Chapter Text
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Alysa hops on one leg into her jeans while the other is curled at a haphazard angle trying to make it into the other leg of her pants. She feels herself careen towards the ground and in her terror to right herself, she scoots forward on the carpet – right into the corner of her bed post, where her toe crunches against the wood.
“FUCK.”
“Yo, you good?” She hears someone shout down the hall and does not give it a response, the air sucked out of her lungs from the burn of stubbing her toe that hard.
Deciding that moving on with her life would be the fastest way to pretend that didn’t hurt like a motherfucker is what she does. She slings her messenger back over her shoulder until it’s nestled on the opposite side, a familiar tensile weight against her hip. Swiveling on a leg, she spots her phone and student ID card and grabs them fast before making for a sprint out of her door.
Thanks to her stupid ass phone, somehow, her alarm for class had not gone off – or rather, it had been going off for 45 minutes in silence.
The junior girl flies through the house and sends herself full speed down the staircase, skipping multiple steps at a time until she reaches the front door and yanks it open with a huff. Outside, her bike leans half-fallen over against the railing of their porch and she grunts quietly pulling it upright and down the last few stairs to the sidewalk.
“Late again, Liu?” Jun calls out from where he was lounging on an upside down crate, cigarette in one hand and – was that a Bud Light? At 9AM?
“Fuck off,” Alysa groans, swinging her leg in a wide arc over the seat of the bike until her foot met the other pedal. She kicks into a running start, bangs splitting in the wind with the speed of her movement. She stiffens as she approaches the curb and pulls up with her arms and thighs at the same time to leap the pavement, sailing smoothly onto the road. Then, finally feeling like she was making progress, she begins pedaling at breakneck speed.
The last time she’d specifically looked at the time, it was already 9:15 – she had a five minute ride to the building she needed to be in on campus and it’d be at least another few minutes navigating the interior until she reached her classroom. With any luck, she might arrive just shy of 9:30.
Professor Chock’s voice echoes in her head – thirty minutes or later means you’re absent for the class, and three absences knocks you down a grade.
Was that an annoying, brutal punishment for a class full of adults? Yes, absolutely. Alysa had read plenty of Chock’s reviews on RateMyProfessor before signing up for her course – everyone had rated it difficult and noted how strict the woman was, especially with attendance, but she also couldn’t look past the chili pepper for hotness rating. And thus, willing to go through hell for a hot woman, Alysa signed up for Chock’s section of Self & Identity since it satisfied one of her two needed elective requisites for her psychology minor and might satisfy some other parts of her, too.
Her legs are burning with exertion by the time she turns a street and sees the building she had to be in over twenty minutes ago in the distance, and she is guessing she’s gone bright red. Her bike skids to a rough halt near the rack, not even bothering to lock it up before making for a jog. She taps her ID into the security reader and slams her hip into the push-bar of the door, following the path she’d become plenty familiar with over the course of the semester to Chock’s room.
Through the sliver of a window, she can tell her professor is mid-lecture, arm making a sweeping gesture as she goes through the slides. Grimacing, Alysa inhales softly and pushes the door open and slips in as quietly as she can.
Chock, ever astute, pauses in her sentence and turns her attention to the door.
“Nice of you to join us, Alysa.” The student watches the professor’s eyes drift far above her head to the clock hung above the door before giving a sly smirk. “9:29. Just barely, hm?”
“M’sorry,” Alysa mutters, blush not visible through the redness on her cheeks from the stress of the past fifteen minutes of movement. “My alarm didn’t go off…”
“Mm. Well, please find your seat promptly.”
Yes, Ma’am, Alysa wants to reply, but she doesn’t trust herself to not whine it through her teeth. Her eyes flicker to the class finally and she scans for her usual seat, third row, slightly off to the left as to not be too centered. Not too close to be called on, not too far back to be a bum and – oh, fuck.
Her seat’s taken.
Frowning, she scans for what remains, but given Chock’s quite strict attendance policy the class is never partially empty. Her eyes check each and every row until she makes it back to the front and sees the only option left – front row, dead center.
Could this day get any worse?
Ducking her head in shame, Alysa quickly scuttles to the seat and practically collapses into it, wishing the ground would swallow her whole. Chock inhales tensely before resuming her lecture – my god, did that say slide 18? How did she go through 18 slides in under thirty minutes?
The late girl reaches down into her bag as quietly as she could, cringing as the sound of the zipper resounded in the quiet classroom. Her fingers dug around aimlessly for a while, grasping around for the familiar edges of her notebook. However, when seconds pass without the feeling of it, she looks down and sees that her bag is unusually empty.
Great. She didn’t bring her notebook.
She sits up straight, wondering if everyone around her could tell what a monumental, pathetic mess she was.
Okay. Okay, think. She eyes her classmate to the right and sees he’s typing his notes on his laptop – no dice. She looks to the left and sees a notebook and a manicured hand carefully writing down the professor’s words. Okay. Maybe I can just ask for a page or two…
“Um…” Alysa whispers, leaning in. “Sorry, can I– can I possibly borrow a piece of paper?”
The girl next to her stiffens before turning her neck to look at her. Alysa’s eyes rise from the notebook up until they meet curious blue ones looking back at her.
“I uh… forgot to bring my notebook,” she adds lamely.
Amber Glenn stares at her wordlessly, hand paused in her own notetaking as if the request was that surprising.
Beside her, Isabeau Levito leans forward out of sheer nosiness, eyeing her down too with a cocked eyebrow.
Alysa gulps.
“... Sure,” Amber finally says cordially with a light smile, flipping forward to an empty page before she carefully ripped down the spiral seams. Her hand stretched out to Alysa and put the paper on her desk before resuming to her own notes without much else fanfare.
The junior girl uncaps her pen and begins writing furiously to catch up on the slide given that Chock was near the end of it, all while willing her heartbeat to calm to a softer pulse. She feels her bangs sticking in multiple directions and puts a hand up to her clammy forehead, wiping away the sweat she finds there, and tries to settle in.
Thankfully, the rest of the class passes by without anything remarkably interesting besides her coursework. She’s sad to have been late – Chock was actually one of her favorite professors and the content of the course was actually quite interesting. Plus, she had a near perfect grade and would hate to lose it all from something as brainless as an absence.
When the slideshow reaches its end, she’s not surprised to see that her professor had essentially timed her lecture perfectly to the end of the class as well. Soon, a chorus of zippers and bags rustling about signals that everyone’s patience with time had run thin and Alysa joins in on the mad dash to pack up and leave. She feels a brush of air go past her and glances up to see Amber and Isabeau sweeping out of the classroom elegantly, chattering away about their lunch plans, and zippers her own bag closed.
