Bad Rep (Bad Rep #1)(75)
Author: A. Meredith Walters

Sure, he was the sweetest guy I’d ever met. He said and did things that made my inner pinky girlishness tingle. I knew he cared about me. But I couldn’t stop myself from doubting that he could ever come to feel for me the way he had felt for Olivia. That girl he wrote that amazing song for.

Yes, I was still fixated on that stupid song. I don’t know what was wrong with me and why I couldn’t get over it. Maybe it was because I was still forced to see his beautiful ex-girlfriend several times a week. And seeing her flawless perfectness made it damn near impossible to stop myself from calculating comparisons. Plus, she was dead set on feeding my insecurities like a wild fire out of control.

It was in the way she casually mentioned something pertaining to Jordan, or their three year history when she knew I was in ear shot. Or it could have been the way his Pi Sig brothers acted as though she were the goddamn prodigal son whenever they saw her, showing how perfectly she fit into that area of his life. It didn’t help that pictures of her and Jordan graced the Chi Delta walls. Collages of the girls during past formals and mixers. Jordan and Olivia, the most beautiful couple on the planet front and center in all of them.

Most of the girls continued their Maysie Ardin freeze out. I wasn’t exactly persona non grata, but I was pretty darn close. I wasn’t included in random drink nights during the week. I wasn’t sent the sorority wide texts to coordinate outfits for mixers. I barely got a hello when I walked in the house on the few occasions I had dared to show up.

Gracie and Vivian tried their hardest to make it easier for me. And god love them for it. But I could see playing for team Maysie was weighing on them as well. Because of their association with me, our sisters were less friendly to them. At least when I was around. I suspected things were fine once I had left and the girls could pretend I didn’t exist.

So herein lays the crux of the problem. Why didn’t I just withdrawal? Why did I continue to subject myself to such pettiness? It seemed like a form of torture. And there were many days that I wondered this myself. At night when I’d lie in bed, with Jordan’s warm body pressed against me, I’d think up the grand speeches I would give, announcing my formal withdraw from Chi Delta.

I had it all planned out in my head. I’d tell Olivia and Milla exactly where they could stuff their snotty little noses. I would look at the rest of them and call them a bunch of bitchy hypocrites. But then I’d wake up in the morning and swear to myself that I’d give it just one more day. One more day to see if things would be better. One more day to make things right again.

But as long as Jordan and I were together, that wouldn’t happen. And I was torn between this fantastic new love I had found and my longing to return to the fold. The need to belong was strong in me and hard to quash. I knew in my psychobabble way, that this was firmly rooted in me wanting my parent’s approval. It had simply morphed into all areas of my life. The constant worry about what other people thought was exhausting and I wished like hell I could just let it go. Riley thought I was an idiot and wasted no time in telling me that on a daily basis. And I understood why she thought that. Hell, most days, I thought that. But I had pride and it burned pretty damn bright.

So I stuck it out. Even as my life seemed to get uglier. Because the rumors were getting crazy. Last week, in my Shakespeare and Chaucer class, we were assigned groups to work on a comparative project between Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare’s story telling in his tragedies. I was grouped with two girls, Cyndy and Aimee, who had lived on my floor freshman year and a guy named Charlie, who was a year below us. I knew their names, but knew nothing else about them. They weren’t people I saw out and about in my normal, everyday routine.

But they knew me. Or knew of me. I saw it instantly when I pulled my desk closer to theirs to begin our work. It was in the curl of Aimee’s upper lip when I sat down. It was in the look of barely concealed disdain in Cyndy’s eyes before she flicked them back to her book. And f**k if it wasn’t there in the openly lascivious look Charlie tossed casually my way.

“Hey, Maysie,” Aimee had said. And the way she said my name made me feel like I had some sort of disease. She and Cyndy had shared a look and Cyndy covered her mouth to hide a mocking grin.

I had gotten pissed. I was sick to death of this shit. So I had slammed my book shut and looked at each of my group members. “Is there a problem?” I had asked. Charlie had looked startled and gave a mumbled, “no” before looking away. Cyndy and Aimee weren’t as embarrassed by their behavior. Both were decent looking girls, but in a bookish kind of way. Definitely not sorority material. No, they were the girls, with their above average IQs, who looked down their noses and acted like anyone in the Greek system were barely functioning morons.

“Yeah, I guess there is a problem,” Cyndy began and I gave her my best bitchy look of indifference.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, trying really hard to act like I didn’t give a crap about their opinions when deep down I was dying. Aimee snickered.

“I mean, can you be counted on to pull your weight or will it be interfering with your ‘extracurricular’ activities?” The bitch had the nerve to use f**king air quotes.

“I’m sure I can fit you into my busy sorority schedule if that’s what you’re asking,” I answered snidely. Cyndy’s eyes had gone wide in feigned surprise.

“Oh no, that’s not what we were referring to.” Huh? The two girls looked at each other again.

“What?” I snapped, losing all patience with this entire conversation.

“We mean your other activities. You know. Your fraternity obligations,” Aimee said and snickered outright. I looked at Charlie who had his mouth hanging open and was staring at me. What the hell?

Charlie sat up straighter. “I’m pledging Kappa Tau. Just so you know.” It seemed really important for him to tell me this. What was going on here? Aimee leaned forward and dropped her voice into a whisper.

“We’ve heard you’re part of the fraternity initiations. I’ve heard it’s called, pass the slut. The guys say you’re the best there is.” Her lip curled again and she sniffed as though she smelled something foul.

I felt sick. My hands went clammy and I know my face had gone pale. “What?” I whispered, my voice gone. Charlie was practically fidgeting in his seat.

“We all know about you, Maysie. I hope I get to see you around the house soon. You know we’re having a party this weekend. Maybe you could come,” Charlie said eagerly. I looked from Cyndy and Aimee’s disgusted expressions to Charlie’s hopeful lustful one and I couldn’t take it anymore. My snappy comebacks and snarky attitude were all dried up. I had nothing to say in the face of that. The fact that these three people, who I didn’t know, had heard these horrible things about me, made me want to head straight for Timbuktu, or somewhere equally cut off from all civilization.