Shatter (Club Grit Trilogy) (10 page)

“There’s a difference between you and I, Kim. You might not know my name, but all you know about is the way that your stupid sorority operates. I never said I was better than you. I respect Mr. Lamont, which is why I don’t call him Lawrence, even though he insists I use his first name. You don’t know me, or my story, or about the fact that yeah, I might not go to one of the nicer colleges around here, but that I’m working on getting my beauty school certification, that I work nights because I do have a husband, at home, my high school sweetheart who lost a leg in the war, who can’t work, and I have a baby, and that there’s not a lot I can do other than use what I already have, which is my body, to make money.”

“I didn’t—” I started, but this time, she cut me off.

“You didn’t know. Yeah, I know. Maybe just shut up and listen for once,” she said. “You don’t get that earning forty percent commission is damn good for me, and that a lot of what I make gets eaten up by expenses for things like clothes, and it doesn’t make up for getting my ass and tits grabbed by random frat boys that aren’t even the targeted customer for the services I offer. You don’t get that Mr. Lamont chose me for this job because he took someone out for dinner and really admired the service that I did as his waitress, and you don’t get that for people like me, money can change my life. You go to UCBH, you’re a member of Omega Mu, and you don’t have to worry or struggle. You’ve come in here with more expensive clothes than me, with more friends than I have time to keep, given my schedule, and you don’t understand that here, at Club Grit, I’m happy for my friends finding someone to share their lives with, even if it’s one of you, one of the girls with an easy, perfect life. You don’t even understand why or how much Mr. Lamont loves you, and you won’t, ever, because you fucked up. You fucked up big time, and you lost what might be the love of your life, just because you couldn’t just be a decent person on your own.”

“I didn’t—” I started to say again.

“You didn’t know. That’s the motto of the night, isn’t it? You didn’t know! You didn’t know! You had no idea that certain things matter and are a big fucking deal, right? You don’t know about things like responsibility? You don’t get that your actions have consequences? That your words can hurt and that sometimes, you do more than keep people away? You might have a better life than me, Kim, but at least I don’t have to live with myself the way you do. At least there’ll be someone for me when I go home, and at least I didn’t lose Mr. Lamont. You really have no idea what you’ve lost, Kim,” she said, and with that? She turned and walked away, slipping her heels off and carrying them both in one hand as she walked to the employee only area in the back of the club.

I sat there for what seemed like an hour as I watched the employees pull apart the trappings of the club, sweeping up glitter and confetti, taking apart the DJ stage and the random banners, the fake red carpet by the entrance with a green screen backdrop. A few of the employees looked at me and shook their heads or whispered, and I knew what they were saying, after I’d talked to the nameless bottle service girl, the one I’d never even exchanged more than a few words with before this night. They were all fiercely loyal to Lawrence, to their Mr. Lamont, and I’d hurt Lawrence. What were the consequences of that action? I had no idea yet, and I was too nervous to pull out my phone and just play a game or text or waste time on the Internet to pass the time. I just sat, fiddling with my clutch the way that the girl had in the limo, and waited.

Finally, there was a firm hand on my shoulder and I looked up. It was Lawrence. He sat down next to me and didn’t take my hand in his, but just sat there quietly until he finally broke the silence. “What happened, Kim?”

“Omega Mu has a relationship with Beta Rho, a frat at UCBH. I was told that DeAndre, the guy in the limo –”

“The rapist,” corrected Lawrence.

“Yes, the rapist, was interested in Emma, and they’d hung out the night before and had sex. I’d assumed she’d liked him a lot, and the sorority president said that a relationship between the two of them would strengthen relations between the two houses.”

“Why does that even matter?” he asked with a sigh.

“Omega...isn’t attracting a lot of pledges. In recent years, the entire Greek system at UCBH has been struggling, in terms of attracting members, and so, to attract members, we’re trying to have better events. It’s hard, though, because the rules regarding having parties at UCBH basically ensure that most students end up picking dorms over Greek houses, and they end up going to clubs like this instead of to parties on campus. It’s why, when Club Grit extended the invitation to us this semester, and comped the limos and bottle service, we took up the offer. We thought we could offer the benefits of being a GDI while offering sorority life and amenities as a perk. But, we also have to have something to show the alums that we’re keeping traditions alive, and pairing with Beta Rho is important for a lot of alumnae who married Beta Rho alumni. We can’t just pair with any frat, and Beta Rho knows this, but it’s less important for them to pair with us than for us to pair with them, so they sometimes make...demands.”

