Damaged Petals.

[djp73]

Another big win there

[Soapy]

Brice got chewed the fuck out

Good on him for hugging it, they really weren't wrong if we keeping it a bean.

Surprised Liz didn't go snatch up James when Serena's [redacted] hands were on him or say something about her choice of safari themed items.

Liz ain't gonna say something like that in public. She gonna say it to Brice or Sophie later

I mean, was the Hayes wrong? Doubtful is Skylar didn't get packed up he'd be playing house now. He'd let his Mom take that L and hang out with the Hayes while they did everything

GET THEM [REDACTED] HANDS OFF THAT WHITE BABY!

Another big win there

yessir

still a bit disrespected in the rankings. only 6th

[Soapy]

Season 9, Episode 11
Sophie stood at the check-in table with her lanyard hanging around her neck. Thursday night had been the drive to Pittsburgh. A few hours later, on Friday morning, they were back on the road. And now it was Friday afternoon, and her body felt like something that had been left out in the rain and then run over by a truck and then left out in the rain again.

Her mother was already talking to somebody. A woman in a Rutgers polo, clipboard in hand, nodding at whatever Liz was saying with that practiced enthusiasm that meant she’d said the same thing to forty other parents this week. Sophie’s father stood a few feet away, his phone in his hand, his thumb moving across the screen. Just scrolling. Just filling the space.

Sophie pulled the lanyard off her neck and let it dangle from her fingers. The plastic card had her name on it in that generic font that every university used, as if they’d all gotten the same memo about making prospective students feel like they were at a conference for people who sold insurance.

She turned it over. Nothing on the back. Just blank white plastic.

She thought about the drive home. Ten hours straight. Her father would drive the whole way without complaining because he never complained about driving, and Sophie would sit in the back seat with her phone and her headphones and the same set of songs she’d been listening to since they left South Bend, and the miles would stretch out in front of them like something that had been designed specifically to punish her.

The orientation room was on the second floor. A long rectangular space with rows of folding chairs and a projector screen at the front and a table along the side wall with water pitchers and stacks of paper cups. Sophie took a seat in the third row, close enough to the door that she could see the hallway, far enough from the front that she wouldn’t be called on if there was any sort of participation aspect to it.

Her parents sat behind her. She could hear her mother’s voice, still going, still finding someone new to talk to, the low murmur of it blending with the other murmurs in the room until it became part of the background noise.

The admissions counselor took the podium at exactly one o’clock. A woman in her thirties with a Rutgers lanyard of her own and a smile that looked like it came out of a brochure. She introduced herself. The PowerPoint came up.

Slide one: WELCOME TO RUTGERS UNIVERSITY.

Slide two: ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE.

The admissions counselor talked about rankings. U.S. News. Princeton Review. She talked about acceptance rates. The numbers scrolled across the screen in a font that was too small to read from the third row, but Sophie wasn’t trying to read them anyway. She was trying to keep her eyes open.

Slide three: HOUSING OPTIONS.

The photos were generic. Dorm rooms that looked like every dorm room Sophie had ever seen. Common areas that looked like every common area. A dining hall that looked like every dining hall. The admissions counselor talked about meal plans and housing applications and priority deadlines, and Sophie’s eyelids got heavy, and she blinked hard, and the room came back into focus for a second before starting to blur again.

Slide four: FINANCIAL AID.

Her mother was writing something down. Sophie could hear the scratch of the pen against the notepad, the small, precise sound of it cutting through the counselor’s voice. Her father’s phone buzzed. He checked it. Set it down. Picked it up again thirty seconds later.

Slide five: STUDENT LIFE.

Clubs. Organizations. Intramural sports. Greek life. The counselor talked about all of it with the same measured enthusiasm, the same even cadence, and Sophie felt her head dip forward and caught herself and sat up straight and felt her head dip forward again.

The walking tour saved her.

They filed out of the orientation room and into the hallway and down the stairs and out through the front doors of the admissions building, and the cold air woke her up. She blinked. The campus spread out in front of her, brick buildings and green lawns and trees that were just starting to turn.

The tour guide was a junior. Communications major. He walked backward the entire time, which Sophie found both impressive and deeply annoying. He pointed at buildings and named them and told stories about them that Sophie was pretty sure he’d told a hundred times before, and the group moved in a loose cluster behind him, parents and students mixed together, everyone walking at that particular pace that meant nobody wanted to be the fastest or the slowest.

