Premature Evacuation (Underground Sorority #1) (15 page)

Corey wrapped his arms around me, pulling me down until my head rested on his chest. Nate flopped onto his own bed and Bianca hovered in the middle of the room, glancing at both beds, before dropping onto the couch in the center. Yep, she had definitely chickened out with Nate.

“Wanna see the ticket?” Before anyone could respond, Corey lifted it out of his pocket and waved it like a white flag. We passed it around in silence. My eyes widened at the hefty fine.

“That’s it man?” Nate studied the ticket closely, “Just a warning?” He half-rose off his bed as if he was about to run over and high five Corey.

A breath rattled out of Corey’s lungs. “Not quite. Court date in January. I have to get a fucking lawyer.”

Nate shrugged. “Your dad’s a lawyer.”

“A corporate one. Not the kind that deals with dead beat kids who don’t obey traffic laws. Besides, I’m pretty sure any punishment he has for me is far worse than what the cops doled out.” Corey slumped back onto his pillow, taking me with him. “They only took my license for six weeks. He might cut me off for good.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m fucking twenty one and I can’t even get into a bar without my ID.”

Nate burst out laughing, “That sucks!”

“Mackenzie makes excellent fake IDs that work at Quigley’s,” Bianca said, bouncing on the couch as if she just solved all of Corey’s problems.

“Cleavage helps too,” I added, squeezing his hand.

Nate crossed to the mini-fridge and took out a water bottle. He held one out to Corey but neglected to offer anyone else. “One thing I don’t get…how the fuck did you pass the Breathalyzer? You could barely walk you were so trashed.”

This, too, pinged in my gut, eating away at some latent knowledge buried deep within the place memories go to die.

Corey shifted, lifting me off his lap. “I didn’t breathe completely. Blew only a tiny bit and forced the rest out of my nose.” He took a sip of water, then handed me the bottle. “Saw it on some cop show once.”

Outside Corey’s room, feet shuffled and shouts carried from downstairs where a few guys were watching football.

“Do me a favor?” Corey asked and we all nodded like we were performing a synchronized swimming routine. “Don’t tell anyone what happened. I don’t want the story to get back to the school newspaper.”

We stayed with him for about two hours, talking, distracting him. He held me the whole time. The night of the formal started out magical, sparkling like fireworks on the fourth of July. Then the fireworks exploded and faded into the crisp night air and the only thing left was fluttering ash, making its way back towards the ground unceremoniously.

Bianca and Nate left, but I remained while Corey called his mother and father and broke the bad news. I stroked his back while he repeated a mantra into the phone. “Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. No, sir.” When he hung up, he covered his hands with his eyes. “Well, that settles it. I’m no longer their favorite son.”

“Then I guess your parents and I wouldn’t get along,” I said. “Because you are definitely
my
favorite son of theirs.”

He chuckled and pulled me back into his arms. “We can’t go to my formal now. Don’t want to risk it.”

I swallowed hard, but forced a smile onto my mouth. He’d never asked me to go with him. Now he never would.

Our once vibrant smiles stretched like rubber bands pulled taut. Corey’s cell phone rang. After listening for a moment, he held it out to me. “It’s Bianca.”

“Hello?” I said into the receiver.

“Mackenzie, you better get over to the house right now. Layla asked me to call you. They know what happened.”

My heart pounded. “Do you think I’m getting kicked out?”

“I honestly don’t know. But they want to hold an Honor Board meeting right now.”

My stomach lurched. Oh God. Honor Board was our sorority’s form of a disciplinary hearing.

“Okay.” I leaped from the bed. “I’m on my way.”

Somehow it felt like I was rushing to my own funeral.

A
S I STEPPED INTO the sorority chapter room, my breath shortened with each inhale, becoming more rapid. I pressed my shaking hands against my thighs in a vain attempt to still them. I was only a sophomore. If I got kicked out now, I’d miss out on half my time in the sorority. Rocks piled in my throat. All my childhood, my mom pimped Rho Sigma, telling me the sorority was “the best four years of her life” where she met “the best friends she ever had.” The ones who regaled her funeral with hilarious tales that sent my ugly tears packing. And I’d met my best friends I’d ever had here too. I wasn’t ready to leave, to prematurely evacuate this experience.

Layla and two other girls on the board gave me snippy looks from their perch on the largest of all the couches. The ornate wing-backed chairs made it seem like they were sitting on thrones. The rest of the couches had been pushed to the back of the room, forcing me to stand in front of them and look down at them as I spoke. I focused on the swirl of flowers at my feet because I couldn’t bear to look them in the eye.

Layla fiddled with a small tape recorder. The red light clicked on as she balanced it on the arm of the couch.

“Welcome to Honor Board, Mackenzie Shaffer.” She leaned close to the mic. “We asked you here today to discuss your irresponsible actions at last night’s sorority function. Because we don’t want the incident to get back to Throckmorton’s Greek Organization, we haven’t invited any officials. However, you should consider this a formal hearing. Do you understand?” Her perfectly plucked brow shot way up on her forehead.

The other girls nodded their heads in unison, backup dancers to the President’s solo number.

“Yes.” I slipped my clammy hands in and out of their clasp.

“We have been informed that last night, around three A.M., you and your date left the hotel and got into a car. As you’re well aware, driving and leaving the hotel was strictly prohibited.”