“Demands to your president, who makes demands to you,” he said, as if the pieces of a puzzle were just now falling into place. “So why don’t you just leave?”

“You weren’t there when my mom learned I was in Omega Mu. Everyone thinks I’m this rich Korean girl with a dad who runs a business in South Korea, that my mom is busy living a glamorous life, traveling the world, but that’s not how it is, that’s not what it’s like at all. I’m from fucking Compton, Lawrence. I’ve never even been to Korea. You don’t know my life, at all,” I said, exasperated. There was so much that he didn’t know.

“That’s not my fault, Kim. I’ve tried to help you open up,” he said.

“What, so that I’d open my legs for you?” I snapped, and the look on his face was like the one on the bottle service girl’s. I knew that I’d gone too far, that I’d said something unwarranted, but there was no taking it back, and there was no stopping me from continuing. “You have no idea what I’m like, yet you’ve randomly decided you’re in love with me?”

“You think my feelings for you can be described as random?” he asked, an edge to his voice.

“No, I don’t think they’re random, actually. I think you must have a thing for Asian girls, or for younger women, or for college girls, or maybe, you were bored, and you thought that just because I’m pretty and fun and flirty, I can add something to your boring life, Lawrence. You’re a billionaire, but how interesting is your life, really, if you’re spending it at a nightclub with a girl like me? You’re not at a private library chatting up grad students, you’re not at a private concert of some famous string quartet schmoozing with wealthy women who are your fiscal and intellectual equals, you’re at some stupid night club with some stupid girl dealing with her stupid drama, so what does that make you? A rich man who doesn’t have a life I envy, not at all,” I said, with more emotion in my voice than I’d had previously when I’d ranted at that poor blonde. “You just want another girl for your collection. You probably have one of me in every city, and if you don’t, you know you easily could. I’m not special, Lawrence, and neither are your feelings for me.”

“Except they are, Kim. Unlike you, I don’t pretend that you’re perfect, but I never thought you were this fucked up and selfish and self-centered. You think that you know everything when you know close to nothing—”

“And you keep me in the dark!”

“And you refuse to see the light!” he said, finally grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me again, forcing me to look in his icy blue eyes, eyes that were cold and distant. “And you have no idea what you’re doing, at all! Or what you’re saying! The only thing sicker than the fact that you don’t know what you’re doing and that you think you understand everything is the fact that I’m willing to not only tolerate it, but also encourage it if it makes you happy! I can’t live with myself if I let you keep doing this, Kim, because although this is the first night that I’ve seen your dark side, it’s always been there, the way that mine has, the way that I have secrets you don’t know about yet. I wanted something with you, Kim, something real, but I don’t know what’s happened to the girl I fell in love with, Kim.”

“I can tell you what’s going to happen, Lawrence. I’m going to leave tonight, and I’m going to go back to living my sorority girl lifestyle, and eventually, you and I will forget about each other because what we had wasn’t special, nor was what happened in that limo. You don’t know why I have to put up with this stuff, and you don’t know why I have to help hide it, because you have no idea who I really am. You know my face, my body, my clothes, but you don’t know my mind, my heart, my soul. You have no idea what I’ve had to do to get where I am today, or what I’m going to have to do when I go back to Omega House tonight, because you never fucking asked, because you never fucking cared,” I said as tears streamed down my face and blurred my vision. I hadn’t cried in front of Lawrence before or any other person for years, nobody other that my mom, and Becca, and, for altogether different reasons, Pearl, but there was no controlling the wet streams making their way down my face.

“Would you be so selfish as to let someone innocent take the fall just so you don’t look bad?” he said, equally incredulous and disgusted. He looked over me with new eyes, eyes forged in the fires of my shame, and in that moment, I felt more naked than I had felt in years, knowing that Lawrence had seen my dark side, a side of me he didn’t understand and was judging based on relatively little information.

