Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
A chunk hit me in the side of the head, clogging my ear and knocking me sideways. I glared at where the mud had come from.
This Sig? Well, he was easier to hate.
There wasn’t a clean spot on Colin Novak, other than a few parts of his face, and those were what I aimed for when I unloaded on him. One was a direct hit, and he sputtered, wiping the grime from his nose and mouth.
There was a playful scream beside me, followed by laughter. Some of the people were enjoying the mud fight, just having fun. But for Colin and me? This was deadly serious.
I was just about to grab more mud when something shiny caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.
While everyone was too busy fighting or jokingly wrestling in the mud, the Fidelity Cup sat unnoticed on the table. Somehow, the tablecloth had made it this far with minimal mud splotches decorating it. It was like everyone knew to treat the trophy with the respect it deserved, and especially on its fiftieth anniversary.
I’d told Colin the cup belonged to the Lambdas, and now I wanted to show him.
Even under all the mud, I could see his expression change. He knew what I was planning, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“Don’t even think about it,” he yelled over the frenzy surrounding us. “That’s the Sigs’.”
I bolted toward the table, which forced him to do the same.
It was even harder sloshing through the mud this time, and although I had a head start, just like last time, he caught up to me. We reached the table at the same moment, both reaching out to get a hand on a handle.
“It’s ours,” Colin said, taking the cup off the table and trying to jerk it free from my hold.
“No,” I growled. “It’s ours.” I yanked on my handle, desperate to wrest it away from him.
Some part of me understood how utterly ridiculous this all was. Two adults fighting over a trophy like a Little League game gone horribly wrong. But in the moment, I wasn’t able to process it. Everything had been a disaster today, starting with seeing Jack again, and then Riley’s cheating which no one believed me about, and finally Colin’s cruel comment.
It was more than I could take, just like the force we were exerting on the old, delicate trophy was more than it could take.
I tugged with all my strength, only for a section of the handle to break off in my hand.
When all that force was suddenly gone, Colin wasn’t prepared. He tipped backward, slipped in the mud, and began to fall. He landed hard with a painful sounding crunch, flattening the bell of the cup beneath his big, stupid body.
THREE
Colin
On Monday, things went from a mild clusterfuck to a total fucking disaster.
I was in between classes, chilling in the lounge of the student union when my friend Jorge appeared beside the chair I was using to try to take a nap. His voice was unnecessarily loud, causing other people to look over at us.
“Hey, man. Have you seen this?”
I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. “Seen what?”
A folded newspaper was dropped in my lap. The campus paper, according to the masthead. I blinked my tired eyes as I unfolded it.
Well, now I was wide awake.
I sat upright and leaned over, scanning the large, bold text before moving on to the huge, full-color picture below.
Greek Week Ends In A Mess, the headline announced.
And there I was, covered in mud, with both hands wrapped around the handle of the Fidelity Cup. Opposite me was that Madison girl from Lambda Theta Chi, who was also dripping with mud and had the other handle in her grip.
Because of the angle of the photo, you couldn’t see my face as well as hers, but there was no mistaking her pissed-off expression, or how we were engaged in a tug-of-war like a couple of goddamn toddlers. The picture had to have been taken seconds before the handle broke and I fell.
I was sporting a nasty bruise on my side—but hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. Last thing I needed was to remind people of what went down.
But there was no getting around it. A few people had posted clips to TikTok that were racking up views, and with this front-page story, the whole school would know.
I didn’t bother reading the article right now. There were two smaller pictures beneath the fold. One was mid-action during the mud fight, and the other was of the flattened Fidelity Cup. Parts of it had crumbled like aluminum foil, and others had bent and warped, creating jagged, pokey edges.
It’d hurt like a bitch.
Jorge sat on the end of the fat armrest of the chair beside mine. “Greek council called a mandatory meeting tonight,” he pointed to a spot of text in the second paragraph, “to discuss that.”