[Week 0.7]

Claire jammed her foot into the chair next to Zoey and carefully nudged it out from under the table. Her hands did a careful dance to keep her overfilled lunch tray in balance. Getting a hot chocolate on top of the orange juice always made things a little crowded, but it was a comfort treat for her and she wouldn’t leave the cafeteria line without it.

Zoey gave her an eye roll. They’d become fast friends on move-in day, when they both got assigned to the same floor–especially since both had decided to rush a sorority. As far as Claire could tell, Zoey had always been popular, and joining a sorority was just the next logical step in the progression of senior class president, high school cheerleader, and presumably eventually president of the universe. 

Claire sat down and tried to mind her lipstick as she dug into her macaroni and cheese. For her, this was all still new. Puberty had finally come for her in senior year, and her once gangly body finally showed some of the curves of “womanhood”. College was a time for fresh starts, a chance to leave behind the bridge competitions and captaining the robotics teams and be popular herself.

She just had to make it through rush week.

“So, which ones were your favorite?” she asked Zoey.

“Alpha Kappa Beta was sooo cool,” Zoey cooed. “The black tie murder mystery? Brilliant, and everyone there was sooo elegant. Their house is so classy too. It all fit together so well.”

Claire winced. AKB had been her top choice, but she hadn’t been invited to the black tie event. As far as sorority recruitment went, that was a rejection, and an early one at that.

“Where were you instead, again?” Zoey continued, “Delta Sigma?”

“Yeah.” Claire shook her head. “We did these strange team-building activities. For one of them a bunch of us were blindfolded, and had to be moved into shapes by other potential new members, then shape the next person in line ourselves.

Zoey scrunched her face a little. “That sounds super weird.”

“The other one wasn’t much better–we had to do these weird trust exercises. Also, a bunch of their members wore these masks and chokers and stayed silent the whole time. They pretty much only held things for the members running the event. It was almost like some kind of Eyes Wide Shut imitation.”

And it had evoked strange feelings inside Claire. She didn’t have words for it, except that it felt fugitive and private and not like something she wanted to share.

“I really hope Lambda Gamma Kappa takes me,” she changed the subject, “their event was super fun.”

Zoey took another bite of her food, then took a thoughtful moment to finish chewing.

“Yeah, they’re also one of the best!” she said, “I hope they take you. Hey, who knows, one of the AKB could have made a mistake and maybe they’ll still give you a bid? I was talking to Wendy and Yandice and they both thought the process was a little chaotic this year.”

Claire looked down at her plate. They both knew it was unlikely. Zoey already had so many friends.

“Yeah,” she mumbled, “who knows.”

Zoey gave her a nudge. “Brighten up, Claire, you’re a catch for any sorority. VP of the bridge competition? Quiz bowl champion? You did super well in that writing competition too!”

Claire slammed down her mug. She didn’t want people thinking about her past. It was a source of embarassment, not pride.

“Sororities don’t care about that stuff,” Clair spat, “it’s ‘will you make us look hot at a party? Will you suck enough dick?’”

“That’s not the right attitude, girl, and you know it,” Zoey chided, “Besides you’ve really cleaned up. You need to work on your confidence is all.”

Claire said nothing, choosing not to vent her frustration at someone who was supposed to become a close friend.

It didn’t save the rest of lunch from an uncomfortable awkwardness.

It ended early as well, with Claire’s phone ringing with a call from her mother.

“Shoot, I’m sorry, I need to take this.” She gave Zoey a frown. “Do you mind taking away my plates for me?”

Zoey gave her a look but shooed her off.

“Hi Mom. I asked you not to call me during the day, remember?” She speedwalked past the other diners, towards the adjacent garden

“What I can’t be interested in what my favorite oldest daughter is doing?” Donna Moretti asked.

Claire pinched the bridge of her nose. “Mom, it’s just that usually I’m doing things. What do you want?”

“Your dad is going to one of his exams at the hospital again this week,” she said, “and they want his CT scans from last year.”