“Well, I—”

She held up a hand to silence me. “We know your date was arrested. Do you understand how serious this is?”

My chest tightened. “Yes, but—”

“Why did you leave the hotel?” She pursed her lips and tilted her head to one side.

“Corey and Harrison Wagner got into a fight,” I said as I pulled the vague puzzle pieces out of my mind and pieced them back together. “Harrison provoked us and—”

“Mackenzie.” Layla leaned forward, placing her palms on her thighs. “Lying will only make this worse for you. Harrison Wagner came to me last night and told me how Corey assaulted him. So please stick with the truth.”

My pulse spiked. Whatever Harrison had said, it obviously painted him in a golden light. I wiped my sweaty palms on my shirt. This wasn’t a hearing, not for my version of the truth anyway. This was a witch trial. “A police officer made us leave,” I finally said, spinning the tale the only way that might save some semblance of grace. “Told us to go to another hotel a mile away.” My voice grew more confident with each word. “We had no choice.”

My gut twisted. From the vague details I could recall about last night, only one thing was startlingly clear:
I
was the one who had given Corey no choice. An unspoken ultimatum. When he’d seen me drenched in snow, teeth chattering, fingers turning blue, he’d renounced all semblance of safety to keep me warm. He’d weighed the options and deemed frostbite a greater threat than a one mile drive in icy conditions. Whether it was black ice or leftover alcohol in his system didn’t matter, all that mattered was that it was a terrible idea.
My
terrible idea.

“Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve talked to the officers and straightened things out. You guys were in no shape to drive.”

“No time. They forced us right out and I wasn’t about to argue with a police officer.” That seemed like it might be true. It probably was.

“Yes, but I signed a contract with the Greek Organization. Therefore it was my responsibility to make sure everyone stayed safe. My ass is on the line now.”

I stifled a snort. Now this guilty until proven even guiltier trial made sense.

“Our house is in danger of being shut down if they find out about this,” Layla continued, “If you weren’t going to call me, fine, but you should have at least been smart enough to call a taxi to take you ‘one mile.’” She mimicked the quotes with her hands in an attempt to mock me. “Though that clearly wasn’t possible considering you were
drunk
. Which, I need to remind you, was against the rules.”

I swallowed hard. What did she want me to do? Admit it? Apologize? Beg? I went for the trifecta. “I know. I’m sorry. We weren’t thinking clearly. I realize it was dumb now, especially after the accident, but—”

Her mouth gaped. “What accident?”

Air whooshed from my lungs. Oh crap, she didn’t know about the accident? She tapped her pen against her notebook, waiting. I sighed and spilled the minimal details. Black ice. Car in ditch. Corey passing Breathalyzer.

She slapped her hands on her notebook, making me jump. “Oh my God. I thought he was arrested for the fight, not a DUI! We’re going to lose our house! I don’t believe this. You’re so irresponsible. You could have died!”

Her words sent a cold, crackling sensation racing up my spine.
I could have died
.

“If you died, the sorority would be shut down for sure.”

My eyes widened, then rolled. “I see you have your priorities in order.”

Her face hardened. “Here’s the deal. We have no choice but to kick you out.”

The words should have stung but instead they became my ammo. I straightened, remembering Corey’s words from earlier. “If you kick me out, I’ll talk to the school paper about what happened.
Everything
that happened. I’m sure they’ll be very interested to hear about your friend
Molly
.”

Layla sucked in a breath. One of the other girls tapped her on the shoulder and whispered in her ear. She continued glaring at me. I held her stare, a dumb game of chicken. “Fine,” she finally said, scribbling something on her paper, a clear attempt to drag this out. “We’re putting you on probation for the rest of this semester and next semester as well.”

“Probation?”

“You’ll attend chapter meetings, of course, but you can’t go to any of the social events or mixers.”

I clung to the loophole in her punishment:
she couldn’t ban me from Quigley’s.

“You’re on thin ice. One more wrong move and”—she drew her finger across her neck—”You better pray this doesn’t get into the paper.”

As soon as I left the room, I leaned against the door jamb and let out a breath.
I wasn’t getting kicked out.

The realization that I could have died the previous night hadn’t occurred to me until Layla had pointed it out. After a soothing hot shower, I retreated straight to Corey’s room. Apologies bottled in my throat and I needed him to hear how sorry I was for what I put us—
him—
through. “I’m sorry,” I whispered when I stepped into his room, afraid if I didn’t blurt the confession right away, the guilt would eat me alive.

He held out his arms for me. “You have nothing to apologize for.” A shaky breath rattled from his lungs.

I curled myself around him. “It was my idea to drive. I—”

“I could have said no. Should have.” His head flopped back on the pillow with a kind of heaviness that could only signal an end to the conversation. A stalemate. On this one point, we would never agree.

“But I’m going to make it up to you,” he promised. And though I didn’t say it out loud, I recited the same promise back to him in my mind.

We lay in his bed for a while, holding each other. The mood was shadowy and dark like a thunderstorm pounding against the window. The
thump thump
of a bass from whatever song the brothers were blasting on the first floor matched my beating heart. Every so often, a load cackle of “Woahs!” rose up through the door crack. I always pictured Corey’s room happy and busy, with people constantly walking in and out, a party at all times. I pictured it bright and saturated with light. But that night, the room seemed murky and dull, covered in a yellow hue, urine in color, washing over the area as if it were the Mexican desert.