“Dude,” someone chirps from the row above her. “You really cut it close today.”
Alysa frowns. “I know,” she sighs with a groan as she stands up from her chair. She turns slightly to look at Mikhail Shaidarov, who had been seated near where she normally sat. It felt weird sitting apart from him for the whole class. “I think the iPhone update legit ruined my alarms. I swear I set it for 8:30 but then I woke up at 9:15 to it just buzzing as quiet as a fucking mouse, man.”
“Oh, yeah. I saw a TikTok of someone complaining about that the other day.”
“It’s so screwed up, dude, seriously.”
“Well, at least you didn’t get dinged for it. But anyways, are you going to go grab food at the caf’?”
Alysa hums. Normally, she had enough time in the morning to grab a bagel on the way into class and she’d gnaw on it hungrily through the entire lecture, but time hadn’t afforded her such a luxury that day. Her stomach growls as if on cue. “Yeah, but not for too long. I have a class in an hour, so I kinda just want something light.”
“You say that now, but I feel like I’m going to blink and you’ll be on your fourth pancake or something.”
The girl grins, moving subtly to signal Mikhail they should get walking towards the cafeteria. He dutifully follows and then they were on a quick stride across the campus lawn. When they reach the cafeteria, Alysa watches Mikhail’s phone slide out of his pocket into his hand, reading a text closely before lifting to scan the entire room. The boy glances back down, squinting again, and then looks back up more seriously this time at a very specific area – off in the corner of the huge dining hall, Alysa spots Ilia Malinin, Cha Junhwan, and Yuma Kagiyama waving frantically at them.
“Oh, over there,” she says helpfully with a point. Mikhail grins and surges ahead of Alysa towards the table where the three boys had reserved them seats.
“Sup?”
“Whaddup whaddup,” Alysa croons, sliding onto the bench. “Wait, Ilia, don’t you have class right now?”
“Canceled last minute. Was literally standing right outside the room with like forty other people and someone shouted it out like they were Paul Revere. Professor had an emergency and couldn’t make it in.”
“Lucky son of a bitch…”
“Yup, yup, yup.”
“So you’re done for the day then?”
Somehow, Ilia had gamed the semester scheduling gods and only had one course per day – that explained his proclivity to gaming and getting stoned on the frathouse couch. And yet somehow, the boy managed to squeeze in several workouts a week to the point where his physique betrayed no secrets to the multitude of Hershey’s bars he consumed. He was a walking anomaly.
“Indeed I am. Gives me pleeeenty of time to take a nap for the initiation shit later tonight,” Ilia drawls, interlocking his fingers behind his head as he leaned back.
Alysa inhales slowly at the reminder, feeling nervous. Her new frat, Pi Sigma Tau, was due for another initiation ritual tonight and she had not a single inkling what would be in her future. She’d heard horrors - buckets of honey and feathers one year, cups full of a concoction of hot sauce and Bud Light and vegetable oil and mayo and somehow two McDonald’s chicken nugget cups blended up and served with a straw another year, and a weird spanking scandal that went somewhat viral and almost got them de-chartered.
“I don’t want to think about it,” Alysa mutters, letting her head fall into her hands.
“Me neither,” Jun added, frowning. “So we just show up at those GPS coordinates at 10PM? Did anyone look up where ti is?”
Mikhail sits up straighter, holding out his phone. “Yeah, I did actually. It’s right in the cul-de-sac on sorority row. Look, here,” he explains, zooming in on Google Maps to the dropped pin. He wasn’t wrong – the mysterious rendezvous point was the exact end of the street where all of the college’s sorority houses were grouped together. Though the thought made Alysa somewhat nauseous, she was no stranger to sorority row. Plenty a night she’d snuck over there, darting through bushes and climbing trellises into a girl’s room for a midnight tryst. The issue here was more that she’d be there with dozens of other pledges for some sort of coordinated humiliation ritual.
“And the instructions are just to… show up and bring nothing?”
“Yup.”
“... Fantastic,” Yuma squeaks.
The four frat pledges shared a glance with each other, clearly not looking forward to that night. At the lull in conversation, Alysa decides it’s a perfect time to stand up and go try to swallow down what food she could stomach before her next class – after that, all she had planned was downtime back at the house. Then, initiation.
+++
Hours later, nestled into sorority row, Amber and Isabeau were sprawled out on the floor of their living room on the soft, white fur rug. The Chi Lambda Delta sorority house was a sanctuary amid parties and the steady hum of student activity outside. It was not by coincidence, either – their sorority was somewhat notorious for being full of prudish, booksmart, grade-focused girls who wanted to partake in Greek life without sacrificing their career goals. Sure, it made for a boring Friday night every so often, but neither Amber nor Isabeau were particularly mad about it. They partied as much as they desired and didn’t feel like they were victims to the grit and grime of campus Greek life.
“I have like, ten pages left,” Isabeau remarks softly, thumbing through the pages of her textbook. “You?”
“Around the same, thank God,” Amber sighs.
The two had been doing their required reading for over two hours now and freedom was in sight. Every Friday, once the school week had wrapped, they had a long-standing date for outdoor enclosure time where they’d curl up on the porch rockers with blankets, gossiping endlessly about their week and school and the latest drama they were aware of. Music would be playing softly from someone’s phone depending on who had the DJ position last – if it was Isabeau, it was probably some frat-adjacent hip-hop playlist with someone like Olivia Rodrigo sprinkled in. If it was Amber, they were not escaping emo music and a Paramore headbanger here and there. Sometimes, they also gave themselves a generous pour of wine to sip on until the night air got too cold to bear. Tonight would definitely be one of those nights with the long, study-filled week Amber had.
Minutes later, Amber jumps as Isabeau slaps her textbook closed abruptly.
“Yes! Done!”
The blonde glances down and sees she has two paragraphs left – she lazily skims them for good measure before softly closing her own textbook and grinning at Isabeau, who immediately launched into the known routine.
The brunette grabbed the two folded blankets and practically pranced into the kitchen to open one of the various fridges. In the door sat a chilled screwtop bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, which she grabbed by the neck before craning into the nearby cabinet for two wine glasses.
Amber had tidied up the living room, tucking her and Isabeau’s things into a neat pile on the nearby coffee table before she heard the swinging screen door open and close as proof Isabeau had beaten her outside. With a hustle in her step, the senior student made her way outdoors and found Isabeau settling into her designated rocker while carefully draping a blanket over her lap. The small table between the two chairs was occupied by the wine bottle, already warming with condensation, and the two empty glasses. Before Amber sat down herself, she cracked the screwtop and poured generously into her and Isabeau’s glasses.
