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CHAPTER TEN

Last year my parents couldn’t come down for Parents’ Weekend because Dad had Covid. It was a little lonely being one of the only parentless freshman, but it was also kind of a relief because my parents aren’t the easiest to entertain. This year, however, I’m not getting a free pass.

Mom and Dad arrive early Friday evening looking fresh and polished.

You’d never guess they just spent six hours winding through the mountains in their silver Acura.

Liv is already out with her own parents, so she doesn’t have to perform for mine.

Mom and Dad like her okay, but she’s yet to really wow them.

Not like Zander has. They fell in love with him when he visited for a mere weekend last summer.

He’s like the son they already have. He and my brother Jamie are both business majors, both presidents of their fraternities, and both lacrosse players. Seems like my parents have a type.

They invited Zander to go to dinner with us tonight because, in Mom’s words, he’s “already family.” He makes a rare appearance at my dorm room door only a few minutes after Mom and Dad show up.

His hair is slicked back and he’s dressed in khakis and a button down.

Wearing a broad smile, he shakes Dad’s hand and returns Mom’s hug.

They’re getting Alexander O’Leary Jr. tonight, the business mogul’s son, the president of O-Chi and big man on campus. When he kisses me, Mom and Dad beam.

Because all the restaurants in Alderford smell like spilled beer, Dad does some googling and finds us an upscale Italian restaurant in Asheville. We drive over thirty minutes to the touristy side of town near the Biltmore, just so my parents can dine in style.

Everyone orders wine but me because I won’t even be twenty until January. When Zander offers me a sip from his glass, Mom says, “Oh, isn’t that sweet.” She’d probably think my personal cooler and Cole’s concoctions are “sweet” too.

Dad grills Zander about his plans for after graduation and probes for details about The O’Leary Group.

I’m surprised he doesn’t ask to see Alexander O’Leary Sr.’s investment portfolio.

To his credit, Zander handles Dad’s intrusiveness with grace.

He has the charm and confidence of a businessman twice his age.

He’s Billionaire Boy’s Club by day, drunk beach bum by night.

I hide a smile as I picture him ducking into a phone booth to rip off his Armani suit and stepping out in nothing but low-slung shorts and a hemp necklace.

Quietly, I pick around the frisée in my salad, content to be left out of the conversation. But unfortunately, Mom brings up Rush.

I tell her how well the GKA open house went, but her response is lukewarm.

“Oh?” She smiles indifferently. “I didn’t know GKA was on your list.” Which is her way of saying that if she had known, she’d have crossed it off. “Any other open houses?”

I’m debating whether to lie when Zander pipes up, “Didn’t you go to KPT a couple weeks ago?”

I hold back from kicking him under the table.

Mom’s blue eyes shine. “KPT? Really? Do they want you?”

“Of course they do,” Zander says proudly, throwing in an affectionate rub of my back.

Did he forget about the whole Peyton-Liv fiasco?

“Well then, what are you waiting for?” Mom urges. “They do continuous recruitment, don’t they?”

“Yeah, but I’m not ready to pick yet. I want to do formal Rush in January.”

“Betts. Sweetheart. You can’t do better than KPT.”

Wanna bet ?

“If they want me now, they’ll still want me then,” I say, trying to close out the subject.

But Mom’s nowhere near done. She launches into a veritable paean on all KPT’s merits.

The server takes our salad plates, refills our drinks, and brings out our entrees, and she’s still going on, only now she’s lapsed into lecturing me on “missed opportunities.”

When she appeals to Zander for help in persuading me, he matter-of-factly states, “Betts would make a great KPT.”

I pinch him, right above the knee, making sure my nails dig deep into his flesh.

“Ow! What the fu—uuzz.”

“Betts!” Mom hisses. “Did you just kick him?”

“It’s okay,” Zander says, shooting me a sheepish look. “It’s my fault, I forgot about…something.”

Mom is frowning at me. “You’re lying to me, aren’t you? You blew it at KPT.”

“No.”

Dad finally intervenes. “Of course she didn’t blow it. Right, sweetheart?”

I sigh. “It’s not me, it’s Liv.”

“Liv?” Mom looks relieved.

“They’re not going to let her in.”

“So? You and Olivia don’t have to be in the same sorority.”

“I know, but it’s for a really petty reason. It’s all because some girl thinks Liv stole her boyfriend.” That’s the nicest, most PG way I can put it.

Dad shrugs. Girls will be girls.

Mom raises a brow. “Well, did she? ”

“No. He wasn’t her boyfriend.”

Zander hides his smile behind a heaping bite of lasagna.

