The Longest Ride

in her jeans and sleeveless blouse.

She sipped her drink, content to watch and listen and take it all in. Marcia had wandered off with Ashley a few minutes earlier, no doubt to talk to some guys she’d met. Most of the other girls were forming similar clusters, but Sophia didn’t feel the need to join them. She’d always been a bit of a loner, and unlike a lot of people in the house, she didn’t live and die by the rules of the sorority. Though she’d made some good friends, she was ready to move on. As scary as the prospect of real life seemed, she was excited at the thought of having her own place. She vaguely imagined a loft in some city, with bistros and coffeehouses and bars nearby, but who knew how realistic that was. The truth was that even living in a dumpy apartment off the highway in Omaha, Nebraska, would be preferable to her current situation. She was tired of living in the sorority house, and not just because Chi Omega and Sigma Chi were paired again. It was her third year in the house, and by now the drama of sorority life was wearing thin. No, scratch that. In a house with thirty-four girls, the drama was endless , and though she’d done her best to avoid it, she knew this year’s version was already under way. The new crop of sophomore girls fretted endlessly about what everyone else thought of them and how best to fit in as they vied for a higher place in the pecking order.

Even when she’d joined, Sophia hadn’t really cared about any of that stuff. She’d become a member of the sorority partly because she hadn’t gotten along with her freshman roommate and partly because all the other freshmen were rushing. She was curious to find out what it was all about, especially since the social life at Wake was defined largely by the Greek system. The next thing she knew, she was a Chi Omega and putting a deposit down on the room in the house.

She’d tried to get into the whole thing. Really. During her junior year, she’d briefly considered becoming an officer. Marcia had burst out laughing as soon as Sophia had mentioned it, and then Sophia had begun to laugh as well, and that had been the end of it. A good thing, too, because Sophia knew she would have made a lousy officer. Even though she’d attended every party, formal, and mandatory meeting, she couldn’t buy into the whole “sisterhood will change your life” ethos, nor did she believe that “being a Chi Omega will bestow lifelong benefits.”

Whenever she heard those slogans at the chapter meetings, she’d wanted to raise her hand and ask her fellow sisters if they honestly believed that the amount of spirit she showed during Greek Week really mattered in the long run. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine sitting in an interview and hearing her future boss say, I notice here that you helped choreograph the dance number that helped to put Chi Omega at the top of the sorority rankings your junior year. Frankly, Miss Danko, that happens to be exactly the skill set we’ve been searching for in a museum curator.

Please.

Sorority life was part of her college experience and she didn’t regret it, but she never wanted it to be the only part. Or even the major part. First and foremost, she’d come to Wake Forest because she’d wanted a good education, and her scholarship required that she put her studies first. And she had.

She rotated her drink, reflecting on the past year. Well… almost, anyway.

Last semester, after she’d learned that Brian had cheated on her for the second time, she’d been a wreck. She’d found it impossible to study, and when finals rolled around, she’d had to cram like crazy to maintain her GPA. She’d made it… barely. But it was just about the most stressful thing she’d ever gone through, and she was determined not to let it happen again. If it hadn’t been for Marcia, she wasn’t sure how she could have gotten through last semester at all, and that was reason enough to be grateful she’d joined Chi Omega in the first place. To her, the sorority had always been about individual friendship, not some rah-rah group identity; and to her, friendship had nothing to do with anyone’s place in the pecking order. And so, as she had since the beginning, she would do what she had to in the house during her senior year, but no more than that. She’d pay her fees and dues and ignore the cliques that were no doubt already forming, especially the ones that believed that being a Chi Omega