titanic. You know, if the Titanic were sunk by a nuke.”

“I’m really sorry about that,” I stared off into the distance, toward the stadium lights again, allowing my eyes to lose focus for a moment. I closed my eyes, finally and concentrated on the cool night air gently rubbing against my skin. Somewhere in the distance, crickets chirped, and I could hear the sound of someone screaming inside the DEM house. That was normal.

“What’s done is done,” Audrey said dismissively. She wanted us to think she was okay, but I didn’t think she was. I really didn’t. “Hey is Tiffany here? I kinda have a bone to pick with her.”

“Get in line,” I snorted. “But no, I don’t think she’s here. I think she went to hang out with Shawn.”

“The DEM president? What’s she doing with him?”

“What isn’t she doing with him?”

“Ew.”

“Preaching to the choir, lady,” I sighed and looked back toward the house. I needed to get inside, I needed to get some homework done, I needed to get ready for tomorrow, I needed to do so many things. I didn’t want to do any of them.

“How’s the play going?” I asked. I kind of wanted to know about that, but mostly because we were using it for charity hours. Maybe I was being a little selfish right now.

“I’m a girl, you know,” She said suddenly. I blinked and turned to look at her. Where the hell had that come from? “I’m a girl, like you. I look…hideous on the outside. I feel like I’m never going to be good enough. People look at me and this is all they see. They just see…this horrible, ugly boy and they had no idea what’s below the surface. There’s so much more to me that I can’t tell Mason, that I can’t tell anyone. You know, when I go out to the mall or anywhere, I see girls wearing these adorably outfits and I know that if I were…a girl on the outside I could walk up to them and say ‘Hey I love your top, where’d you get that?’ or…just…talk to them…like a girl. But I can’t, Aleah, because I look like this. I’m…a girl in here but that’s not what matters to people. Nature is cruel, Aleah. Sometimes the caterpillar never really becomes the butterfly.”

“Audrey…”I trailed off. I really didn’t know what to say. She smiled sadly and stood, walking off into the night.

I walked over to the steps where she’d been sitting just a moment ago and sat down on the steps where she’d been a moment ago. I could feel my eyes beginning to water as I came to the realization that I was failing once again. I couldn’t help her. I didn’t know what I was doing. I sighed.

“God help me Jayne,” I said, staring up at the sky. “I should tell her to fuck off and live her life but…It’s just…she reminds me of you, and I want you with me.”

There was no answer. There never would be. I was alone. I was the monster. So be it.