It All Started with a Lie

Chapter 11.1

I've always been a bit of a lightweight so it doesn't take much before I can feel it, exactly how I like it. The more I drink the easier it is to dance with a stranger. I spot Emma as I dance with a man who's name I'd already forgotten. She follows the President and the minions like a lost kitten, shuddering from everybody she brushes against. I try to ignore her, focusing on the man's hands that peruse my hips but I cannot help but stare at her, wondering what she will do. The group gets a drink first. Emma has never had a drink in her life. Not even a sip.

The guy, who smells of body spray and vodka, runs his fingertips along the underside of my crop top, in the same motion he's been doing for the entirety of this song and I have begun to grow tired of it, no longer listening to what he is saying. The second I find an exit, I take it, stumbling through the sea of bodies to find a more suitable partner. I will not come home to Richard with no good stories. This is my workout for the evening, I need someone who will really make me burn off some calories. He is not it. He is a one motion, one rhythm, the whole night till he finishes kind of guy.

As I move to the larger room of the house, my eyes catch a familiar stare. He stands taller than most of the others, making him easy to spot. His eyes standout the most in the foggy glow of the LED's that line the walls. They no longer look blue, almost violet under the lighting. I recognize him instantly. I do not know whether to go to him, make up some sort of greeting, or to stay far away and avoid him like the plague. Are we acquaintances now? Now that he is her brother, and I am her best friend? Now that we know we love the same person does that make us friends? Surely not. Are we enemies? Now that we've screamed at each other, cursed the other's name? No, we can't be, not when he is her brother. Perhaps I should move past him like I do know him at all. Are we strangers now? Now that we've agreed to ignore our past? How did we go from screaming at each other, to sleeping with each other, to walking past each other without so much as a glance? But that's what we do, brush past each other like neither of our presences mattered to the other, like we are nothing more than strangers passing for the first and last time. I almost think I prefer it that way, almost. At the same time, I am infuriated because how dare he pretend not to know me. Is he that much of a coward? He cannot bear to face me. I try to go the opposite direction of him, to get further away and ignore him as much as he is me, but Emma and the president and her crew come stumbling out of the other room, blocking my path. The others push Emma around like a sack of rice, shouting in her ears as she cowers from them, chest caved in, shoulders curled. They do not notice her discomfort, or do not care.

I know what the girl in the pink dress—I did not care to learn her name–will do before she's even began. It is a ΒΣΞ tradition. She stands on the table, curls her hands around her mouth, takes a deep breath that makes her back lean, and shouts, "Body shots!"

The mens' eyes around me begin to glow and a startled silence falls upon the noisy room until it erupts into applause. I think to get out of there quick before the men start flocking around the dozen girls, Emma included. People begin rushing towards the group to watch, pushing past me and had I not been so defiant in standing my ground, I surely would have been knocked over. The room begins to chant a monotonous chant on repeat as someone flees to the bay window to retrieve the necessities. No one objects to cutting the limes if it means they will get to take one out of the mouth of a stunning ΒΣΞ girl, in fact, they fight over the job.

I try to leave, turning only to find Klaus leaning against the door frame, talking to a woman I know well. I do not recognize her by her face, but the bra that shows through her t-shirt. I have unclipped that bra. I returned it the next morning after she left it on my bedroom floor. At least he has good taste in women. He says something to her that makes her laugh and shove his shoulder playfully and my chest begins to burn. He stands as if he thinks he's someone, leaning confidently against the frame of the door without a care that anyone might need to use said door, someone like me. Part of me considers walking in and out of the door until I've inconvenienced him enough to make him angry but the more rational part of my brain tells me that it is a terrible idea, that instead I should try to get her attention, so that he can fume at losing her to me. I have full confidence she will leave him for me if given the chance. Both options make me seem crazy.