Page 32 of The Lake of Lost Girls

Melissa Voss, another pledge, smirked. “Are you seriously saying that Phoebe was knocking boots with a professor? Have youmetour pledge sister?”

“If this was a couple of weeks ago. Why didn’t you say something before?” Tina raised an eyebrow skeptically.

Blair drew herself upright with indignation. “Because, unlike the rest of you, I’m not a gossip. I don’t spread stuff around that could get someone in trouble.”

“Yet you’re telling us now,” Erica deadpanned.

“Because … because we don’t know where she is and she might be with him,” Blair sputtered.

Daisy rolled her eyes. “I call bullshit. There’s no way our little Phoebes would screw a married professor. That was more Tammy’s MO. That’s the same professor she was banging.” There was a murmur of agreement.

“Girls like Phoebe and Tammy like the attention,” I found myself saying, with a hint of distaste, annoyed by the whole situation. I shouldn’t have said anything. It was best to keep my mouth shut and my opinions to myself, but I couldn’t stop the words once they started tumbling out.

“Sure, who doesn’t?” Daisy giggled, and a few others laughed with her. She threw her arm around me and gave me a sideways hug.

I shrugged her off after a moment with a pained smile. “Yeah, I guess so.” There was more I wanted to say, but I didn’t dare. Some thoughts were best kept locked up tight.

Nothing else was said about Phoebe and after a few more minutes we voted without her.

Sometimes I called just to hear him tell me I can do this. That mistakes happen and, together, we would fix them.

We had always been a team. Stronger together.

He was my loudest cheerleader. My best friend.

I needed his reassurance that it would all be okay.

I clung to his assertions like they were a life raft. I waited for the day I no longer needed them.

I was growing up. Forging my own path. Eventually, our roads would diverge. I knew he dreaded it as much as I did.

So, for now I called him. And he was always there, as he promised.

It was a pact made with love and tears.

Five days later, Phoebe was officially pronounced a missing person.

Unlike with Tammy, her parents immediately demanded action from the local police department. This was treated as a potential crime from the moment her family was made aware of her disappearance.

I didn’t know who called them, but I assumed it was her roommate. All of the Pi Gamma pledges were interviewed by the police in the weeks leading up to Christmas break, but none of us really knew anything, only gossip.

I was currently nursing a major hangover from a party at the Kappa Epsilon house last night. It had started with some serious pregaming before the Southern State men’s basketball game against Central Carolina and ended with me doing my first keg stand.

“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!” The mob around me chanted. They sounded crazed, and I should have been frightened by the intensity of their cheering and screaming, but I wasn’t. I relished it.

I swallowed the last of my beer and tipped the red cup upside down on my head. I felt a couple of drips of warm beer trail down the side of my face as I licked my lips and pumped my fists victoriously.

I grinned as someone took a picture, the flash momentarily blinding me. “I want a copy of that,” I slurred to the girl holding the camera.

The Phi Lam guy I had been having the contest with threw his cup down in annoyance and stormed away, pushing his way through the crowd in frustration. The crowd cheered louder.

I grinned and tossed my cup into the air, not caring where it landed, and then a pair of large, strong arms snaked around my waist, holding me tightly before picking me up and spinning me around. The world blurred as I squealed happily. When I was put back down, I swayed from side to side, unsure if I was going to puke or not. I had never been that drunk before. Everything felt vaguely off kilter. Like I was watching a movie of my life rather than living it.

“Ever done a keg stand?” someone asked. I shook my head, my sweaty hair sticking to my forehead.

“Alright, come on then.” A guy grabbed my hand and dragged me to the other side of the fraternity house’s basement, where the kegs were. The guy, who wasn’t nearly as cute as the boy from Sigma Kap that I met a few weeks ago, leaned in close. “I never knew you were such a party animal. It looks good on you.” His eyes were heated and I felt a stirring low in my gut. It felt a lot like power.

I wasn’t sure if I imagined him kissing my neck, but I shuddered all the same. I knew that this wasn’t me, not really. And somewhere, deep down, the old Jess was shouting at me to stop. That I was ruining everything.

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