“Now that is the pour I’m looking for when I order at the bar,” Isabeau laughs, reaching out to grip the stem and bring the wine closer to her lips. She takes an indulgent sip before sighing as if she’d just ran a marathon. “Oh, yes.”
“You sound like an alcoholic,” Amber mocks. “Needed it that bad?”
“You have no idea.”
“Are you just stressing about finals, or…?”
“Yes and no,” Isabeau sighs, shimmying to get more comfortable in her rocker. “Like, yes because finals exist and I’m studying for them, but I also just applied to like, one million different internships this week and I feel like time is just ticking, y’know? So this week just felt like… a lot.”
“Mm,” hums the senior, having felt that same urgency to solidify her future. She recalls her own junior year fondly, where the intensity of needing something lined up had felt just as strong as Isabeau had been experiencing. However, in her senior year, she’d softened just slightly. She trusted that she’d find the right fit, either an internship or a position contingent on graduation. She’d been putting in the work, having maintained her 4.0 for seven straight semesters amid plenty of extracurriculars.
It would happen how she dreamed. Right?
It had to. She couldn’t afford to imagine any other outcome than success.
“Don’t worry, Isababy. We’ll get through this together.”
“Cheers to that,” the junior student sings with a smile, holding her glass up towards Amber’s. The glass clinked together and they fell into a comfortable silence for a few moments, breathing in the cool air.
The two were about to launch into their usual routine of gossip when they hear commotion down the road. It sounded like an almost militaristic hoo rah, way too many voices at once to be just a loud conversation that was echoing on sorority row.
“What is that?” Isabeau had questioned aloud, rocking forward as if it would help her see down several houses.
The raucous, rhythmic cheers continued and Amber watches several windows on other sorority houses flick alight, faces coming to windows out of curiosity.
Suddenly, without much transition, those hoots and hollers had turned into something more akin to terror. The sound sends a chill up Amber’s spine and she stops in her gentle rocking motion, planting her two feet on the floor. Isabeau too had frowned and stilled. Most confusingly, she hears cackles of laughter amid the screams.
“It’s probably just some students fucking around–” Amber had began to rationalize, rolling her eyes, when Isabeau lets out a blended gasp-laugh.
“Oh my god.”
The blonde’s eyes follow the path of the brunette’s, unsure what could be the cause of all of this noise, when Cha Junhwan came sprinting down the street ass naked, hands cradling his manhood, sheer fear crumpling his facial expression.
Amber blinks, feeling assaulted by the visual and unable to comprehend what exactly she was even looking at. “What the f–”
Then, Mikhail Shaidarov came shortly after Jun, equally screaming, equally naked. Behind him, a fully clothed man chased him with an evil grin, clapping loudly as if to spur the boy on faster. “Yeah, pledge! You better run!”
Beside her, Isabeau breaks out into a screaming laughter at the same time that quite literally dozens of other pledges appeared on the sorority row road, nude as the day they were born and being chased by enthusiastic fraternity brothers. It was like the Running of the Bulls in Spain, except replace the cows with scrawny fraternity boys of all body sizes and shapes.
Amber’s eyes are just wide in pure shock and disbelief when Yuma Kagiyama speeds past, far out of reach of the fraternity brother egging him on. She absently wonders when this parade of skin may end when she sees Mikhail wipe out directly on their lawn, tumbling through the grass unceremoniously with an oof so audible she could hear it from the porch.
The poor boy has no time to recover before Ilia Malinin is leaping over him like a stag, and then Amber screams – that boy hadn’t even bothered to hide anything, arms swinging proud and free at his side, everything out for the world to see.
“Oh, what the hell,” Amber laments, covering her eyes in disgust. Isabeau’s laughs beside her just pitched to a new octave, accompanied by amused claps. “Tell me when he’s gone, please,” she begged, eyes squeezed shut in protest behind her fingers.
“Oh my god,” the junior wheezed, bent over in her rocker. “This is so fucking insane. This must be some sort of initiation thing.”
Amber’s brows furrowed and she wondered if she could open her eyes without seeing some random pledge’s dick swinging in the wind. “Okay, sure, but why is it in front of our house?”
“Because it’s funnier? You can look again, by the way. Ilia is gone now.”
Her hand fell to her lap and she opened an eye experimentally, relieved to indeed find both Mikhail and Ilia gone. Some stragglers had been at the back and she averts her gaze with raised eyebrows and prayed for this nonsense to be over soon.
“What the hell is going on out here?” A voice questions next to her. Amber glances sidelong to see Ellie Kam in her pajamas, eyemask pushed up into her hair on her head, arms crossed in annoyance.
“Frat nonsense,” Amber replies dully.
“Ayo, ayo, wait, hold on, PLEASE,” they all hear a voice beg, quickly getting louder as it got closer. Curiously, she brought her gaze to the source of the noise and found Alysa Liu running feverishly to keep out of reach from a fraternity brother behind her who was trying to trip her up amid her own torture, devilishly grinning.
One hand was tucked over her groin while the other was pressed against her chest, desperately trying to maintain a sense of decency and mostly failing.
“Oh,” Ellie remarks quietly, and Amber is surprised to see a blush dusting the girl’s cheeks. “That’s Alysa Liu.”
“We know,” Isabeau says with an eye roll, sipping at her wine now that the shock of the situation had faded off. Sure, yeah, like dozens of naked boys streaking in front of their sorority house was simply run of the mill. “She’s in one of our classes.”
On cue, Alysa sprints past the front of their lawn, and Amber watches her give a horrified, apologetic glance over to them before she continued on her sprint past the next house.
“Cute butt,” Ellie hum with something like a predatory stare.
“Ew,” Isabeau mocks, curling her lip in disgust. “You’re into that… that… stoner?”
Ellie just shrugs and grins. “I don’t know, Isa. I’ve just heard things about her.”
Amber raises a brow and takes a sip of her own wine, curiosity piqued. Alysa Liu had been a name that was known around campus, sure, but she often tuned out that category of gossip. “What kind of things?”
Their sorority sister leaned a shoulder against the door, letting her gaze fall away as the parade of pledges seemingly ended. “Like… that it’s huge,” she murmurs conspiratorially with a waggle of her eyebrows. “My friend that hooked up with her said so, at least. Kind of sad she had it covered just now,” Ellie muses forlornly.
If she were stood in front of a mirror, Amber was sure she’d have turned as red as a cherry tomato.
Isabeau mimics a gag beside her in addition to the sound. “Blegh. Please, no more.”