“Mom this could have been a text message. They’re in the file organizer on the desk in the office.” Claire reached the garden and let out a breath. At least she wasn’t bothering people indoors now.

“Well I also wanted to hear from you?” Donna continued, “I thought maybe you forget me with  all of your college things. Have you joined any clubs yet? I hear the Women in Tech Association has a stellar reputation.”

“Mom, I was actually thinking of joining a sorority,” Claire tried.

“Pah, aren’t you a little bit too nerdy?” It wasn’t actually a question. “This is like that summer you tried to run for class treasurer.”

“Mom…” Claire whimpered.

Her biological mother didn’t notice. “You just aren’t good at popularity contests, sweetie. You should join the Women in Tech club. They have a great reputation and it’ll help you network.”

Claire took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Mom, I have classes I need to get to, I’ll talk to you later. I love you.”

“So soon? I love you honey. Call me sometime this week.”

Claire took the roundabout way back to her dorm, passing by the student services building. Calls from her mother always left her tense, and she felt a bit guilty about that. It wasn’t what a good daughter was supposed to feel. But she couldn’t help avoiding it as much as possible.

She passed by the announcements board. There was the usual warning about staying out at night, since apparently last year the number of missing student cases had risen for the third year running. A few club advertisements for engineering groups she wasn’t going to join anymore. A poster put up by student government–more interesting but after her experience in high school not something she wanted to expose herself to again.

All those people judging her, deciding she wasn’t cool or popular enough even though she had such good ideas–they could take their student government and shove it. She was better now.

She reached her dorm on the 8th floor and hurried back to her room. 

Jonathan’s door opened as she walked past and Claire almost jumped against the wall. 

“Hi Claire!” 

She pulled the armor back on. Smiled a charming smile. “Hi Jonathan.”

“Want to work on the physics assignment later, I got a study group together?” He asked.

“I was actually going to work in the library, sorry.”

It had been an automatic excuse, but she genuinely preferred working alone.

“Oh stop being so frigid–“

“If I wanted to stay warm,” Claire cut in, “I’d need more than just your little bit of hot air, Jonathan.”

Jonathan gawked as she strutted back to her room. Claire was trying to be more social, to stop being so nerdy, but Jonathan was a dick.

She grabbed her backpack and left the dorm. Campus was in the middle of the greater coastal urban sprawl, and it was cramped enough that the dorms had been built slightly outside of it, in piecemeal plots of land the school had bought when it realized that development was only going to make things more expensive from here. It wasn’t a wealthy area by any means, but being in California meant luxury rents on top of grimy buildings and frequent homelessness.

Her orientation leader had told them they would get used to it, learn to tell dangerous situations from someone who was just the harmless kind of mentally ill. Apparently just ignoring them almost always worked. She’d watched some older students and that definitely seemed to work for them, but most of the freshman still jumped whenever a homeless person ambled by. 

She felt bad about it–she’d read a book once that mentioned the social isolation making the mental health effects of homelessness much worse–but even so she couldn’t quite get the warnings about dangerous parts of town and unsafe hours at night out of her head.

Once she crossed into campus itself, the square layout of city streets disappeared and transitioned into the winding paths, green lawns, and free standing halls of an American university. 

She walked past Bellwether Hall, an old, 4 story brick and mortar building that housed the university’s English department, then passed by the new student union building. She headed downhill, past the campus glade, and into Parker Library. It wasn’t the only library on campus, but it was the biggest, and the one that made it on all the brochures. An enormous building, with a giant, cavernous main room lit by multi story glass windows split by neoclassical columns.

That room wasn’t her final destination. Instead, she took a staircase in the first hall down to the underground stacks, then wove through the maze of mobile shelves to a cornered reading nook she’d found during the second afternoon of orientation. It contained a small table, a chair with its back to the wall, and minimal no foot traffic. 