Sophie hung toward the back. She pulled her phone out and opened the camera. She framed a shot of the main quad, the brick buildings on either side, the trees in the distance, the sky that particular shade of blue that only happened in October. She took it. Looked at it. Took another one from a slightly different angle.

She opened Instagram. Posted the first one to her story. Added a location tag. Rutgers University. Added a sticker. She hit share and put her phone back in her pocket.

The tour moved on. A library. A dining hall. A building that housed the school of something-or-other. Sophie’s mother had found another parent to talk, and they walked side by side, their voices carrying back to where Sophie trailed behind. Her father was on his phone again.

Most of the other prospective students were local. Sophie could tell by the way they talked about the campus. They moved through the tour in pairs and small groups, already forming the kind of easy, casual connections that came from sharing a zip code. Sophie walked alone.

She didn’t mind. She’d walked alone at Virginia too, and at the other schools they’d visited over the summer. It was easier that way. Nobody expected you to make conversation. Nobody asked you what you were thinking about or where else you were applying or what you wanted to study. You could just exist in the space and observe it and decide, privately, whether it felt like somewhere you could see yourself.

Rutgers didn’t feel like that. Not yet. It felt like a campus. Like buildings and lawns and a tour guide walking backward. It didn’t feel like anything specific. It didn’t feel like home, and it didn’t feel like not-home. It just felt like a place.

The tour ended where it started, back at the admissions building. The tour guide thanked everyone for coming, reminded them about the information session tomorrow, and the group dispersed in that slow, reluctant way that groups dispersed when nobody was quite sure what to do next. Parents pulled their kids aside for whispered conversations. Students exchanged phone numbers with the people they’d been walking next to. Sophie stood by herself near the edge of the sidewalk and checked the time on her phone.

Her phone buzzed. An Instagram notification. She tapped it. It was a reply to her story. She smiled.

…

"There’s literally no point in talking if you think involuntary is on the table. Be fucking serious."

The coffee shop was two blocks from the courthouse, the kind of place that existed specifically for meetings like this. Britney had chosen it for the corner table in the back, the one that sat far enough from the door that nobody walking past could hear anything, close enough to the wall that the ambient noise of the espresso machine and the register and the couple arguing about almond milk at the counter provided a steady, anonymous hum.

"Come on, you’ve seen the fucking report," Ms. Vega shook her head, "There’s no way you’re landing murder one. I get why you had to overcharge, but you overcharged. Come on, you know it."

Britney took a sip of her coffee. It had gone lukewarm. She set it back down and folded her hands on the table.

"Come on," Britney let out a short laugh, "You’re going to need more than that, Lucie."

“None of us want this,” Vega shook her head. "You know what a case like this does to a city like this."

"I didn’t ask her to kill that fucking woman, Lucie," Britney picked up the coffee again. Took another sip. Set it back down. "I’m just doing my job."

"Look," Vega sighed, "I’m not asking for the fucking world here."

"With involuntary, you kind of are. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. You know that."

"What’s the fucking point of you being the district attorney then?" Vega caught herself, "I’m just saying. We have to look at the context. The drug use. Not recreational. Her age. The clinical diagnosis."

"Your diagnosis. Not ours."

"Anyone with a fucking brain on that jury is going to see this for what it was," Vega fired back. "It was a mistake."

“A mistake that killed someone.”

“A mistake,” Vega repeated. “Not premeditation. Not intent. She didn’t go to that apartment planning to hurt anyone. You know that. I know that. The jury is going to know that."

"What they’re going to know is what that medical report says," Britney took another sip, "Six hours, Lucie. She could have saved her."

"She didn’t—"

"Look, that doesn’t fucking matter, and you know it," Britney scoffed, "When they read that report, and they picture Skylar lying on the fucking ground for six hours, hemorrhaging to death, no fucking tox report, no fucking psych eval, no dead fucking friend is going to return anything other than a guilty verdict."

Vega opened her mouth. She closed it without saying anything. The espresso machine hissed behind the counter. The barista called out an order.

“This is Indiana,” Britney reminded her. "The best I can do is murder two."

"That’s hardly a deal, Brit."

"It takes the death penalty off the table," Britney shrugged, "And honestly, hon, that’s the fucking family and friends discount at this point. Don’t push it."

…

Serena stood in front of the mirror above the desk and worked the flat iron through a section of hair that had already been flat-ironed twice.

