Shatter (Club Grit Trilogy) (13 page)

“Of course she can!” interrupted Laura, rising from the floor. “And we’ll quit too! Well, at least I will...Rina?” Laura looked over at her lover, who stood with the two of us as well.

“I will too. And I’m sure our other friends in the house would quit too. And their friends. And then who would be left, Pearl? Who would be left but you?” asked Rina.

I hadn’t expected Laura and Rina to stand up with me and for me, but I looked at Pearl and the look of realization in her eyes was unmistakable. She knew she was fucked, that she’d messed up terribly, and that there was nowhere left to go but down. I resisted the urge to smile or gloat and finally, Pearl spoke. “You can all stay. Thanks for warning me about your plan, Kim. I would say I’m sorry, but I’m more sorry for myself than for what I’ve done. Thanks for not planning on revealing what happened here until the summer. Good luck on finals.” She composed herself, chin in the air, and left the parlor. There was nothing left for Laura and Rina to say to me, or for me to say to them, except “thanks”: them to me, and me to them.

A
LTHOUGH PEARL KNEW I WASN’T MOVING OUT OF THE SORORITY, but had effectively quit, nobody else did, except Rina and Laura. Life continued on as usual, except the house was different. I was treated like a plague victim, with people avoiding even my gaze. The identity I’d built up over the years was gone, but what wasn’t was that small seed of hope, hope that was starting to sprout into a new Kim.

The card was where it had always been: at the bottom of my purse, keeping company with an assortment of pills that had spilled into the bag over many nights at Club Grit, with eraser nubs as pink and easily broken as the illicit medicines, with a few slender shards of the shattered clipboard.

It was with me.

“Lawrence Lamont”, read the card, and nothing more, except a string of numbers that meant nothing and in that moment, everything, because he was the only person that could bring me back from the dead. I’d never felt more invisible than during the week since I’d quit Omega Mu and crashed on one of my friend’s futons back in the dorms, like a GDI, a God Damn Independent, and if, even as a ghost, I didn’t count as dead, I don’t know what counts.

I fingered over the car all day, during classes, and before meals, and just all the time, wondering when the right time would be to contact Lawrence, playing over scenarios in my head, over and over, practicing what I would say, practicing what I would do if I saw him on the street, because there was no way in Hell I’d be going back to Club Grit again, after what had happened. He’d asked me not to, he’d forbid it, and I wasn’t about to disrespect or defy him, not after what had happened.

The campus had lost interest in what had happened between DeAndre and Emma and was now focused on the scandal between Becca and her ex-boss, rapper extraordinaire, the “Last Voice of the Next Generation”, Keanne Slims. I had never thought I’d ever see them linked, but knowing how Becca had pined over him for months, it didn’t surprise me that she’d finally pursued him. What did surprise me was that she went after someone who already had a girlfriend, the rich and famous Lana Minashian. That didn’t seem like Becca, who had never been the man stealing type, and had never so much as looked at another sorority sister’s boyfriend in “that fashion”.

Being invisible on campus was better than being constantly seen and on the social radar. I was a stealth plane, floating through classes as if I was nothing more than a fly on the wall, if at all. I didn’t have to hear about gossip about the social season, about the summer, and about the sororities, and instead, I could just focus on classes, classes that had attracted me to UCBH in the first place, but that I’d let fall to the wayside as the Greek Life engulfed the Geek Life. It wasn’t something I was proud of, but it was better than never realizing at all what I’d lost and given up by focusing entirely on my social life and not enough on my academics. I listened to people’s conversations about what they were doing over the summers, and while Cabo and Hong Kong sounded exciting, it was people with internships at big companies or prestigious publishing house that I envied, the ones whose eyes glittered when they spoke of their plans for the future, whose life was just starting even though it felt like mine had just fallen apart.

How were we all the same age range? How were we all the same species? I had nothing in common with them but I envied them the way that the swimmer envies the dolphin, the way the pilot envies the hawk, because their passion was an essential part of their being. They needed their summer internships and to work at their dream companies as much as an animal has to fly or fight.