“What do you want from me, Lawrence?” I half-asked, half-begged.

“All I want is for you to be a better person, better than the person you pretend to be for others. I want you to be the girl that I fell in love with in the owner’s room, I want you to be yourself, and not some amalgamation of masks you wear to impress other people, because damn it, Kim, I know that you’re so much better than that. I know that you aren’t some sorority princess, who puts on diamonds and puts up walls of ice, not really.”

“You’re not in love with me, Lawrence,” I said with a flippant laugh as I wiped my eyes. “You think I’m really different than the monster you’ve seen tonight, just because I can make your dick feel good? You think that the things that make me interesting and appealing don’t also make me into a despicable shallow shade of a human being? I’m a manipulative sorority girl, and that’s who I’ve been for the last four years of my life, Lawrence. What do you expect, for me to change overnight or over a few days? Maybe the girl you think you’re in love with doesn’t exist. Maybe she never existed.”

Lawrence pulled something out of his pocket, a piece of paper. He passed me the pink slip and I opened it up. It was a voucher for a cab. “Get out of my sight, Kim. I can’t even stand to look at you right now. I don’t know what to think, and knowing that someone so gorgeous can be so ugly is too much for me to handle tonight. Just go home.”

I left the club without turning back to see if he was watching, waiting for me to run back into his arms like I wanted to, because I knew that I’d lost him. There was no more “us”. There was just me, alone, hailing a cab, taking it to the sorority house, letting myself in the house where only whispers were heard as I passed by doors and took a shower, where I curled up into a small ball, desperately wishing the heat of the shower would melt me away like soap suds down a drain, because that’s all I was now: scum.

E
VEN THOUGH I WOKE UP LATE THE NEXT DAY, I didn’t miss breakfast, but I knocked on Pearl’s room before I did anything else. “Come in,” she said sweetly, and I entered. She was in plaid pajama bottoms, blue and red and green, and a black ribbed tank top, wearing black slippers, her hair in a loose ponytail. “Can I help you, Kim?”

“It’s about last night,” I said.

“Oh, the report? Don’t worry, you can just slip them under my door whenever you have time,” she said, turning away.

“It’s not about the papers,” I said, annoyed that she was just brushing me off so casually. “It’s about the rape.”

“Oh, you mean the alleged assault? It’s just boys being boys, Kim,” she said, turning and giving me a frown, as if she was just talking about some schoolyard scuffle between the sexes, and not an actual act of sexual violence perpetuated by someone she’d vouched for, to someone she was meant to protected.

“I saw what I saw, Pearl. You can’t just let shit like that happen. Are you going to talk to administration?” I asked, already knowing that her answer was...

“Of course not.” Yup...called it.

“What about the head of the frat? What about the police?”

“I didn’t get where I am today, Kim, without stepping on a few people. If Emma has to learn a hard lesson about going places, like cars, with boys like DeAndre, who she know really, really want to show her how much they want her, that’s not my problem. What was she wearing?”

“Are you serious?”

“What was she wearing? Slut clothes like the rest of you?”

“What she was wearing doesn’t matter! What happened wasn’t okay! It was terrible!”

“Well, maybe she was asking for it. You’ve only heard her side of the story. Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she was asking for it.”

“Do you hear the words that are coming out of your mouth?” I had never been more scared of Pearl than when I was at that moment. If she could be so detached from the real world to the point that all she cared about was herself and the sorority’s position in the social strata, at the expense of innocent people, then what else was she capable of? She’d known me for four years and still was okay with manipulating me like a puppet master. She was willing to let a freshman get raped, let anyone get raped, all because it furthered her agenda.

“Well, it sounds like she changed her mind. She was on drugs, right? And she’d been drinking? She’d slept with DeAndre the night before, right? So why did she change her mind? Isn’t that, like, not allowed?”

“Are you fucking serious, Pearl? What’s your problem? She didn’t consent! She, herself, said so. So why are you questioning that? It doesn’t matter if she was drugged and drunk, she shouldn’t have been assaulted! She can’t consent under those conditions anyways! I get why you think that Beta Rho’s relations with the sorority are so important, I really do, but are you really willing to throw pledges under the bus and under the bodies of rapists just so that you get your way? What the fuck is your problem?”