She grins at my reflection.

She likes me better now.

It’s a mean and unfair thought. Cindy’s always been nice and has tried very hard this past year to befriend me. But somewhere at the back of her eyes, around her pupils reflected in the mirror, I see it. A softening as she takes in my scars, the shaved hair—something like compassion and something like relief.

I glance at my face again and have the wild urge to laugh. “What did you do to me?”

“It’s called contouring.”

“It’s bizarre.”

“Now, for the final touch.” She pulls a blond wig from a drawer, and when my brows raise, she shrugs. “It’s from Halloween. There.” She fits it on my head. “You look like a Barbie. Party Barbie.”

“I look like a sorority girl,” I say grimly to the woman in the mirror.

“What’s wrong with sorority girls?”

I blink at her. “Don’t tell me—”

She laughs. “Yep. KD. At Auburn. You’re going to hear us roar!”

“What’s that?” I ask, laughing despite myself. “Your slogan?”

“We had hundreds.” A grin.

“Go on,” I prompt as I tug the wig around my ears.

“Okay.” Her gaze turns to the ceiling as she tries to remember. “Another was ‘The sorority with authority.’ And ‘Why walk when you can fly’—I always liked that one, you know, because of Auburn’s battle cry. And ‘We bring the fire’—” She stops abruptly.

I meet her eyes in the mirror. “Well, just keep it away from me.” I’m trying for levity, but Cindy’s upset with herself anyway.

“So,” I say to fill the silence, “why did you join?”

She gives a small, wistful smile. “It was my home away from home,” she says. “I showed up without a friend in the world, racing around the campus like a lost puppy, worrying I’d have to eat all my meals in the dining hall alone, but then I rushed and found a whole house full of sisters. ‘Friends forever, sisters for life’—that’s another slogan.”

She points to a photo taped to the bottom of the mirror. A collection of women in long dresses laugh into the camera, their arms thrown around each other.

“I still keep in touch with five of the girls and have been a bridesmaid in two of their weddings. They’re the first people I call if I need to talk. I’m an only child, so they’re my family, you know?”

She shrugs to reconcile the difference in our opinions, but her eyes are bright.