But now? I had something to fight for. It wasn’t as noble as maybe curing cancer or developing organic solar panels, but it was still something that was as much a part of me as being part of Omega Mu Gamma had been. I picked up the phone and punched in the phone number, saving it to my contacts and considering whether or not I’d call it. I was in the administrative building, filling out paperwork for graduation. The sooner I left UCBH, the better. I had no idea what I was going to do after graduation, the drama at Omega House and Club Grit taking over my life, but I knew that I didn’t want to be one of those people who waited until the last minute to get their forms in.

That’s when I saw the last person I thought I’d see: Becca. I approached her but before I could say anything, she told me, “Get away.” I looked behind her: outside the glass doors of the administrative building were hordes of reporters, their flash bulbs blinding. They knew they couldn’t go into the building, which was private property, but technically, the campus itself was open to reporters. Right now, Becca had safe haven in the building, had sanctuary, but once she left, she’d be their prey.

“I heard about what happened. I know it’s not you; you wouldn’t do that, ever. And I know the reporters are here for you. I can get you out of the building,” I said, giving her a small smile.

“Why?”

“Because...that’s what friends do,” I said. It was true, and ever since Becca had left the sorority, that’s what had been missing: a true friend, my truest. “Come with me.” I started walking to the bathroom and she followed.

“We’re going to switch hoodies,” I said, unzipping my plain grey hoodie and trading it with Becca, taking her bright pink terry hoodie. “I can mail it back to you but basically, if I leave the building in your hoodie, they’ll follow me and you can leave afterwards. They won’t suspect a thing.”

“Kim, why are you really doing this?” she asked as we traded sweaters.

“It’s the right thing to do,” I said, zipping up the hoodie. It was loose around my bust and small frame. Although Becca was taller and curvier than me, the sweater I’d been wearing that day fit me loosely, so it fit her normally, and in the loose hoodie, it would be easy for the paparazzi to confuse me for her.

“Since when did that matter?” she started to ask.

I could have told her that it was since I met Lawrence and had to reconsider what my lifestyle had done to me. I could have told her that it mattered since that one afternoon she left and I’d wanted to leave more than some stupid cash in her room. I could have told her that everything had changed because I had changed.

I could have told her any of that.

I told her none of that.

I was already leaving, hood up, and out the doors. It was too late for me to answer, but it didn’t matter. As soon as I opened the door, I was blinded not by the bright California sun, but by the flashes of cameras. I started to run, my flip-flops slipping on the concrete, but I regained by balance and sprinted across the quad in Becca’s hoodie. The reporters followed me, thinking I was Becca, and once I turned back and saw that Becca was far enough away, just a blip in the distance.

In turning to watch her, I lost my focus. In losing focus, I lost track of the steps in the quad that had caused many a sprained ankle. In losing track, I lost balance. In losing balance, I gained wings.

I jumped, like I had back in high school for track, over the hurdles, except this time, the only goal was to fly, at least until I could land. Up in the air, it was like the world had frozen around me, the only clue to time and space’s existence the flashing of the cameras. The world stayed like that, cleansed by the light of repent, until it went into slow motion, with the hood of the hoodie slipping down, the reporter’s faces going from smiling their shit-eating grins, revealing the fact that even before they had their shot, they were counting their chickens before they hatched, wondering how many thousand dollars they’d get for a shot of Becca, to going slack-jawed with disappointment as they realized there’d be no shot of Becca, just of me, as my feet hit the pavement again and I landed, before rolling over and feeling my exposed hands scrape against the ground.

“Can I help you?” I asked as the reporters frowned and groaned before they dispersed. I’d been the perfect bait and somehow, my short stature and petite figure hadn’t given away the fact that no, I was not Becca. Nobody reached a hand out to help me up, but when I held mine up, I saw they were bright red, with fresh blood.

It was the blood of salvation.

T
HERE ARE FEW THINGS AS TERRIBLE AND AS WONDERFUL as waiting for someone at a coffee shop. Every person who passes your eye, whose voice peaks above the noise, whose flutter of a coat or turn of arm reminds you of him, teases and tantalizes you. Following slim pale legs up to find that they led to a skirt, a blouse, and not to Lawrence was silly, but doing the same with the man men in formal work suits is more normal, because they all blend together, even though I’d like to believe that mine sticks out.

