Almost as if by agreement, Rob and I didn't connect on Saturday or most of Sunday. Sunday night, Mishti called a floor meeting to discuss a floor wide event we had to host at The Breeze, which could be loosely referred to as a nightclub on campus. It was really only busy during whole floor residence events, which meant the school insisted that every floor hosted one at some point as an opportunity to bond with your floormates.

Tricia had her arm tucked in mine as I pulled open the door to the common room. I was so busy laughing at one of her jokes that it took me a moment to look around the room. There, sitting in the back corner was Rob and who was on his lap? Rachel. I felt my smile slipping, and I forced myself to steer Tricia to the opposite side of the room from the two of them.

We listened to Mishti drone on about plans for our bar night and the need for a theme. I was having trouble concentrating, but Tricia was a keener and contributed enough for both of us. We decided on a 1970s theme for the evening, which would take place after Thanksgiving.

Once the meeting was over, we wandered back to our room, and Tricia was even more peppy than usual. Once we got to our room, she shut the door and turned to me.

"Okay, I have to confess something." She looked worried.

"What?" I asked, picking up random things from the floor and putting them away. If there was one thing that bothered Tricia about me, it was my lack of tidiness.

"Jill's parents are in town today and she asked Lark and me to go out for dinner with them tonight."

"Just you and Lark?" I asked, pausing my cleanup.

"Yeah. I asked if you could come, too. But, Jill said her parents didn't want a lot of people."

"Inviting me would make it a lot of people?" I was already feeling down about Rob with Rachel, and this just felt like a second punch to the gut.

"Lark and I tried, really. But, Jill and Lark kinda don't get along that well and I think it's good for me to go, too. But, I don't want to leave you here by yourself. So, if you don't want me to go, I'll just say I can't go."

I sat down on my bed with a heavy sigh and looked at Tricia. "No, it's fine, just go. I'm sure I can find someone to hang out with."

"Maybe Rob?" she sounded hopeful.

"No. Didn't you see Rachel sitting on his lap during that meeting?"

"Maybe she's just a flirt?"

"And maybe there's something going on between them, and I don't want to get in the middle. It's just not my thing. I'm not a girl who fights over a boy."

I flopped back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. I wondered what Jill was hoping to get out of this dinner with Lark and Tricia. If she was hoping to endear herself to Tricia, I was sure that excluding me wasn't going to help her case.

I'd learned a thing or two about Tricia in the last few weeks, and one of those things was her uncompromising loyalty. When Tricia liked you, she liked you and when she didn't... Well, she could be equally brutal. I'd thought that maybe Jill and I had figured out a way to be friendly the other night at the Oasis, but apparently I was wrong.

Tricia looked at her alarm clock. "We leave in an hour, I think."

"Where are you going?" I asked, not really interested, but I didn't want Tricia to feel any worse than she already did.

"Some place downtown. They're paying. Maybe they were just too cheap or too broke to spring for an extra meal?"

I would have gladly paid for mine, but I wasn't about to say that right now, either. Instead, I stood up and grabbed my keys.

"I'm going to the grocery store to get a few things. Do you want anything?" I asked. We ate most of our meals off the meal card, but I ended up missing dinner or breakfast sometimes with my swim practice and class schedule. It was always good to have some extra food kicking around. I didn't need much since it would be Thanksgiving soon, but I needed to get away from this place for a little while.

She stopped getting ready and looked at me. "Are you okay? I feel terrible. The worst. I am the worst. I won't go."

"No, go. Jill and I aren't really great friends. I get it." I did not get it. The four of us did everything together, even if Jill and I weren't close.

I walked out of the room without a backward glance, swinging my keys in my hand. As I walked past Anil's room, I heard Josh talking. I popped my head in the door on impulse. I knew Josh often missed meals with his football schedule, too.

"Anyone need anything from the grocery story?" I asked.

Josh and Anil both looked at me like I'd just said it was Christmas.

"How are you getting to the grocery store?" Anil asked.

"My car," I said, swinging the key at him.

"I'm coming," Anil said, grabbing his jacket off a chair.

"Just going to grab my coat," Josh said as he scrambled out the door.

"Why are you guys so excited?" I asked, almost forgetting my bad mood.

"Normally, to get anything, we have to use the bus and it's a pain in the ass hauling groceries around on a bus," Anil explained.

Josh was back quickly and the three of us trudged over to my car. There was a thin layer of snow on the ground, and it crunched under my boots. I didn't say much on the way over. My mind just kept going over all the reasons Jill would purposely exclude me. None of them were good.

Once we were in the car on the way to the store, Anil shoved my shoulder a bit to get my attention. He and Josh had been keeping a running commentary going about various sports teams and stats. I had completely tuned out.

"What's up with you today?" Anil asked.

I sighed. "Do you really want to know?" I turned to look at him and his face said 'yes' even if the word didn't leave his mouth. "Jill's parents are here visiting and they're taking Lark, Tricia and her out for dinner."

"Why aren't you going?" Josh asked from the back seat.

"I wasn't invited."

He let out a barking laugh and shook his head. "Man, girls and their drama. What's Jill's problem?"

"I feel like it must be me," I said grimly.

"Nah," Anil scrunched up his face. "I think it's that Lark and Tricia are the alphas. No offense. She thinks she can win them over without you there."

"What?" I burst out. I wasn't sure if I was offended or relieved at the thought. Maybe this lack of an invitation had nothing to do with me.

"I have a lot of sisters," Anil continued. "There's always some sort of power struggle going on in one of the friendship groups. Someone is always trying to get noticed. I don't understand it, but I know it." He grinned at me, and his white teeth were brilliant against his brown face.

I thought back to my high school friendships. He wasn't far off the mark there. I remembered quite a few instances where I was either excluded or excluding someone else for exactly the same reason. I also knew all too well that groups of three weren't great for building friendships. I had been hoping our foursome would work out.

