But my friend means business. She grabs my wrist, hauling me into the current. “Come on. You need a drink. This is the only way to survive a Sigma party. Plus, I want to show you something.”
The kitchen is more crowded than the hall. Every surface is coated in a film of what I pray is just spilled beer. The sink is full of Solo cups and someone’s abandoned wig. There’s a keg in the corner, half-draped by a wet cloth, which makes me want to vomit. Emmeline hands me a red cup, already full, and I take a cautious sip: jungle juice, sickly sweet, fizzing with a cheap seltzer that makes my tongue numb. I cough.
“Don’t sip, chug,” she orders.
I pretend to drink, letting the syrupy stuff sluice over my teeth, then set the cup on the counter.
She tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear and says, “So. You know the Sigma guys have a reputation, right?”
I arch an eyebrow. “For what, sexual harassment?”
Emmeline snickers. “No, for being party gods. Like, no one else on campus even comes close. My older sister said they once rented a llama and had it in their living room all night.”
This seems possible, judging by the state of the floor.
I lean against the counter, arms folded. “You said you wanted to show me something.”
She lowers her voice, conspiratorial. “It’s downstairs, but you can’t freak out, okay?”
I’m about to protest, but she’s already pulling me through the tangle of bodies, her fingers locked around my wrist. We snake down a staircase that smells like sweat and cheap weed, the bass shaking the banister. The basement is only slightly less packed: fewer people, but the air is thick with hookah smoke and the strobe of a DJ light that spins the hallway into an aquarium of blue and pink.
Emmeline pauses at a door, presses her finger to her lips, and nudges it open.
Inside, it’s like a different world: the lights are low, the music softer, and the room is full of guys — and a few girls — circled up on couches and beanbags. In the center is a glass coffee table, and on it is an honest-to-god mountain of pills and tiny baggies, arranged in color-coded stripes like someone’s high school chemistry project. The air is perfumed with vanilla vape clouds and the sweet, sour bite of energy drink.
She nudges me. “Check it out. You ever seen this much at once?”
I’m not naïve, but I’ve never seen a full street pharmacy laid out so brazenly. There’s Adderall, Molly, weed gummies, Xanax, some tiny pink tabs I can’t even identify. One of the Sigma guys, a tall redhead with hands like dinner plates, is organizing the pills with a deck of playing cards.
“Is this even legal?” I whisper.
Emmeline shrugs. “It’s only illegal if you get caught.”
She snags a gummy, pops it in her mouth, then offers one to me. “Loosen up,” she says. “You’re too tense.”
I shake my head, but the impulse to fit in is a living thing, thrumming in my chest. I take the gummy, hold it up to the light — it’s shaped like a tiny dick, because of course it is — and put it on my tongue. The taste is pure sugar, nothing else.
Emmeline squeezes my shoulder. “See, that’s not so bad.”
I start to laugh, but the sound is drowned out by a fresh eruption of cheers from the hallway. Apparently someone just did a keg stand in the bathtub.
We drift back to the landing, and Emmeline leans in, lips at my ear. “Besides, you know what Sigma Epsilon Chi spells, right?”
I shake my head, dizzy from the sugar rush and the noise.
She cups her hand around my ear. “S-E-X,” she mouths, and then giggles. “It’s “sex” in Greek letters. Isn’t that clever?”
I try to laugh, but there’s a pang in my stomach, a chill that has nothing to do with the weather outside. The word S-E-X hangs in the air, heavy and electric. I imagine Kent’s face if he could see me now: standing in a stranger’s house, skirt bunched around my waist, eyes watering from vape clouds, surrounded by guys who look like they could pick me up with one hand. I tell myself it’s fine, that I’m safe, but the hairs on the back of my neck are prickling.
We’re halfway back up the stairs when I see him: Clay Newell, in full varsity mode, broad-shouldered and even more imposing than he was at the Italian Club meeting. He’s leaning against the wall, talking to a guy with a man-bun, but when he spots me, his face splits into a slow, wolfy grin.
He pushes off the wall and wades over, parting the crowd with the casual confidence of someone who’s never been told no. “Hey, Mary Kate. Glad you made it.”
His eyes flick from my face to my chest, then down to my boots. The look is not subtle. It’s not even disguised.
“Hi,” I say, then immediately hate myself for how small my voice sounds.
Clay tips his chin at Emmeline. “You want a beer?”