"You know what I'm saying, though?" Sabrina was on the pull-out couch with her legs stretched out, her phone propped against a pillow. "This is the type of shit I’m trying to be on."

"Give him some time, girl," Kennedi laughed from the bathroom, "He just started playing for real and you’re trying to run his pockets."

"Shit, what else these niggas good for?" Sabrina teased as she stuck her tongue out.

Kennedi continued laughing while Serena continued ignoring them as she set the flat iron down and picked up the section she'd just finished. She let it fall and picked up the next one.

"Can you pass me that brush?" Kennedi called from the bathroom.

Sabrina reached for the brush on the nightstand without looking up from her phone. She held it out toward the bathroom doorway, and Kennedi's hand appeared and took it.

"What time is the pickup?" Sabrina asked.

"Seven," Serena said. "The reservation's at eight."

"We really about to be rolling through New York motherfucking City in a black truck," Sabrina shook her head. "We're really out here."

"Our sis doing her big one," Kennedi echoed from the bathroom. "Her nigga don’t play about her. Period."

Serena worked through another section of hair. The flat iron hissed against the strands, and the smell of whatever product she'd used filled the space between the desk and the mirror. She could see Sabrina in the reflection, still on the pull-out couch, still on her phone, still talking.

"I’m just waiting for the wedding invite at this point," Sabrina set her phone down and sat up. "You know I have to be a bridesmaid, right?"

"Bitch, you’re gassing it," Serena said, but she could hear the smile in her own voice, and she knew Sabrina could hear it too, "It’s been barely a year."

"It don’t matter," Sabrina sucked her teeth, "You was planning a birthday party for a nigga that ain’t even your son. That’s some step-mom shit. The ring has to come after that."

"Relax."

"Y’all the one that needs to relax," Sabrina swung her legs off the couch and stood up, crossing the room to lean against the desk next to Serena, "Doing some ghetto fabulous shit. That nigga got way too much paper to be moving like that. And you have too much sense to let him if he’s not going to lock it down."

Serena laughed and set the flat iron down. "Shut up."

"I'm just saying." Sabrina picked up the flat iron and turned it over in her hands. "Don’t be stupid, girl. You done stood by this nigga all this time. Ain’t no point in pretending it ain’t what it is. Put some pressure on that nigga. You know he’s going to fold."

Kennedi appeared in the bathroom doorway, one eye done, the other still bare. "She's not wrong."

"Both of y'all need to stop." Serena picked up the flat iron again and turned it back on. The light blinked red, then steady.

"I'm just saying," Sabrina continued, "Imagine he gets drafted to a place like this. New York got a team, right?"

"Two of them," Kennedi chimed in.

"Bitch!" Sabrina cackled, "Even better."

"Y’all are so dumb," Serena shook her head. She picked up the flat iron again and turned back to the mirror.

She finished the last section of hair and set the flat iron down. She picked up the bottle of oil on the desk and worked a few drops through the ends, her fingers moving through the strands. In the mirror, she could see Sabrina watching her.

Serena met her eyes in the reflection. Held them for a second.

Then she smiled.

"Whatever," she said. "Y’all bitches need to hurry up. I will leave y’all."

…

The brunch spot was on the top floor of a building with all exposed brick and hanging plants. You know the type. Sophie sat across from Serena with a menu she hadn't opened yet, her hands folded on top of it.

"Whew chile," Sabrina glanced over the menu, "Everything on this motherfucker look good."

Serena shot her a look. Sabrina winced. Sophie laughed.

"My bad, y’all," Sabrina held a hand up, "I ain’t as prim and proper as I look."

"Who said you looked prim and proper?" Kennedi teased.

Sophie smiled. She'd been smiling a lot since she sat down. It was almost like the energy at the table demanded it. She hadn’t expected the Instagram message from Serena. They’d met a few times, mostly in passing, before James’ birthday party. She was surprised when Serena followed her on Instagram shortly after that. Even more surprised when she liked her story. And then replied to it with an invite.

Now here she was. In a restaurant in New York City, sitting across from her brother's girlfriend and two women she'd never met, and somehow it didn't feel weird. It should have felt weird. She was sixteen. They were all in college. They were all from places that weren't South Bend. But Serena had pulled out the chair next to her when she walked up, and Sabrina had immediately asked her about how the visit went, and Kennedi had complimented her jacket, and within five minutes Sophie felt like she'd been sitting at this table for years.

"Don’t let her scare you away from Georgetown," Kennedi continued, "They’re not all like her."

