Yes. There was that dashed feeling, though Taylor did her best to brush it aside. “Okay, well, we could still go to the student center…”
“You know, Tay, I don’t think so,” he finally said, and he sounded frustrated for no real reason she could pinpoint. “Not this week. Okay? I’m really slammed with a lot of stuff right now.”
“Oh.” She tried not to feel the absurd hurt that jabbed into her. “Okay. Well, then I guess I’ll see you Wednesday at Chem?”
“Yeah.” But he didn’t sound excited about even that at all.
All day Tuesday, Taylor had to repeatedly shrug off the fact that Greg had begged off getting together with her. At lunch, she went back to her dorm and ate by herself in the corner as what seemed like half the campus came in and ate together. They were all so happy, so… alive.
In frustration, she decided that she would not subject herself to living on the edge while everyone else was enjoying life. By the time she got to the sorority for the scavenger hunt, she was almost back to her old Taylor-self—ready to have some fun just for the sake of having fun.
“Taylor!” LaChelle said when Taylor got there, and her Alpha Chi sister came over to give her a hug. “We’re so glad you could come.”
“So am I.” And Taylor found she meant it.
“Come on. We’ve got sushi rolls from Little Japan.”
“Awesome.”
The last scavenger hunt they had done freshman year had been on foot on campus and during the early fall when the temperatures were more forgiving and workable. Owing to the fact that it was barely 25 degrees, they had chosen instead to do a driving scavenger hunt around town. Taylor got chosen by the Honey Bees—a group of two freshmen and one sophomore, only one of which Taylor semi-knew, a girl named Jaylan though Taylor didn’t know her last name. What she did know about her was the girl had gone out with Greg. She was also the one that had danced with him at the winter formal and the one that had ended them all up in the hospital one night the semester before, back when the world still made some sense.
Taylor had nothing against the young woman who was blonde and rather talkative when she was chatting with the other two in the car—LaKeesha and Brooklyn. However, sitting in the back with her after they had found and taken selfies with the first four things on the list, Taylor found herself analyzing the young woman and trying to figure out why the thing she’d had with Greg had tanked. She wanted to ask, but of course, that was impossible.
“The next one is just a picture,” Brooklyn said.
They all went immediately to their phones to check it out.
“The letter G?” LaKeesha said without driving away from their last stop. “That could be anywhere.”
“No, look,” Jaylan said, bounding from the back over the seats to show the other two, “the dark windows. It’s that building, the tall one, just off campus on the corner.”
“Oh. Right. Right,” LaKeesha said, and she went instantly into driving mode. “Buckle-up, Honey Bees. Let’s move.”
Jaylan sat back and swiped on the seatbelt before going back to her phone. “We only have five more. I wonder how everyone else is doing.”
“The BadA’s must be right behind us,” Brooklyn said. “They just posted their pic of it.”
“Hey, Brook, can you grab my vape outta here?” LaKeesha tapped her elbow on the console between them. “I’ve got study group after this, and I have to be on-point for that.”
“Uh…” Brooklyn dug through the dark console, searching for the little pen-like device.
Turning to look out the window, Taylor fought not to say what went through her. Early in her time at Tech, Alpha Chi had done a workshop on the effects of drugs, alcohol and especially vapes. Coupled with her Anatomy and Physiology courses, it had been enough to make her never want to even try a vape. However, she wasn’t so naïve as to think that the other three didn’t know at least some of her story. So who was she to start preaching to them after she’d done enough alcohol and drugs to label her the biggest hypocrite on the planet if she said so much as a word?
When Brooklyn finally found the thing, she didn’t even give it to LaKeesha first.
“Ooo, wow. That’s good.” Brooklyn leaned back in the seat and passed the little lighted device to LaKeesha who took