Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 108049 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108049 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
It’s Pledge Week. Freshman year. Abigail stands beside me. Both of us are shy and terrified, questioning why we’d thought any of this was a good idea. Exhausted because by then we’d been awake going on thirty hours. Time spent doing laundry for the sisters, escorting them to and from classes, cleaning the house, and being subjected to six straight hours of “character-proving,” because they’re not allowed to call it hazing anymore. All of which culminated in this scene.
One of the seniors orders the six of us pledges to take body shots off each other in a line, then picks up the garden hose they fed in the side door from the yard and sprays us with it. We cower and tremble, spitting up water. Soaked to the bone. Then another sister points to me.
“Dare or Dare.”
Shivering, I wipe water and hair from my eyes, and say, “Dare.”
She smirks. “I dare you to make out with…” Her attention first lands on Abigail. But knowing the two of us were probably the closest of this pledge class, she opts for a greater embarrassment factor. Her eyes slide to my right. “Rebecca.”
With a nod of agreement to simply grin and bear the terribly unsexy episode of kissing while feeling like a couple of drowned cats, Rebecca and I turn to each other and kiss.
“No, I said make out. Like you fucking mean it, pledges. Fuck her mouth.”
So we do. Because more than anything, pledge week breaks down your sense of self-preservation, your will. By that point our responses were almost automatic. They say jump, we learn to fly.
So there it is on the Internet for horny dudes to wank it to: me and Rebecca, hot and heavy, our clothes soaked through and practically transparent. Tits and vag out on full view.
And it goes on for much longer than I remember. So long I assume it must be looped, until finally it ends and I look up at Rebecca who’s still sobbing. Not in anger anymore, but humiliation. The video has thousands of views in just a few hours. Already, it’s spreading.
To Kappa.
To Greek Row.
The entire campus.
And the only person who could have uploaded it is in this house.
38
Taylor
I’m going to be sick.
The thought reaches my brain well after my stomach spasms and vomit rises in my throat. I bolt for Sasha’s bathroom and barely make it to the toilet before I choke on the hot liquid filling my mouth. I hear the bathroom door shut while I’m rinsing my mouth out and assume it’s Sasha come to check on me. Instead, I turn around to see Rebecca sitting on the edge of the bathtub.
She’s composed herself. Face still red, eyes puffy. Her tears have dried. In their place, a frozen image of resignation.
“So it wasn’t you,” she says dully.
I wipe my face, smearing the makeup Sasha had just applied. “No.”
“I’m sorry I accused you like that.”
Closing the lid of the toilet, I sit down, still trying to get my own heart rate under control. Hurling did a lot to temper my panic, but the longer I’m upright, the faster the thoughts rush back to the surface.
“I understand,” I say.
If I’d been the first of us to see the video, I’m not sure I would have reacted any better. Maybe not charging through the house screaming, but certainly suspicious. Fact is, Rebecca and I have never been friends. She was the shyest of our pledge class back then, and after pledge week we hardly spoke again. Not for lack of trying on my part—it just always seemed when I walked into a room, she found her way to the other side.
Now, something’s changed. Besides the obvious, I mean. She sits there looking at me, defeated, like all this time she’s tried to outrun me and her knee’s finally given out.
“My parents are going to kill me,” Rebecca whispers, hanging her head. She sighs. A big burdened release, as if rather than fearing the consequences, she’s almost relieved to accept them.
“They wouldn’t really blame you for the video getting out, would they? They have to understand it’s not your fault.”
“You don’t get it.” Her fingernails dig into the folio cover on her iPad, leaving crescent shapes in the fake leather. “My parents are ultra conservative, Taylor. They hardly associate with anyone outside their church. My dad didn’t even want me to pledge a sorority, but I convinced my mom that Kappa was basically like joining a bible study group. She said they hoped it would teach me how to be a proper young lady.”
A frown touches my lips. “What does that mean?”
It’s hard to imagine my own mother ever going on a parent kick, trying to tell me what to do. I think the last time she told me to clean my room was when I lost the class ferret somewhere in the month-old laundry pile.