At that, Amber sits up and grips her glass of wine with an eye roll. “Agree. This really ruined our outdoor enclosure time. Want to just hang in my room, Isa?”
“Yes please,” the younger agrees with a huff, gathering her blanket and the bottle on the side table. “I swear, Pi Sigma Tau is actually one of the most annoying frats. Why can’t they just be, like, normal? Not annoying, perhaps?”
“They’d have to not be men for that to be a reality,” Amber replies flatly.
“Explain Alysa Liu then,” Isabeau mutters under her breath. At that, the blonde just hums and shrugs as they retreat inside to their sanctuary.
+++
A week later, Amber is packing up from her Self & Identity lecture. However, she’s moving slow as Professor Chock stands at the front of the room, in the way of all her students’ exit, with a stack of their essays, graded and notated. Amber gulps in anticipation – the essay she’d turned in a week ago hadn’t been something she’d call her best. Her thesis felt weak and her conclusions were never the strongest. Plus, she’d been helping with so many sorority initiatives the week she’d written it that she just hadn’t really put her whole mind forward for the task. She knew it was half-assed, and still handed it in because she had no choice nor time.
Isabeau moves to get in the queue to get her paper back, and Amber is a step behind her – but then somehow, Alysa Liu swoops in front of her with a sheepish grin. The blonde just blinks and settles behind her classmate, lips in a flat line.
She’s too far away to hear her professor’s remarks about Isabeau’s paper and makes a note to ask the girl once they were outside, but then Alysa stepped up in front of Chock dramatically with a grin.
Amber expects the professor to roll her eyes, but instead, she just meets the grin equally.
“Liu. You really are something, you know that?”
“Mhmmm,” Alysa hums happily.
“I haven’t given a grade like this in years, so I won’t lie when I say I was shocked to be giving it to you–” Amber cranes her neck curiously and – what the fuck. Was that a 100/100 grade? “But genuinely, I really enjoyed reading your paper. You should consider submitting this to one of the student publications if you aren’t already.”
The blonde-and-brown-haired girl’s head falls softly, nervously. “Ha, thanks. Really. I’ll uh, consider it. Yeah.”
“Fantastic job again,” Chock says warmly before turning her gaze to Amber, signaling the conversation to be over. Alysa just steps away and then Amber felt the weight of paper in her hands. With a smile, she looks down, and –
“I’ve seen better from you, Glenn.”
What?
72/100.
Oh shit.
Not a failure by official standards, but the gap between 72 and 100 feels as wide as a canyon as Amber holds the paper in her hand. Quickly, she calculates the syllabus grade weights – essays were worth 50% of her grade. She was coasting at a high 94 right now with a multitude of assignments and exams already in the system. This would… hit her, for real, and threatened her streak of straight A’s.
“...Yeah,” Amber just manages pitifully, swallowing down the tightness in her throat. “I know.”
Chock frowns at her and Amber wants to die. She didn’t do well with disappointment.
“But hey, listen. You’re doing great in this class. I don’t always do this, but if you are interested in rewriting this, I’d be willing to grade you again. If it’s better, I’ll update your grade to be an average of the two. Are you interested?”
The blonde nods furiously, latching onto the hope. “Yes, oh my gosh, yeah. Thank you for even offering that–” Amber rambles, starting to trip over her own words.
Chock held a hand up, having heard the various rantings and ramblings of hundreds and thousands of students before her. Even if it was well-intended, she’d rather just cut to the chase. “Like I said, you’re doing great in this class, so I figure this was just… circumstantial. Give me a new draft back before the final and let’s talk.”
“Yes, absolutely. Thanks so much again, Professor.”
“Of course. See you next week, Amber.”
At that, Amber scurried out of the class and found Isabeau waiting outside with confusion writ across her face. She sees the stressed blush on Amber’s face and steps forward in concern.
“You okay?”
Amber just twists the paper that was in the steel grip of her hand, showing her friend the grade with pursed lips.
“Oh. Ouch.”
“Yeah… but Chock said I could rewrite it and resubmit it by the end of the semester. Which is like, beyond kind, but I also have so many other assignments before exams start to hit and I don’t know where I am going to fit this in. I could just die instead,” the blonde muses.
“Shh,” Isabeau chides, shaking her head. “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”
The two turn to walk to their next classes, but Amber can’t help but have her thoughts drift to the clean, precise grade on the top of Alysa’s essay. A perfect fucking grade. A girl from Pi Sigma Tau, famously the stoner-filled fraternity that barely held onto its status as a fraternity on the college’s charter year after year, full of the rejects that failed to rush to the more established frats. So by what right, by what blessing of the academic gods, did one of their misfits have to completely ace an essay for one of the most notoriously strict graders in the Psychology department?
It was the second time in twenty-four hours that Amber had learned something about Alysa Liu against her will. However, both facts were, undoubtedly, interesting.
+++
True to her fears, Amber barely sees the outside of her room’s four walls for an entire week after that. Cooped up in the desperate throes of the near-end of the semester, she’d been glued to her laptop finalizing presentations, essays, and studying for exams all the while.
Four years of grinding on her studies, extracurriculars, and sorority standing had afforded Amber the luxury of having her own room in the sorority house. It was one of the most sought after amenities given to her and her alone as the president of the sorority.
Isabeau, her vice president, would inherit her privilege next year when she graduated – and the girl sure brought it up often. In that past week alone, Isabeau had visited her in her dungeon of studies, yapping endlessly about how she’d change the color of the walls once she moved in there, how she’d rearrange the furniture. Amber had just nodded absently while reading her textbook and Isabeau had taken the signal to leave her alone at some point.
It was a solitude she’d imposed onto herself to stay on track – the slip she’d experienced with Self & Identity could not happen in any of her other courses.
Anything less than an A was failure. The reminder, paternal and shadowy, echoed in her mind. She shook her head to dispel the thought.
Outside, she heard the excited chitter chatter of girls. She glanced at the digital clock on her desk – 9:32PM on a Friday. She imagined those who were keen would be getting ready to go to some party, probably at whatever fraternity was hosting that night. She had no strong desire to partake, but the reminder that she couldn’t be social right then sits heavy in her stomach.
A knock at her door snaps her out of her prison.
“Come in,” she calls over her shoulder. She figures it’s Isabeau and she’s right when the girl softly pads in.
“Hi againnnn,” Isabeau sings, and Amber turns curiously. The girl sounds loose. Relaxed. She squints at the flush sitting high on the girl’s cheekbones.
“... Did you already start drinking?”
“Well yes! We did some shots downstairs since we’re leaving soon.”
