I recognized her from my dorm and looked away quickly, hoping she wouldn’t come over. There wasn’t anything wrong with her per se, but her entire demeanor seemed a little forced. She walked around with this approximation of a smile on her face that verged on a wince, and she was always lurking. She would come up behind the rest of us and just stand there, nodding like she was part of the conversation and smiling that weird smile.

As the door swung open and singing sorority sisters paraded out, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Cat wasn’t going to glom on to me. She must have read my expression, because her face was red, her cornflower-blue eyes bright with hurt. My mouth went sour with guilt, but what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t let some girl I barely knew torpedo my chance at getting into a good house.

If I’d known she was a legacy, I might have behaved differently.

At the bid day party, the KGA president stood at the front of the room in a size zero Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress and clasped her manicured hands together, gushing about how lucky they were to have us, how lucky our chapter was to consistently pledge such amazing women. Later, after we had dispersed into smaller circles, I noticed Cat standing alone. As she was nearly six feet, it was hard for her to fade into the wallpaper, but that’s exactly what she was trying to do.

She’s in way over her head, I thought unkindly.

But then I remembered her wounded expression from the first day of rush, and I felt a flicker of shame. Hadn’t I promised myself I would be less of a bitch in college? And here I was, just a couple of weeks into the venture, already being exclusionary—and to one of my own sisters, no less! I excused myself from a conversation about sunless tanner with two girls named Lindsay and crossed the room to Cat.

“I’m Audrey,” I said. “We live on the same floor.”

“I know,” she said shyly, ducking her head so that her thick hair curtained around her face.

Stop acting like some bashful fucking tween, I wanted to scream. Instead, I smiled brightly and said, “Looks like we’re going to be sisters.”

CHAPTER FOUR CAT

I was perpetually astounded by Audrey’s apparent belief in her own immortality and the risks she took because of it. I still felt queasy when I remembered the trip we took to Mardi Gras senior year, when Audrey disappeared with some guy she met on Bourbon Street. She laughed when I tried to stop her from leaving the group, calling me a worrywart and swearing to kill me if I told her boyfriend, Nick. Four anxious hours later, I was on the verge of calling the New Orleans Police Department when she stumbled into our hotel room, giggling and wearing her shirt inside out.

But even with Audrey’s history of making reckless decisions, I was stunned she was foolish enough to rent an apartment blind. She scoffed at my concern and insisted she’d done her due diligence: googling her landlord, reverse image searching the pictures from the Craigslist ad, scouting the location on Google Maps street view.