“That sort of thing happens all the time,” Mom says, unbothered. “Everyone will be over it in a few weeks.”

Maybe, but I don’t want any part of the catty nonsense. Unlike Mom, I don’t thrive on drama. I mutter, “I doubt it.”

“Well, it has nothing to do with you. There’s no reason you still can’t be a KPT.”

“Yeah, there is. I can’t do that to Liv.”

“Oh, Betts.” Mom gives me her patronizing pity eyes. I’m surprised she doesn’t reach across the table and pat my hand. “That’s sweet. But Rush is a competition. You have to throw some elbows to get to the prize.”

Without asking, I grab Zander’s wine and throw a big gulp down my throat. “So—how’s Jamie?”

Eyes alight, my parents regale Zander and me with one “simply hilarious” Jamie story after the next. I love my brother, but wow, Mom and Dad have a serious blind spot when it comes to him. He’s a borderline degenerate, but in their eyes he’s just a fun, all-American guy.

We spend only about ten minutes of our two-hour dinner talking about my classes, and even then, I’m the one who brings them up. Mom and Dad aren’t even sure what courses I’m taking.

Dad looks bewildered. “Sociology? Why would you take that?”

I don’t dare mention that it’s a requirement for women’s studies. “It’s helpful in analyzing literature.”

“You need to take something practical. I thought we talked about you taking some communications classes.”

We did talk about it—and I said I wasn’t interested.

“Oh Derek,” Mom simpers. “Let her take what she enjoys.”

“What kind of job is she going to get with an English degree?” Concern deepens the wrinkles on Dad’s forehead.

She pats his arm and smiles at Zander. “She’ll be just fine.”

I may be the first person in history to choke on tiramisu. My eyes sting as I hack up a wad of espresso-soaked ladyfingers. I know exactly what Mom is implying, and I’m mortified. I want to shout at her across the table, “I’m not in college to find a rich husband!”

Zander pats my back as I clear the last of the dessert out of my throat. “You okay there, babe?” I can tell by his clueless smile that Mom’s hint flew right over his head.

Afraid of giving Mom any more ammo, I keep quiet for the rest of dinner and the ride home.

My parents brought with them the life I’ve lived for eighteen years, the one I’m trying to escape down here in the mountains.

Earlier today, I was a competent college student with goals, two hours with Mom and Dad and I’m back to playing the same old role: irrational Betts.

On the way to their hotel, Mom and Dad drop Zander and me off on campus, but I decline his invitation to hang out tonight at O-Chi. I have to entertain again tomorrow and I need some downtime.

As soon as I open the door to Newberry Hall, I feel it, like I’ve smacked face-first into a wall, only it’s a wall of tension, not stone. As always, my first instinct is to ignore it, to push through. But Leo’s voice snakes into my mind. Pay attention to what you’re feeling.

Fine. But only for a second.

Like a doctor, I analyze the symptoms: prickling agitation and a hot electric charge. Then I make a diagnosis: someone is angry, but not to the degree Zander was the other night.

The vibes get stronger as I make my way down the hall, and by the time I reach my room, I’ve already guessed their source.

Sure enough, I enter to find Liv red-faced and muttering.

She’s slamming drawers and stomping around the small space, looking for objects to safely hurl into the walls and floor.

As I duck out of the way of a flying binder clip, she notices me.

“Tell me your night was better than mine,” she growls, chest heaving.

“Um. Probably.” Marginally. I close the door gently behind me. “What happened?”

“Mom and Dad left. We had a huge fight. ”

Yeah, that’s what I figured.

“They said I can’t Rush if I don’t get my GPA up.

” She slams a defenseless pen against the wardrobe door.

“Like I need this right now! They’re acting like I’m flunking out or something.

” Frowning, she scoops up the shattered pieces of the pen barrel, shrugs, then tosses them in the trash.

“If a 3.2 is good enough for the Panhellenic Council, you’d think it would be good enough for Dad, but no! To him, a B might as well be an F!”

“That sucks.” I swipe the binder clip missile off the floor and hand it to her.

“Whatever.” She drops into her desk chair with a huff. “I’m not gonna stay in every night and ‘buckle down,’ like Dad says. I didn’t come to college to do nothing but study.”

Honestly, if Liv gave her coursework even fifty percent of her time, she’d have that 4.0. She’s one of the smartest people I know, she just refuses to act like it.

“But I bet you could pull off a 3.4,” I say.

“Yeah, maybe,” she sighs. “If I can ace my finals.”

“You can do it.”

She rests her head on her hand and manages a beleaguered smile. “So how was dinner?”

“Mom was in rare form.”

“Even for her?”