I’d texted Lawrence after I’d bailed out Becca and he’d replied in a few hours, able to make a coffee date with me. Even though it was finals seasons, I didn’t offer to reschedule the date, or ask him to meet me somewhere closer to campus. He chose a Starbucks in the financial district and we didn’t text after that. What was there to say over text that I couldn’t just say in person?

Sitting in the back, on a large leather couch near a window, waiting for Lawrence, I looked up too many times expecting to see him but instead seeing another twenty something like myself, until I went to my phone to check the time. Of course, that’d be the time he showed up, and of course, I’d miss it. I sipped at my soy skinny cinnamon dolce latte as I waited, placing it on a small end table and picking it up over and over. It was almost like time had stopped and I was just reliving one moment over and over. Inside, I was doing what I’d done since I last saw Lawrence, almost two months ago: replaying the scenes of us together in my head, each memory like a precious crystal that I polished with remembrance, rehearsing the lines I was going to say to him, as if it’d make things better: as if it would ever make a difference.

“Kim,” he said softly but firmly. It was a voice I hadn’t heard for so long, but there was no mistaking it as anything but essentially and entirely Lawrence’s. I looked up and there he was, in business clothes rather than the clothes I’d seen him in at the nightclub. There was a subtle distinction: the brands he was wearing were American rather than European, the cut of his suit simpler, the materials still high quality but lack the luxury factor, all fabrics plain, all buttons with an almost matte patina. Forget the millionaire next door, he looked like the billionaire next door type: the kind that didn’t wear his money on his sleeve, and even when he did, was undistinguishable from another rich guy in terms of clothing, because the way he showed off wasn’t as conspicuous as others: sure, he purchased expensive bottle service, and a night club, but he didn’t have an entourage, or a personal assistant in tow, and he hadn’t rented out the café just to talk to me in private. We were far from in a private place: unlike the shielded owner’s box, we were open, exposed, and ironically, for the first time, actually seeing each other by the light of day.

I looked up and put my phone away at the same time. “Lawrence. It’s been too long,” I said, but I didn’t get up to give him a kiss, nor did he sit next to me, instead, taking a seat in the chair across from me. “Can I get you a drink?” I asked, sincerely.

He shook his head once. “No, I’m fine, but thank you for the offer.” It was so weird, offering to get Lawrence a cup of coffee, after all that had happened between us and because of me. If I had been told, six months before, that I would get coffee with a billionaire at a Starbucks, and that he’d remain anonymous and not covered in paparazzi, I would have called the person crazy at best, a liar at worst, and stupid at my meanest. However, here we were and there was nobody else that was privy to the secrets we carried. To anybody else, we could look like a normal couple, a couple that went on dates, met up for lunches, and who picked out furniture together at IKEA, but we knew what we were: the ex-sorority sister and the bachelor billionaire, neither of us fit to date, certainly not one another. Together, we brought out our worst traits, but separately, we were shades of our formal selves. I could tell it in his eyes, and in the way he carried himself, no longer tall and confident, but slouching, a shell of a broken man, a husk of the person I’d found myself falling hard for but no longer could call my own.

“I just...I want to apologize,” I blurted out, in the least elegant way possible. What had happened to the speeches I’d compared and contrasted in my head, that I’d rewritten and unwritten and unraveled countless times? And what had happened to me.

Lawrence was still looking at me, but his eyes had a gleam. “You’re...really sorry, aren’t you?” he said, his voice betraying his emotion with the unexpected pause. All around us, the clicking and clacking of keyboards, like pianos lacking hammers and strings, covered in aluminum and chromed plastic, was like an orchestra as empty and ghostly as the man that Lawrence became again, within seconds.

I had done this to him. I had taken away his essence, that which had made him him, and now, all I could do was fill him with the knowledge that I was trying to redeem myself, to right my wrongs. “I honestly am. I’ve quit the sorority, and...I reported what was happening at the UCBH chapter to the proper authorities,” I admitted. “I know it doesn’t mean a lot to you, but—”