"You got some nerve, Mrs. Southside," Sabrina playfully shook her head.

Sophie wasn’t sure if she was allowed to laugh but she did anyway.

"What’s it like growing up somewhere like South Bend? I didn’t even think about it being a city for real outside of just Notre Dame?" Kennedi asked.

"I don’t know," Sophie shrugged, "I guess it’s all I know so it’s fine, I guess? I don’t really notice it until I’m somewhere else."

"I hated Lafayette when I first got there," Serena chimed in, "I don’t know, I’m more of a city girl but—"

"We know, babe," Sabrina cackled.

"Anyway," Serena rolled her eyes as she stifled her smile, "Small towns have their charm."

"I hear that, but our girl needs to be in a big city," Kennedi nodded towards Sophie, "I think you’d love it. I feel like if you grew up in like a small town, going to a college in a city is like perfect adjustment into the real world."

"We go to Chicago a lot," Sophie offered, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

"It’s different when you’re in it," Serena tilted her head from side to side, "You meet different people. Have to live with different people. Interact with them."

"And you’re a pretty girl," Sabrina added, "You just need to lean into it a little more. And a big city will do that for you. It’ll pull it out of you."

"Pull what out of me?" Sophie’s face was laced with confusion.

"Whatever's in there that South Bend hasn't let out yet," Sabrina said.

Sophie looked at Serena who nodded in approval.

"And you got that girl next door thing going on?" Kennedi let out a short laugh, "Babe, you’re going to have these niggas wrapped around your finger in college. You hear me?"

Sophie blushed, thankful that the waiter soon appeared. They ordered. French toast for Sabrina, avocado toast for Kennedi, a breakfast bowl for Serena. Sophie ordered the pancakes because they were the first thing on the menu, and she didn't want to hold everyone up.

"So what'd you think of Rutgers?" Serena asked after the waiter left.

"It was fine," Sophie said. "The campus was nice."

"I wouldn’t mind living out here," Kennedi said. "You can be in the city every weekend."

The food came. They ate. They talked. About college life. About being an AKA and Greek life in general. They talked about their favorite shows they’re watching right now. About albums they were disappointed by. Artists they were hoping to catch on tour next year.

The check came. Serena picked it up without looking at it and set her card on top. Sabrina and Kennedi didn't even pretend to reach for it.

"I need to use the bathroom," Sabrina said, pushing her chair back. "Anyone?"

"I’m good," Serena shook her head. Sophie shook hers as well. Sabrina looked at Kennedi.

"You serious?"

"Come on."

Kennedi rolled her eyes but stood up. The two of them disappeared toward the back of the restaurant, their voices trailing behind them, already arguing about something Sophie couldn't make out.

The table went quiet. Sophie picked at the edge of her napkin. Serena took a sip of her mimosa. The restaurant hummed around them with the clink of silverware, the murmur of other conversations, a laugh from somewhere near the window.

Sophie looked at Serena. Serena looked back.

"What do you see in my brother?" Sophie asked.

She hadn't planned to ask it, but she'd been turning it over in her head since she sat down.

Serena set her glass flute down and leaned back in her chair, her head tilting slightly to one side. She studied Sophie for a moment.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Serena asked.

The question caught Sophie off guard. She'd expected a deflection, maybe. A joke. Not a question thrown back at her.

"No," Sophie said.

"Ever had one?"

"No."

Serena waited.

"I don't really like guys," Sophie said. She cleared her throat. "Not because I'm gay. I'm not. I just—" She paused. "I’m just not a fan of men. As an entity. They kind of suck."

"That’s fair," Serena nodded to herself, "There are definitely some weird guys out there."

The table went quiet for a bit.

"There’s also guys that aren’t like that, though. I get being scared or cautious. I do. It’s just hard to live like that. Not all guys are bad. I know it can feel that way with social media and stuff."

Sophie held her gaze. "And Brice?"

"What about him?" Serena scoffed.

Sophie opened her mouth.

"Y’all ready to get out of here?" Sabrina's voice cut through the silence. She was standing at the edge of the table, Kennedi behind her, both of them looking down at Sophie and Serena.

Sophie closed her mouth.

"Yup," Serena said, already reaching for her bag. "We're ready."

[Captain Canada]

Serena really don’t like Brice either and I’m glad it shows. Holy.

[Caesar]

Brice stopped cheating for a woman who just using him for his money, crazy. This how he looking