In My Dreams I Hold a Knife(36)

I bubbled my last circle and gathered my papers carefully, rising and walking to the proctor, who reached out to accept my test. I hesitated. She raised an eyebrow.

I glanced down at the corner of Madison’s missing test page, the small triangle of white sticking out from under the desk like a flag of surrender.

Then I smiled and handed the proctor my test.

She wished me a good winter break, settled my papers in her bag, and hummed on her way out. I tracked her silently down the hall until she disappeared.

I became salutatorian.

It was so easy—that’s what I thought when I looked back. It couldn’t have been simpler: spot the paper. Give the proctor that wide, ingratiating smile, like everything was normal. And then do nothing. Stay quiet. So little effort, such maximum effect. Doing nothing was comfortable, like slipping into an old, warm robe.

The other thing I thought when I looked back: how pathetic that I had to fight for second place.

But the competition with Chi O wasn’t for second. It was for first. Best. And, if I was being honest, it was for revenge.

Caro teased me about how intensely I rushed sophomore year. I suspected she was jealous of the time I spent with other girls, the ones who cared as much as I did. Caro was like that—always trying to stay glued at the hip, resenting any time we spent with people outside the East House Seven. I’d noticed she’d do anything—really, anything, even go watch Frankie’s football practice—to keep from being alone. Sometimes, when I stopped to think about it, I felt bad for dating Mint and leaving Caro behind, just like Heather did with Jack.

But other times I needed space. Sophomore rush was one of them.

The holy grail of freshman girls was Amber Van Swann. She was rich, beautiful, perfectly dressed, and dating a senior Phi Delt. The number one recruit on campus. I wanted her so bad I could taste it, and I knew—because I was friends with Heather—that the Chi Os were hungry for her, too. Heather had instituted a no-talking-about-rush rule to keep things friendly, but still. I knew.

Then the night before Bid Day came—the night we got our list of pledges. And despite how hard we’d tried, Amber Van Swann wasn’t on it. She’d chosen Chi O. Standing in Kappa’s front lawn on Bid Day, my friends and I watched her run to the Chi O porch and get swallowed up by screaming, hugging girls. In the center of the mayhem were Courtney and Heather, wearing matching gold foil crowns and pink boas.

Stop punching down.

I stood there and imagined ripping the crowns from their heads, my hand arcing through the air, seizing the pointed tips, jerking their blond hair out, collateral damage. I shivered and blinked the picture away, turning to my friend Kristin, who hated second place as much as I did.

She looked at me and said, in a voice with zero inflection, “Amber Van Swann made a sex tape.”

I stared, but only for a beat. “Show me.”

That night, three of us sat in Kristin’s dorm room, gathered around her desktop computer—me, Kristin, and Caro, who’d insisted on following me. Kristin pulled up a video, grainy at first, then very, very clear. Amber Van Swann and her Phi Delt boyfriend, going at it. Loudly.

“How did you get this?” Caro asked, once the video ended and she’d uncovered her eyes.

Kristin shrugged. “Amber sent it to her boyfriend, and he sent it to a Phi Delt I hooked up with last weekend. He showed me as a joke, and I asked for it. Simple.”

“That’s terrible,” Caro said.

“It really is,” I agreed. “You have to be so careful what you film nowadays. What are you thinking, Kristin?”

“It’s pretty obvious,” Kristin said. “We send it anonymously to JuicyCampus.”

“What?” Caro sputtered. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“Good question.” I squinted at Kristin. “She’s eighteen, so it’s not child porn, but are there any other laws?”

“In some states. But not North Carolina.”

“Hmm.” I tapped my chin.

Caro looked back and forth between Kristin and me, her eyebrows lifting higher than I’d ever seen them go. “For the love of all that is holy, do not tell me you’re actually considering this. What we should do is track down every copy of the video and delete them. That’s girl code.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “Was it girl code for Amber to string me along so I’d buy her tickets to the Nelly Furtado concert and a whole semester’s worth of alcohol?” On a credit card I couldn’t afford, I added silently. “Is it girl code for Courtney to throw herself at Mint every time she thinks I’m not looking?”

Caro turned pink. So she’d noticed.

“Or, sorry—you know I love her—but for Heather to keep casually mentioning that the last five Phi Delt Sweethearts have been Chi Os, when she knows we all want it? Is that girl code?”

Kristin snorted. “Or what about Courtney telling Emma Davis she needs to lose weight to get a boyfriend, when Emma has a thyroid problem and Courtney’s only skinny ’cause she takes secret diet pills her mom buys from China?”

“None of those things are good,” Caro cried. “Especially Courtney’s pills. Those things are basically speed and they make her crazy and way too thin. It’s sad her mom buys them for her. But releasing some poor freshman’s sex tape to get back at the Chi Os is worse.” She turned the full force of the Caroline Rodriguez guilt stare on me. “Please tell me you recognize that. You’re going all Lady Macbeth, and it’s freaking me out.”