“Where are you guys going?”
At the question, as if reminded of a miserable truth, Isabeau collapses onto Amber’s bed with a pout. “Ugh. Pi Sigma Tau. It’s like, the one big party they hold.”
“Ah, yeah,” Amber admits honestly. Pi Sigma Tau wasn’t particularly known for throwing ragers nor daygers, but once a year when the fraternity brothers pooled all their funds, they’d throw one massive blowout to celebrate the weird week just before final exams where students simply needed to let loose. Liquor would be freely flowing, and they often found a decent DJ to keep bodies moving happily.
“You should coooome,” Isabeau whines, sitting up to give Amber her best puppy-dog eyes.
“I can’t…”
“Oh, c’mon. You’re not going to finish everything you have to do tonight, so why not take some time for yourself? All you do is study, Amber, really.”
The blonde shifts uncomfortably at the accusation. “I go out sometimes…”
Isabeau glares at her. “Sitting on our porch once a week with wine is not going out though we are outside. I mean going out out.”
Amber gives a small, sheepish smile and tries to fight back a bit. “Isabeau, really, I have so much to do…”
Isabeau leans forward, pout growing even cuter. “C’mooon. You graduate next semester and you’re going to leave me here all alone. Won’t you wish you had come out with me one more time?”
“You talk about me like we aren’t going to likely still hang out all the time.”
The younger girl shrugs casually, clapping her hands together. “You never know! But really, Amber. Pleaaaase?”
The senior glances at the spread of papers on her desk and the slight burn of her eyes from staring at words for so long. She really hadn’t been out in a while – the last party she’d been to had been around midterms, and then she knew she’d had to lock in.
She gives one final attempt to weasel out of it. “Won’t we like… probably not even get in?”
The brunette huffs at that, shrugging. “Listen, if these frat bros really care about their ratio, they will let us in. I have faith.”
The blonde stares back at her, disbelieving. There had been too many times where they’d migrated to some frat party and been turned away, or let inside in piecemeal. Chi Lambda Delta sorority had a bit of a… reputation… for being buzzkills. Amber didn’t take it personally – she knew one day she wouldn’t really care about the parties she went to if it meant she’d stayed home to secure herself a better career.
“Isabeau…”
“Amber, I’m begging youuu,” Isabeau whines again. Amber sighs – it was hard to say no to the girl.
“Alright. Fine. But I’m not getting dressed up or anything, okay?”
“You are so boring but I can allow this if it means you at least come out.”
Amber laughs at that and stands up from her desk, and Isabeau immediately clears out of her path and goes to inform the rest of the girls she’d managed to get Amber in on their shenanigans.
The sorority president stripped out of her cozy clothes into something simple – black jeans and a black halter top that left her midriff exposed. Sure, she’d be cold as fuck on the walk, but she hated carrying a jacket and her abs were an accessory in itself.
Before they’re even out the door, a shot is pushed into her hand by a conniving Isabeau – for you to catch up, she’d said with a grin. Amber grimaced as she threw back the tequila, feeling it burn and singe down her throat, before handing the shot glass back to her vice president.
The Chi Lambda Delta gaggle made its way over to Pi Sigma Tau, moving as one conglomerate mass, cutting across streets and greenlights with giggles as cars honked. They weren’t unique by any means – all around them, the campus had come alive with students looking for the nearest party. The anonymity quells Amber’s anxiety about leaving her studies behind, the thought comforting that she wasn’t the only one who had put things aside for the night.
The walk to fraternity row takes them a bit, but it goes fast with Isabeau and Ellie sounding like two birds chirping in her ear endlessly.
When they arrive, the Pi Sigma Tau house is swamped. Seems everyone on campus had also realized this was the one big rager they had to go to. Students teemed everywhere, milling about on the lawn with red solo cups in hand. The porch was shoulder-to-shoulder with a group of boys hanging over the railing, cheering on two girls making out beneath them as though spectators at a Roman coliseum. Somehow, people were even laid out on the roof, seemingly having gotten there by crawling out one of the attic windows and making their way to the roof’s crest. Amber wonders if tonight may end in ambulances for anyone.
Their group amasses near the entrance where the designated pledges were vibe-checking – Amber gulps to see Ilia Malinin stood strict at the door, arms crossed. He looked every bit the part with obnoxious aviator sunglasses on though it was 10PM, a white tanktop, and acid washed black jeans.
She steels herself and drifts to the front of the pack, ready to debate her sorority’s entrance.
Ilia sizes her up the second he sees her, grin taking over his face. “Oh, hell no.”
Amber feels anger bubble up in her as she comes to a pause in front of him. Isabeau naturally sidles up next to her, brows furrowed and arms crossed.
“Why not?” Isabeau spits, tilting her head. Amber puts her hand on the girl’s arm to calm her and remain diplomatic.
Amber restarts their intro again. “Ilia. How are you?”
“Amber. Just swell.”
Amber nods at his lack of returning the nicety and glances over to the groups on the lawn. “Your ratio seems pretty off, you know.”
“It’ll fix itself eventually,” Ilia hums, not perturbed by Amber’s observation.
“Isn’t it like, your only job to keep the ratio girl-heavy? Isn’t that all your fraternity thinks you know how to do anyway?”
At that, Ilia twitches with recognition. It was true. Even though he held power then, he’d really been given the most menial task at the party while his fraternity brothers were inside, drinking happily and vibing to the music.
“Shut up,” is all the blond boy manages. Amber sees Isabeau crack a smile. “But yeah, hell no. You guys are not going in.” Ilia nods his chin towards the sorority president. “You’re probably going to ask someone what grade they got on an assignment last week.”
“I resent that,” Amber remarks with a frown. “I should get to relax too, sometimes, y’know.”
“Didn’t think it was possible with how far that stick is up your ass,” Ilia mutters.
“Hey.” Isabeau steps forward, territorial.
“Ladies, ladies, what goes on over here?” A smug voice chimes in from behind, appearing in the doorway. “Ilia, you keeping pretty girls out of the party?”
Alysa appears in front of them and Amber takes her in – she had a mesh top that hung loosely over her frame, a black tanktop snug around her midriff beneath, and ripped black jeans. A choker curled around her muscled neck and she had enough rings on to set off a metal detector. A black bomber jacket draped casually over her shoulders.
“‘Lys, don’t get involved,” Ilia groans, wiping a hand over his face in annoyance. That just spurs Alysa even closer.
“Nah, man, don’t get upset. Why are you turning them away, anyways?”