Jill's overly loud comment about being so glad that university was different from high school rang in my ears, and I rolled my eyes. I wondered at what point life wasn't like high school anymore. High school sucked.

"You might be on to something," I admitted.

"What's up with you and Rob, too?" Anil asked.

"Dude, are you secretly a girl? Why are you asking her these questions?" Josh asked, flicking Anil in the back of the head.

"It's fine." My eyes connect with Josh's in the rear view mirror. "There's nothing going on with me and Rob. We just hang out sometimes."

"He talks about you all the time. It's annoying," Anil said. The casualness with which he said this stunned me. He just dropped a bomb so big I felt like it might have been atomic in size. Anil realized what he said, but not its significance. He then said, "Not that you aren't nice, er, cool, er whatever. But, it's a bit much sometimes."

Rob talked about me? All the time? So much that it was annoying? What about Rachel? I was giddy and suspicious all at the same time.

"Dude, Rob will kill you for saying that," Josh said pushing himself back in his seat. "Remind me not to talk to you about anything I don't want broadcast across campus."

Anil chuckled. "Whatever. I'm a journalism major; my job is broadcasting."

Once we got to the grocery store, we divided and conquered our own personal lists. I was feeling slightly better after spending time with Josh and Anil. Both of them were so different, but good for me. Maybe I spent too much time with Lark and Trisha.

On the way back to campus, I caught Josh's eyes in the mirror. "Did you have to do anything...special to be on the football team?" I asked.

"Yeah, but we don't talk about it. Guy code. There are some awesomely gross stories there, but my lips are sealed." He made a zipping motion with his fingers across his lips. His hazel eyes were full of mischief.

"Right. Not even one story?" I felt pretty sure that Josh would be dying to tell someone. He loved his gross stories.

He looked like he was debating. "One. But, no names." He held up a finger to silence us. "There was a box of donuts in the room locker room. All the rookies were outside the room and the senior players were in the room alone. We had to go in, pick a donut and eat it."

"Ohhh...that sounds soooo terrible," Anil mocked him.

"I wasn't finished. Each donut had something done to it - maybe some guy smeared some snot on it, maybe something worse. Who knew? None of us rookies knew. We just had to go in there and pick whichever one looked okay and mow down."

I felt some bile rising into my throat and my stomach rolled at the suggestion of eating snot on a donut. Then, my mind wandered to all the other things that could have been on the donuts and I thought I might puke.

"That's disgusting," I said.

"Guys are awesome for coming up with the grossest things," Josh admitted. "That wasn't even the worst thing we had to do."

"Did anyone complain?" I asked, thinking about Cathy calling out during our shots that she was too drunk. I remembered the morning after that she had also been the one who puked down the side of Ashley's van.

"Nah. We're too hardcore." Josh flexed his muscles. They were considerable in size and well defined. He laughed. "No one was singled out; we all did exactly the same things."

"Do you think it could have gotten out of control?" I asked. There had to be a reason why every school was so strict about not having an initiation. Mine had been fun, and it sounded like Josh had fun at his, too.

"Oh, yeah," Josh admitted. "If it was the wrong person in charge, I could see the whole thing being brutal. It was just fun, though. Just a lot of fun."

"Is that why you have those marks in your eyebrows?" I asked, pointing to my own eyebrows where his looked shaved. He'd come back from a night out with notches in his eyebrows. I hadn't thought about it until now, but a lot of the football guys seemed to have them.

"We all did it. Solidarity. Even the vets."

"Man," Anil said, "if the school ever got wind of the fact that varsity teams are still hazing people, all hell would break loose." Anil whistled.

"Who would tell?" Josh asked. His voice was full of bluster and confidence when he said, "Besides, it's not really hazing; it's just a bit of fun. Anyone could have said no. Right, Liz?"

"Well, we were certainly told we could," I agreed. "I don't know if anyone would have felt comfortable saying no, though."

"That's just being a pussy," Josh lamented.

"I had a lot of fun that night. I can't speak for anyone else on the team, though. The guys seemed to do a lot of...interesting things. Ours felt a bit tame by comparison." I raised my eyebrows and looked at Josh in the mirror. "Maybe it's not just girls who have drama?"

Josh laughed. "Touche."

Once we got back to the dorm, Tricia, Lark, and Jill were still gone, so I hung out with Josh and Anil for most of the night. Then, when I got bored of hearing about sports teams and stats that I didn't follow, I wandered back to my own room to do some work.

I heard them before I saw them. I went to my door and looked out to see Lark and Tricia arm in arm, and Jill trailing behind them. Just then, the phone in Lark's and Jill's room started ringing and Lark broke into a sprint down the corridor.

"It's probably Cal," she said to me as she frantically tried to get her key in the lock. She swung the door open and practically slammed it in Jill's face.

"Guess she wants some privacy," Tricia commented. She turned to Jill. "You can hang out in our room if you want?"

"No, that's okay. I'll go see if Tom is busy," Jill said, standing there awkwardly.

"Did you have a good dinner?" I asked them both, false brightness radiating off me.

"It was okay," Tricia said. "Thanks for taking us, Jill. That was really nice of you."

Jill backed away from the door and said, "No problem. I'll see you guys later."

Tricia pulled me inside the room and shut the door. Then, she closed all the avenues that let sound travel between our two rooms. The pass through by the mirror and the bathroom door were shut tightly.

"I have another confession. Well, it's not my confession, but still..." Tricia trailed off. "I wasn't sure how you'd take it."

Author's Note:

What else could Tricia possibly have to tell Liz? Do you think Anil's right about why Liz was excluded from the dinner? What do you think the university would do if it found out they'd participated in initiations?