“Problem?” I asked him.
“Are you gay, Cobalt?”
“I only love myself. In that respect, maybe. And yet, I still won’t blow you.” With this, I left the secret society behind.
Eight of the ten pledges joined me.
Three.
I was nineteen. At the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League.
And I sprinted down the student center, slowing to a brisk walk as I reached the girls’ bathroom. I pushed open the door, and a brunette girl with four-inch heels and a conservative blue dress stood by the sink, scrubbing a stain with wet paper towels, her eyes bloodshot with anger and anxiety.
When she saw me enter, she directed all of her pent-up frustration at my incoming body. “This is thegirls’bathroom, Richard.” She used my first real name and tried to fling a paper towel at me. But it fluttered to the ground in defeat.
I wasn’t the one who spilt a can of Cherry Fizz on her dress. But in Rose Calloway’s mind, I might as well have been the offender. We crossed paths every year, my boarding school and her prep school competing at Model UN and honor societies.
I was supposed to be her Student Ambassador today—taking her on tour of campus before her interview with the Dean, which would decide whether or not she’d be in the Honor’s Program
“I’m aware,” I told her easily, more concerned by her state. She gripped the sink at one point, like she was about to scream.
“I’m going to kill Caroline. I’m going to rip out her hair one strand at a time and then steal all of her clothes.”
Her excessive exaggerations always reminded me of a rumor I’d heard around Faust. That during a health class at Dalton Academy, her prep school, she took her baby doll and stabbed the stuffing with a pair of scissors. Another person said she scribbled over the baby’s forehead and handed it tothe teacher. The note:I won’t care for an inanimate object unless the boys do it too.
People thought she was nuts—in a genius “I will devour your soul” kind of way.
I thought she was fucking fascinating.
“Rose—”
She slammed her palms on the counter. “She spiltsodaon me. I’d rather she punched me in the face. At least I have makeup.”
“I have a solution.”
She raised a hand to me. “This is an ego-free bathroom.”
“Then what the fuck are you doing here?” I asked her with the tilt of my head.
She glared, and I neared her anyway, about to help. She shoved my chest in anger.
I hardly even moved. “That was a little infantile, even for you.”
“It’s sabotage,” she said with blazing eyes, pointing a finger at me. “Academicgluttony.I hate cheaters, and she’s cheated me out of Penn.”
“You’ve already been accepted,” I reminded her.
“Would you go to a college without being admitted to the Honor’s Program?”
I said nothing. She knew my answer.
“Exactly.”
I tossed the sodden towels in the nearby trash, and my actions started loosening her shoulders as she watched me closely. Then I began to shrug off my red blazer.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“This is what help looks like.”