The pledge-bouncer looks at the sorority girls with pity. He was, thankfully, too kind to lay out that their sorority’s clout was minimal. Instead, he splutters for a second. “No one will vouch for them,” he starts. Having someone who could prove you were chill was the make-or-break at the door of parties.
Alysa rubs a finger over her lip boredly, as if contemplating something. She glances at all of Chi Lambda Delta staring back at her, knowing she held the fate of their night in her hands. Brown eyes find Amber’s blue ones, and she sees a devious glint sparkle in them.
“I’ll vouch for ‘em.”
Beside her, Isabeau nearly gasps but contains herself. To her other side, Ellie lets out a whoop of a cheer.
Ilia’s eyebrows shoot up in shock visibly above his aviators. “Wha–”
“No, yeah. They’re chill, trust me. But only on one condition.”
“What?” Isabeau asks Alysa eagerly, voice wavering with inebriation. Amber can tell that the pre-game tequila had really started to settle in with her, because in any other conversation she’d probably be rolling her eyes at the blonde-and-brown-haired girl.
“Amber plays doubles with me in beer pong.”
What the fuck?
The sorority president can’t even react before she feels firm hands at her back, nudging her forward.
“Deal!” Ellie says gleefully as Amber finds her balance, suddenly much closer to both Ilia and Alysa who stare at her with amusement. The blonde whips around, scandalized to be offered up like a sacrifice to the mouth of lions.
“I did not–”
“She’d love to!” Isabeau adds, looking at Amber with an expression that managed to communicate do this for us and you will be reborn a lotus flower. The responsibility of president reminds her of its ever-present weight on her shoulders.
Alysa’s eyes find her in an unhurried manner, assessing. Her gaze started at her shoes , raking up her body slowly, and Amber figures it ended somewhere it shouldn’t before watching the younger girl’s eyes shoot up to her face coyly. This was not the fumbling, stumbling Alysa she often was subjected to in class or around campus. This one was… confident. Maybe because she had the upper hand? Amber swallowed nervously.
Alysa was now leaning a shoulder against the doorframe with that same easy, unbothered manner, one hand tucked loosely in her back pocket. She wasn't staring anymore – she’d already half-turned towards Ilia, exchanging some low words that made the boy scrub at his jaw in irritated resignation.
"Fine," Amber huffs, mostly to Alysa's side. "Beer pong. Deal."
Alysa turned, and the corner of her mouth pulled slow into something lopsided and warm
"Knew you'd come around, Glenn."
She turns back to her girls, who are already flooding gratefully past Ilia with the energy of hostages released. Isabeau squeezes her arm as she passes, eyes bright, and Amber feels the familiar settling of responsibility. Her girls in varying states of inebriation who would make questionable decisions tonight and needed at least one person keeping a loose hand on the wheel, and that had to be her, even if that meant giving herself over to a game of beer pong she did not want to play.
When she turns back, Alysa is holding the door open for the last of them, unhurried, like she's done this a thousand times. Her eyes find Amber's once more.
"After you, Amber."
The two girls slipped into the house, which was more packed than a tin of sardines. Alysa easily filtered through the bodies, clapping some people on the back with a relaxed heyyyy on her path, and Amber just followed along with determination to not lose her in the crowd.
They make their way to the dining room connected to the kitchen, where a table has been mostly cleared to accommodate two triangles of red solo cups. Scattered on the middle of the table sat crunched beer cans, empty bags of chips, and a half-full bottle of tequila. Bracketing the table was a surprising amount of spectators, eyes flitting from left to right as the pong ball flew its arc from side to side.
As they approached, a raucous cheer sounded from one half of the room and Amber watches the pong ball swirl on the rim of a red solo cup before settling inside.
“Ah-hah!” A boy barked on the throwing side, pumping his fist. “Alright, rerack ‘em boys.”
Amber watches Yuma and Jun on other side of the table begrudgingly start to rearrange the remaining three cups into a singular, vertical line. She also tries to not recall how much of them she saw the other night.
“Hey, no no, do a triangle.”
This seemed much more serious than she thought. The other half agrees to the triangle rerack and then the game resumed. In the span, she glances at Alysa who had nestled her way in between Ilia and Jun and was, assumedly, sharing words of encouragement. She felt a bit abandoned in her spot and shuffled closer awkwardly, waiting for her half of the agreement to be fulfilled. I better not have to sit here and watch people play beer pong for another thirty minutes.
In the next second, the two boys on the winning half of the table both took their shots and sunk them easily into the cups. Yuma and Jun stared in horror before removing the ball and staring at their singular remaining cup.
“You guys got this,” Alysa cheers, stepping away to give them the space to throw.
They in fact did not have it. Both attempts to sink a ball into their opponents’ cups went flying, and Amber watches with amusement as Alysa skittered after the ball each time, even crawling underneath a table to get it.
“Bro,” Jun whines, running a hand through his hair. “We’re cooked.”
“Nah, nah, we have a chance here, they might not–”
His words are cut off by a ball plopping into their remaining cup, and then screams and cheers from the other half of the dining room. Amber flinches at the volume for a moment and then Alysa’s hand was on her elbow.
“Alright, we’re up next. You know how to play, right?”
The sorority president semi-blanches and looks down at Alysa, lips pursed. “Uh…”
The junior student barks out a laugh with her head thrown back, and Amber catches the glint of something behind her upper lip. They’d never been this close for her to have seen it before, and she surmises it’s some sort of degenerate-level piercing.
“Of course you haven’t, Little Miss Perfect. No worries, you’re looking at the best beer pong player in this house right now.”
At that, Yuma scoffs next to them. “Dude, you fucking suck at beer pong.”
“Hey!” Alysa defends indignantly, shrinking a bit. There’s the easy-to-pick-on girl Amber was more familiar with. “I do not…”
The exchange makes Amber raise an eyebrow. “I really don’t like losing at things, so I hope you’re telling the truth, Alysa.”
“She’s not, bro. Good luck!” Jun gives a grinning smile before the pair of them fade off into the spectator sidelines.
The swagger confidence Alysa had embodied from the door to the beer pong table seemed to fade a bit having been called out, and Amber watches her nervously fumble about the table to rearrange the red solo cups in a triangle of 4, 3, 2, and 1-wide rows. The sorority president leans forward to see what’s in them and is relieved to find what appears to be just water. She’d once heard that you had to drink what was in the cups if the ball went in, even if said ball had just rolled across a sticky fraternity floor, picking up hair and dust and chip crumbs.
Alysa, proud of her racking work, stood up straight suddenly and looks at Amber with her hands on her hips. “Alright. So, like, I’m assuming you know the bare minimum here – you throw a ball and want to land it in their cups.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We can request like, one rerack at some point, which just means that we ask them to rearrange the cups how we want. I think a triangle is easier but if you’re a straight shot, a line might be easier.”
