Pulse (Contemporary new adult/college romance) (Club Grit Trilogy) by Brooke Jaxsen Page B

him and apologize and see him so we could “talk it out”, so that he could “comfort” me about our “misunderstanding”. It was as if they forgot what happened last night, forgotten that they’d heard me screaming through the car and that they hadn’t opened to help me out, that out of everyone that could have stopped what was going on, only Skylar was there for me and he didn’t even like me that much. I didn’t give a shit. I lifted up the whole thing and threw it in the fucking trash. The glass shattered and cut the plastic trash bag into ribbons, the pieces disappearing into the water as if they were melting away, while the memories lay steadfast in my brain, unlike the card, the ink running down and making the bear clown even more grotesque and disgusting.
    The only thing I wanted to see was Skylar, the only one who had actually cared about me.
    I couldn’t eat, too disgusted by the fact my almost rapist had tried to apologize with a fucking bouquet of flowers. Everyone else did and after breakfast, Sam and Kim talked to me in the meeting room. The sorority president, Pearl, was there as well.
    “As of this morning, you are no longer a sister of Omega Mu Gamma,” said Pearl. “Please pack up your things within the next twenty four hours and leave as soon as possible.”
    “What? Why?” I had expected to get a warning about what had happened last night, but instead there was this.
    “Is this about what happened last night?” I asked.
    “What happened last night?” Pearl half asked, half said. I hated how everyone talked in double speak here, how the difference in intonation made things a compliment or an insult, an question or a command. “This is about the fact that your grades have fallen below a minimum of acceptable levels for this sorority. As of current, you have a two point nine grade point average. You have not booked any tutoring sessions in your courses and honestly, given the fact that the average is low across the board, I don’t think they’d help enough. We are going to be taking in another pledge instead.”
    “But where am I supposed to go? This is my home!” I insisted. Sam put a hand on my arm and shook her head.
    “I’m sure your parents can figure something out, easily,” said Pearl, coldly. It all made sense now. The only reason that they’d accepted me as a student in the first place was because somehow, they’d known about my parent’s money and wanted a chunk of that change for themselves. I had been told donating to the sorority was optional. I had been told getting accepted meant I was the best of the best, not the richest of the richest. I was wrong.
    “You don’t belong here,” said Kim Lee gently.
    “I did everything you asked,” I almost shouted, pushing my hands onto the table as I stood. I felt Sam’s hand on my arm again and I sat back down.
    “That’s why you don’t belong. We don’t want pushovers. We want people who are strong and independent. You’re neither of those things. Would you have ever gone to Club Grit if we hadn’t invited you? Would you have ever said no? The fact you feel some need to please us, to grovel? That’s pathetic. That’s not Omega House behavior.” Her voice was now more cutting, but I knew what she said was true. She knew what people were really made of, capable of. That’s why she was in charge of pledge recruitment, and although maybe, she saw something in me, whether it was character or the fact my parents had won the lottery, she knew she’d made a mistake in letting me join Omega Mu Gamma. It wasn’t for girls like me.
    So I’d become a girl like them.
    I nodded and she and Samantha left my room, leaving me to finish packing. My house roommate knocked. “Come in,” I said. I didn’t care who saw what I was doing.
    “You’re really leaving, huh,” she said. Tall, blonde, buxom, I didn’t even remember her name. I only saw her at the mandatory events for freshman because she went to bed earlier than I