But that’s never been me.
I’m too big for everything. The clothes my mom wishes I could wear. This sorority. Hell, the world. A world where the lion’s share always goes to the skinny, pretty girls who?—
“Mary Gillespie, Denver Parilla?—”
A disembodied voice lists our names.
The others grow still, practically quivering in anticipation of the next word to fall from the random sister’s lips.
Letitia sniffles when hers isn’t called.
None of the others even register that, but I do. “I’m sorry?—”
“Don’t. Just… don’t,” she grates out as the girls who shot the breeze with her seconds earlier veer around her person like she’s a hazardous infection.
I have no idea how Letitia failed to reach the next phase when the Pies literally just stuck us in a closet, but the Hunger Games have obviously begun.
Biting my lip, I traipse after the others.
The fleeting desire to be back home, to be with Zach, to veg on the couch with him, to talk shit about tonight’s game on PSN, to snuggle into his side so I can steal his popcorn, fills me.
I’m never too big for Zach or Pecan.
Ever.
My chin trembles.
Just thinking of my best buds is like a light at the end of the tunnel and a dose of reality I desperately need.
That’smy place. Not here.
I can do this.
I just need to put one foot in front of the other.
Each one will bring me closer to them. To that scene I just envisaged.
Tohome.
You can get through this. Just take it as it comes. Whatever they dole out, you can handle, and once it’s over, you can go back to Zach and Peeks,I think to myself as we cross a hallway lined with pictures of the old guard.
Go back to Zach and Peeks.
I repeat the mantra in my head as I pass a nineteen-year-old version of my mom. Mom, who probably still fits into the dress she wore for that event.
We enter what has to be a meeting room—there are spindly gold seats that look like they’d buckle under my weight and an altar at the back with a pedestal in front of it.
We trundle down an aisle that parts the way, letting the sisters take their measure of us as if we’re cattle at a market.
Are we worthy of the Pies?
That’s the silent question I know they have to answer.
I fall short. It’s made abundantly clear.
I hear the giggles, see the sneers, watch the bitches that make up this sorority diss my dress…
And it’s fine.