Amber pockets that information for later.
“And uh, when you throw, you need to watch your elbows. If your elbow is over the edge of the table they can call it and then the shot is forfeited. And every time the other team gets a ball in our cups, we have to take a drink.” The word drink seems to shock Alysa back to realization. “Wait, you don’t have a drink. What do you want? I’ll get it,” she offers fast, head tilting happily at the task.
“Do you guys have anything that isn’t cheap beer?”
“Nope!”
Amber sighs and looks around, spotting the tequila bottle. “What’s that for, then?”
Alysa follows her gaze and grins. “Oh! That’s for elbow calls. We like to make people take a shot if they get caught.”
“... Can I just drink that?”
“Straight?! Amber Glenn, I didn’t know you had that dog in you," Alysa purrs.
The blonde does not even know how to react to that but just gives Alysa a small smile as the younger scrambles to get a clean solo cup and fills it with, under any other circumstance, would be a sickening amount of tequila to drink. Amber takes a sip and grimaces, but figures this would be better than the piss-warm beer pumped out of some keg elsewhere.
The two boys on the other side of the table seem irritated over the delay of game and Alysa banters with them for a bit to Amber’s amusement. Her shittalking is clumsy and simple – a lot of your mom thrown in there – but somehow, she convinces the opposing team to let them take the first shots as it was Amber’s first ever time playing.
Alysa’s fingers brush against her own as she’s handed a damp ping pong ball. “I dipped it in the water. Helps it throw better, I think.” Amber shivers at the weird sensation and situates herself in the center of the table, eyeing down the triangle on the other end. She swivels her arm a bit to test her awareness before launching it across and–
Right into the cup it lands.
“Whoa! Nice shot,” Alysa says, smacking an appreciative hand on Amber’s back. The blonde freezes at the touch and swivels her head to look at the younger girl, who goes bright red at the realization of what she’s just done. She rubs a hand at the back of her neck and ducks her head shyly. “Uh… sorry.”
Alysa takes the next shot and it soars high over the cups, right over the table. She blushes even redder. “It’s been a while…”
The other team gets both of their shots in – Amber feels competitiveness flare up in her, right alongside the burn of taking a swig of tequila in punishment to the sunk cups, annoyed to be one cup behind. As expected, her shot lands easily and Alysa’s flounders, bouncing on the rims of the cups before rolling onto the table. She just groans and glares at the girl next to her whose hinged her entire attendance at this party on this game, and now she may even lose. Of course, it’s followed up by their opponents sinking two more cups.
“Why are you so good at this,” Alysa laments to her, knowing she was dragging their chances down.
“I did archery growing up. Makes the hand-eye coordination easy,” she replies. She does not let on that she was a national champion or any other thing she could easily gloat about – Alysa had no right to know all that, and didn’t need to, anyways.
“Damn, cool. I should just let you throw my shot then, huh?”
Amber latches onto the concept. “Actually, yes, you should – give me that,” she commands, and Alysa nearly folds over in her haste to hand the blonde the second ball.
The sorority president lines up her shots and sinks both, holding her hands up in a, what, did that upset you? gesture at the two other boys. Her glory, however, is short lived.
“Nah, she had elbows!”
“Forreal, I saw elbows. Redo those shots.”
“What? I did not, my elbows were perfectly clear behind the table,” Amber defends vehemently, checking where she stood as she spoke. To her horror, she finds she is indeed leaning quite far over the edge of the table – fuck her life, it was definitely the liquor making her lose her wherewithal.
The boys on the other end grin and nod their chins to the tequila bottle. “Shoooots, girls. Drink up!”
Most terrifyingly, Alysa reaches for the bottle and takes a swig out of it directly – eugh, Amber thinks – and hands it over to the blonde kindly. She tries not to think about how many lips had been on that bottle when she takes a healthy gulp, face crumpling at the burn of the liquor before resuming the game.
Thankfully, now that both opportunities to throw were in Amber’s hands, they make a fantastic comeback with no more elbow calls. The game stands that Amber and Alysa have two cups left, and the boys have one.
She has two chances to make it – and clears it on the first attempt, the ball circling dramatically for effect before plunking into the water.
“Man, what the fuuuuck,” one of the boys groans, shocked to have been gotten by a first-timer sorority president and Alysa Liu. “Rigged as hell.”
“How can you even rig beer pong?” Alysa questions with a grin.
“Wherever the hell you found her,” the other accuses with a weak point before throwing his hands up in defeat and trailing away from the table.
“Suck it,” Amber replies to her own shock – not in her usual vernacular, but she thinks the alcohol burning in her throat and slight, fuzzy feeling in her cheeks may be proof enough that she’s loosening up. Alysa just lets out a melodious laugh next to her and, despite the earlier fumble, once again finds her hand navigating to rest on Amber’s back.
This time, the blonde says nothing, reveling in how it feels like Alysa’s thanking her here. However, the touch does make her realize that she’s feeling quite sweaty and hot. The dining room over the course of their game had become quite packed, and she needed some fresh air. Curiously, she looks over at Alysa and sees the girl in a similar state, hair frizzing and bangs sticking to her forehead. They share a glance and Alysa’s half-lidded eyes look back at her warmly, a corner of her smile tilting.
“You want to step outside for a sec?” Alysa offers, nodding her head to the front door.
Amber nods, putting her now-empty solo cup on the table. She’d probably consumed at least three shots’ worth of tequila in the last thirty minutes, and it was starting to show. “Yes, please,” she hums happily.
The two make their way outside and away from the buzz and chatter of everyone outside. It smells like cigarettes and stale beer even out here in the fresh air and Amber is thankful when Alysa takes them away from the noise, further onto the lawn where the party fades into the background.
Amber realizes, suddenly, that she has no real obligation to be there with Alysa but for some reason she can’t extract herself from the situation anymore. Her mind’s gone blurry, and she’s warm and cold at the same time, and the mud of the grass feels grounding beneath her shoes. She crosses her arms, a chill raising her skin to goosebumps, when Alysa looks over at her and seems extremely dismayed.
“Are you cold?”
“A bit, but it’s okay. The air feels nice.”
“Nah, no way. Here,” she starts, slipping out of her bomber jacket and handing it over to Amber. It smells softer than she expects – like jasmine and cedar, comforting and clean. The sorority president awkwardly slides her arms into it, her breath catching at the body heat that still remained in the fabric, before nodding in appreciation quietly.