Claire let out a breath. It’s not that she didn’t like people, she just found quiet secluded spaces relaxing, especially if she could see anybody approaching. It quieted something she didn’t fully understand.

She grabbed her laptop from her backpack and looked at the Week 1 physics problem set. They’d been warned multiple times–once during orientation, again by their advisors, and then more by their professors–that in going to a top state school they would no longer find themselves breezing through course work. Put the top 10% from across the state into one room and 90% will lose their accustomed spot. Claire wasn’t sure where she fell. She hadn’t exactly studied hard for the SATs and done plenty well, but this was college.

Looking over her physics problems was a moment of relief. Some of these she didn’t know how to solve, all of them would take effort, but none of this was impossible. She could do this. Study groups were for other people, she would understand, and then she would solve. Simple.

She spent the next two hours working on the problems, intermittently pausing to read a fantasy novel she’d downloaded onto her phone. She liked physics, but that didn’t make homework produce enough serotonin to keep her focused.

Two hours later felt like a good time to stop. Claire dug some dollar bills out of her backpack and placed them into her jacket pocket. She’d set her mind to it on the way in–it wasn’t fair the way homeless people were treated.

She walked back a slightly different path, through the lower quad, past a few practicing dance teams, before heading back up towards the main intersection.

For the seventh or eighth time since going to college, Claire walked past the largest campus-adjacent cluster of homeless people again, at the intersection in front of the closed CVS. Two had signs out, so for the first time she dropped a dollar bill into each of their tins. One said he was a veteran.

She retreated too quickly to process what they said for her–the adrenaline was just too much. She still jumped when one called after her.

A moment later she processed it–just a short “thanks”.

The person on the next block catcalled her, and she was glad she didn’t have anything left to give him.

By the time she made it back to her dorm room she was relaxed, and the fluttery warmth of having done something good filled her chest. Principles were complicated things, but she would maintain hers.

For a moment she’d forgotten about rush entirely. Then she saw the letter waiting on her desk. Adrenaline rushed back through her, and she took two steps back into the hallway. Xia, her roommate, had already gone to visit her parents for the weekend. The RA had promised not to enter their rooms without permission. No one should have been able to get to her desk. 

She took a look at the window, but then scoffed. They were on the 8th floor. The door didn’t show any signs of being broken, and when she tried closing it and pushing it open she definitely still needed a key to get in.

A deep breath settled her nerves slightly, and replaced shock with anger. Someone had violated her space.

Nowhere was truly safe. This was just a reminder that her room wasn’t either. She’d be stronger.

Claire took her time in removing her shoes and her bag, then picked up the letter. The envelope was blank, but it had to be a bid from one of the sororities. Hopefully Lambda Gamma Kappa. She opened the envelope, took out the paper, and her heart sank.

September 3rd, 4:00pm

“We’d like to kindly invite you to initiation at Delta Sigma.”

Fuck.

Claire paced in front of the desk as anxiety bloomed. Delta Sigma… they’d been graceful, but Claire had this lingering sense that something deeper and spookier awaited her there, and she found it unsettling. Especially the sisters who had been wearing the masks–they were completely silent the whole time. Who even did that? And from everything she’d seen they seemed fairly insular, almost cultish. It wasn’t the life as a popular girl she’d dreamed about.

Was this really something she should do?

Uncertainty, laid to rest when she’d planned out her college life as a new person, a sorority girl, clawed at her again. The anxiety she’d tried to leave behind in high school caught up and ate at her her. The voice of her mother, saying this wasn’t something she could do.

What if she was right?

She threw herself into the reading for one of her classes, but her mind kept drifting back. She hated herself in those moments. Why couldn’t she be like Zoey? Always put together, always knowing the right thing to do, always liked by those around her?

This was losing that popularity contest for student government all over again.

But it wasn’t quite that, was it? She hadn’t been rejected from the sorority system entirely, just sorted into a house that was a little strange. She’d just have to join them, be absolutely incredible, and improve their reputation. Lambda Gamma Kappa would regret not choosing her.