Chapter 2: The Frat Party
The beat was a physical thing, a throbbing pressure against Emily’s breastbone that made her teeth rattle. She shouldn’t be here. The decision had felt bold, almost reckless, when she’d pulled on the black jeans and borrowed her roommate’s top—something with lace at the sleeves that made her feel like an imposter. Now, standing in the basement of Sigma Kappa, it just felt stupid.
She’d come because of the silence.
A week had passed since the night with the blood on her sheets. A week of Jake avoiding her eyes at breakfast, of him grunting one-word answers, of the ghost of his wounded hand between them at every silent dinner. The secret had become a living thing in her throat. She needed to see him in his own element, to understand the gap between the battered boy in her lamplight and the myth everyone whispered about in her sociology lecture.
This was his element. A sweaty, shouting chaos of limbs and red plastic cups. Neon glowsticks cut through the haze, painting faces in lurid streaks. The air was thick, a soupy mix of spilled beer, cheap cologne, and the sweet, cloying scent of vaporizer smoke.
She edged along the wall, a salmon moving upstream against a current of drunk, laughing bodies. Her own drink—something warm and neon blue a guy had shoved into her hand—was just a prop, something to hold onto.
Then she saw him.
He was in a corner near the foosball table, partially obscured by a hanging tapestry of some forgotten beer logo. A blonde in a silvery tank top had her back to Emily, her hands pressed flat against Jake’s chest. He was leaning against the wall, a bottle of something amber dangling from his fingers. He was smiling down at the girl, that easy, charismatic smile that didn’t touch his eyes. Even from here, Emily could see the fading yellow-green remnant of the shiner under his left eye, a souvenir from the bar fight. It made him look even more dangerous, like a barely-healed warning.
The girl rose on her toes, whispering something into his ear. His free hand came up, brushing a strand of her hair back. It was a practiced move. Casual. Intimate.
Emily’s stomach hollowed out. She felt a hot, foolish wave of betrayal—which was insane. He owed her nothing. They were nothing.
She turned to shove her way back through the crowd, the blue drink sloshing over her fingers. The bass seemed to amplify, a punishing rhythm in her skull. She just needed air, needed to be back in her quiet dorm, in her world of highlighters and predictable outcomes.
A hand closed around her wrist. The grip was iron, unmistakable.
She was spun around.
Jake stood there, the blonde and her pout forgotten. Up close, the party lights carved sharp angles into his face. His expression was wiped clean of its earlier amusement. He looked tense, almost angry.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was rough, cutting through the music. He had to lean in, his breath a warm gust against her ear that smelled of whiskey and mint.
“Leaving,” she shot back, trying to yank her arm free. His grip tightened, just shy of painful.
“You don’t belong here, Emily.”
“You made that pretty clear.” She glanced pointedly back towards the corner.
He followed her gaze, then let out a short, harsh laugh. “Are you kidding me? Is that what this is?”
“This is me making a mistake. Let go of me.”
Instead, he pulled her, not back into the main crush, but into a narrower hallway leading to a grimy bathroom. It was marginally quieter, just the muffled thump of the music and the echo of their breathing. He caged her against the wall, his body blocking the view from the party. The damp sheetrock was cool through her thin top.
“You showed up at my party,” he said, his voice low. “You saw me talking to someone. And you’re judging me. Again.” His eyes flicked over her—the lace sleeves, the jeans, the makeup she’d applied with clumsy hands. “Look at you. Playing dress-up. You have no idea what this place is.”
Her face burned. “I know it’s where you go to forget you have a family now. Must be nice to just check out.”
Something flashed in his eyes, a real and raw anger that made her shrink back. “You think I’m checked out? You think I don’t see you watching me across the table every night? You think I don’t remember you playing nurse?” He lifted his bandaged hand briefly between them. The knuckles were still scabbed. “That doesn’t mean you get a front-row seat to my life, princess.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Why? It’s what you are. You’re in over your head.” He leaned closer, the noise of the party fading into a dull roar. “You wanted to see the bad boy up close? Well, here he is. This is it. It’s sticky floors and fake smiles and people who want something. It’s boring. It’s a fucking mask.”
She stared at him, her heart hammering against her ribs. This was the most he’d ever said to her. And it wasn’t a boast. It was a confession, spat out like a poison.
“Then why do you wear it?” she whispered.
For a second, he looked like he might actually answer. His gaze dropped to her mouth, then back to her eyes. The tension shifted, coiling into something else, something more dangerous than anger. The memory of his breath in her dark bedroom, the scent of blood and rain, hung between them in the beer-stink air.
The blonde from the corner appeared at the end of the hallway, a pout on her glossy lips. “Jake? We playing pool or what?”
He didn’t look away from Emily. “In a minute.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed, taking in the scene—Jake pinning a different girl to the wall. With a toss of her hair, she disappeared.
“You should go back to your friend,” Emily said, her voice strangely flat.
“She’s not my friend.” He said it simply, a statement of fact. He finally released her wrist. There would be faint marks from his fingers tomorrow.
“I’m going home,” she said.
He nodded slowly, that guarded emptiness sliding back into place. “Good. This isn’t your scene.”
She pushed past him, back into the pulsating chaos. She didn’t look back. She waded through the crowd, toward the stairs, toward the clean, cold night air. Her hands were shaking.
Halfway up the steps, she heard his voice, loud enough to carry over the music, meant for her.
“Lock your window, Emily!”
She froze on the step, then kept climbing. Her face was on fire. When she burst out the front door, the quiet of the suburban street was a shock. She gulped in the cold air, leaning against a rusting mailbox.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text from an unknown number.
> You forgot your drink.
A second later, a photo followed. It was her blue drink, sitting on the foosball table. Next to it, placed carefully on the damp wood, was the bandage she’d put on his knuckles a week ago, now dirty and peeling at the edges.
She stared at the image until the screen went black, seeing her own faint reflection in the glass. The good girl was gone, all right. She’d left the moment she’d climbed into that car to come here. What was left, standing alone on a dark street with a phantom ache on her wrist and a secret burning in her phone, was something entirely new, and terrified, and painfully, recklessly awake.