The younger girl hums at the acceptance and tries to put her hands in her jean pockets but awkwardly misses them – Amber watches with a smirk on her face as she seems to flounder, suddenly removed from the heat of the party, the notoriety of being known, the closeness of their bodies during the beer pong. The older can’t figure out what seems to make the girl so… nervous around her when it’s just them, but she can’t say she’s anything but amused.
“You were insanely good in there, it was kind of crazy,” Alysa starts, shaking her head in disbelief. “Like, swept the floor good.”
“And you were actually awful so thank god one of us locked in,” Amber muses back, grin growing on her face. Alysa’s mouth parts in shock before she laughs and nods as if caught out where she stood.
“Yeah, alright, you got me.”
They lull into a comfortable silence and Amber watches the rest of the party from the distance, silent, unsure what to even talk about with Alysa Liu.
She’s pulled out of her thoughts when Alysa coughs, clearing her throat, and Amber realizes she’s staring at her awkwardly.
“I uh– sorry, can you hand me what’s in the right pocket?”
Amber blinks, feeling like a human purse. Her hands slip into said pocket and she feels so many things she isn’t even sure what she’s grasping, so she just fists everything gently and extracts her hand, holding it out to the other girl. Alysa holds her hands out in a cup, catching everything.
The blonde identifies two mint LifeSavers, a student ID card, a lighter, and–
“Is that weed?”
Alysa grins, pinching the poorly rolled, slightly crumpled blunt in her fingertips. “Yup.”
Amber hears the Kill Bill sirens start to go off on her head – no, do not partake in this, get out of here – but for some reason, she stays glued to her spot, happy to look at Alysa in the glow of the moonlight, tequila coursing through her system.
She watches with curiosity as the girl’s thumb spins on the lighter’s spark wheel, a flame flickering to life in the darkness. Alysa holds it to the edge of the blunt and the paper curls and burns in response, and then the younger quickly holds it to her lips and pulls in a decadent drag.
The smoke rises lazy and shapeless into the dark air above Alysa's head before dissolving in whispers and slivers. Amber is silent, but Alysa notes how hard she’s staring.
"You can have some, if you want," Alysa offers simply. She doesn’t say it pushily, more just noting the option exists. As if offering a guest in her house some tea.
Amber's arms are still crossed over her chest, and she feels Alysa’s slightly smaller jacket tighten around her elbows at the movement.
"Yeah, okay," she says.
Alysa makes a small noise of genuine surprise, like she'd expected to be turned down, and something about that makes Amber feel quietly pleased with herself. She takes the blunt by the very end of it in the practiced manner of someone who has seen this done enough times to mimic the motion without knowing what they're doing. She brings it to her lips, pulls in, and immediately her throat emphatically rejects the whole of it. She wrenches it away as the cough tears out of her, bending slightly at the waist.
"Hah, oh my god–” Alysa cackles before realizing that Amber is actually going to evict a lung through her mouth. “Hey, okay." Alysa's hand finds her back between her shoulder blades, rubbing small unhurried circles. "Smaller hit next time, dude.”
“Shut up," Amber wheezes.
"Mm." Alysa retrieves the blunt and takes a pull with infuriating ease, and the corner of her mouth tilts. "You did archery and you can't hit a blunt without your lungs staging a protest. I find this very humanizing for the great Amber Glenn, you know.”
Amber laughs before she can stop herself, sudden and real. "Those are not related skills. Also, you’re one to talk. I mean, isn’t it a requirement to be a stoner at this frat?”
Alysa ignores it and powers through her point teasingly. "They're totally related. Breath control, focus–"
"I will leave."
"You won't," Alysa says with the easy certainty of someone who knows exactly where they stand, and Amber finds, to her mild alarm, that she's right. The lawn is dark and the party noise has blurred into a comfortable hum behind them and she is warm inside the jacket and she is not going anywhere.
A moment passes between them, and Amber tries to keep a smile off her face. "Can I try again?" she asks.
Alysa raises her eyebrows, then passes it back without comment. This time Amber goes slower, gentler, and manages much better this time before releasing the smoke in a thin, even stream. No cough. Small victory. She wonders what Isabeau would say if she could see this.
"There ya’ go," Alysa says warmly.
They settle into the silence of the lawn. It's nice, Amber thinks, in a distant and slightly tequila-softened way. She can't remember the last time a silence had felt this easy. They fall into an easy back and forth after that, the blunt passing between them while the party carries on at a comfortable distance. Amber feels pleasantly untethered – not drunk, not gone, but softened at the edges in a way that felt long overdue. She was in the middle of that thought when Alysa passes it back to her and she reaches out to take it.
Her fingers had just closed around it when the whoop split the air. One sharp note, from somewhere down the block. The kind that preceded nothing good. Then the red and blue lights strobed hard across the front of the house. Tires screeched, sharp at the curb.
The party lost confidence all at once. Music kept going for a confused four seconds before someone killed it. Solo cups lowered and voices dropped. From somewhere inside came a scramble of footsteps and a back door banging open.
Beside her she heard Alysa draw a breath sharply through her teeth. "Okay, just–"
Her nervous system had entirely frozen. “Alysa," Amber says.
“Just drop it on the ground,” Alysa hisses low and fast.
Amber did not drop it. Her brain had simply gone white and quiet, the kind of blank that came from too much tequila and too much adrenaline hitting each other head-on.
"Amber." A plea. "Seriously.”
A flashlight swung across the lawn and found them before she could recover herself. Two girls standing in the grass, Amber still holding the blunt, standing with the lit end glowing orange between her fingers like a complete and total idiot.
The campus cop stopped in front of them and took in the scene. He looked at Amber's hand, then at her face, with the expression of a man who was over their shit from the second he had to step out of his patrol car.
Amber's gaze cut sideways to Alysa, who looked like she had just watched a car accident happen in slow motion and had been powerless to stop it. The easy, unbothered quality she'd carried all night had completely vacated her face, replaced by something much more alarmed, eyes wide and fixed on the cop with her jaw set tight.
She looked, for the first time since Amber had met her, genuinely rattled.
Which was the moment it actually hit Amber. Because Alysa Liu did this recreationally, regularly, without apparent concern for her own reputation, and she looked stricken.
The full weight of it came crashing down with startling clarity in Amber's tequila-soaked, weed-tinged brain. She was the president of Chi Lambda Delta. She had a 4.0 that had not broken in seven consecutive semesters. She was at a Pi Sigma Tau party on a school night holding a blunt in front of a campus officer while wearing Alysa Liu’s jacket and this was definitely going to have repercussions.
Amber finally dropped the blunt, many, many moments too late.