Hard Facts by Penny Clarke
1
Summer
Sororities, in a way, are a lot like beehives.
For one, they’re both almost entirely made up of women. Clusters of girls, all buzzing together in spirited activity. Well-organized chaos, bustling along to the high-pitched whine of giggles and squeals and clapping.
Just as bees, sorority girls are incredibly social insects. Always bouncing along to the next fraternity mixer, themed party, tailgate, dances—name an event, and I guarantee you, at least ten sorority girls are there.
We are a veritable colony, providing ample opportunity to enrich the world around us. To bring good to our community. Or, at least, Alpha Beta Beta does. Because, from my executive position as philanthropy chair, I’ve devoted all ABB’s charitable efforts to doing just that.
Sometimes, even, we reflect our hive status in our hair. Dying our long, flowing locks to the amber hues of peaches and strawberries and champagne. My own blonde curls are a testament to that fact. Or we arrange them, for special events like formals, to resemble the coiffured dome of a bee’s nest.
And individually, we can be sweet as honey…
Or stinging with venom.
“They’re calling me a what?” I drop the heavy chef’s knife in my hand. It clatters to the granite kitchen island in a sticky, sugar-water mess.
Across the countertop, a dark-haired girl grimaces. Setting down the bottle of sparkling cider she’d been pouring into plastic champagne flutes, she repeats the phrase. It rhymes with Flirty Frank, but isn’t nearly half as nice.
The air thrums with lively girlish shrieks, just on the other wall. We share a glance at the sorority house’s kitchen door, closed to the dining room beyond, to combat all that hectic humming.
A sorority is never at its busiest as during fall rush. When all the younger, impressionable larvae swarm in droves, waiting to be accepted into the hive. To be guided by their older members. Shown the ways of the sisterhood.
When the noise settles down, Liz smiles with understanding. Rush is always a big commotion. Having gone through it herself last year, my little sis knows that.
Little sorority sis, to be clear. Because I’m an only child. Nolan never wanted any more than that. Hell, he never wanted one.
Nolan, for all intents and purposes, is the man most people would call my father.
I call him Nolan.
“I don’t condone it,” Liz tells me, returning to her task. “But everyone’s talking. Iris is telling them all that you slept with her boyfriend.”
Damn watermelon seed’s stuck to my nail. I busy myself trying to flick it off.
“Oh, Summer.”
“First off, they’d broken up,” I grumble, picking up the knife. Firmly, I slice into the watermelon wedge on my cutting board. “Second, we were very, very drunk. And third, how was I supposed to know they’d get back together over summer break?”
When Liz shakes her head, her wild dark curls flying, I ask in a teasing tone, “Am I going to Hell?”
“Straight down. With fire and brimstone.”
“Tomorrow, then? You mean the Gamma Lambda Nu back-to-school barbeque, right? I know, those boys grill a mean hot dog.”
“Anyway,” Liz picks up a grape from the rest of the fruits I’m prepping and chucks it at my boob. “Iris isn’t letting the matter drop. She says you did it to get back at her for running against you during elections.”
Paring the watermelon into bite-sized pieces, I throw them into a bowl with a scoff. Like I’d plan something so malicious. Really, I didn’t even get an orgasm out of it. The guy was woefully unenlightened on the significance of clitoral stimulation. If anything, I feel sad for Iris.
“Truthfully, Summer,” Liz opens a new bottle of cider and begins emptying that into the cups for brunch. “Girls are listening to her. They’re not happy with you at the moment. A lot of them are still pissed that you promised Nolan would be at the spring fundraiser and he never showed.”
I drop my knife again, with a displeased huff.
Every spring, Alpha Beta Beta hosts the biggest fundraiser on Lakewood University’s campus. It’s kind of a big deal. And last year, ABB had devoted its efforts to raising money to go toward supplies for the new engineering building on south quad. Prescott Hall.
Prescott as in, Nolan Prescott. Incredibly wealthy billionaire, Nolan Prescott. Renown prosthetics software engineer genius, Nolan Prescott. Prominent leader of technological advancements to society, applauded for humanitarian innovation and dedication to intersecting healthcare and artificial intelligence, Nolan Prescott.
Summer Prescott’s father, Nolan Prescott.
Fuck, I hate him.
And I never wanted to invite him to the fundraiser. Didn’t want him at my school. Near my sorority. In my life.
But my hand had been forced. My arm twisted. By my sisters. All of whom were just dying to meet Summer’s super-rich, super-genius daddy.
Did they think I purposefully sabotaged the whole thing so he wouldn’t come? Because that was all Nolan. Skipping out due to his super-rich, super-genius, super-important responsibilities. On an event his daughter worked hard to put together. On her birthday.
Now I’m the one facing the consequences of his broken promise.
Fucking prick.
Another cheer comes from the dining room. I go to brush back a curl from my face, but my hands are soaked with watermelon. Turning behind me to the kitchen sink, I turn on the water and wait for it to warm. “Help me go over my speech.”
Liz isn’t confused by my abrupt change in topic. She gets it. Her dad’s kind of a dick, too, with his constant sermons on the dangers of wearing skirts higher than her ankles. So she knows that I don’t like talking about Nolan. Or thinking about him. And that I might not want to dwell on the whispered gossip of my sorority sisters, turning against me because of something he did.
Besides, today is a happy occasion. Last day of rush. There are other things that need my attention. Like my address to all our new pledges. About sororities and beehives—
“Summer,” Liz suddenly says. “Stop!”
There’s a corrupt part of me that wants to do the exact opposite of that demand, until—I see it. Right there, as though summoned by my own thoughts.
An actual bee.
Crawling over the soap dispenser. Where I’d been about to set my hand.
Which is covered in sweet, fragrant watermelon. An all too enticing scent for a bee. She flits off the dispenser. Bumbles around my hand, halted in mid-air.
Trembling.
“Where’s your Epi-pen?” Liz asks.
“My purse,” and my mouth’s dry, watching that tiny yellow-and-black spec hover over my fingers. I clear it, but my voice still comes out faint. “In your room.”
Which is two stories up, on the other side of the sorority house, and oh, fuck, if I’m stung, Liz will never make it and I’m gonna die and Iris and her boyfriend will have shitty, non-clit-flicking sex on my grave—
Liz rounds to my side, armed with two plastic glasses. Slowly, methodically, she raises them to my hand.
“Careful,” I tell her, even as my palm shakes. “Don’t hurt her. She just wants to get a little tipsy off the fruit.”
I hear the eye roll in Liz’s voice, even as she keeps both trained on the bee. “A girl after your own heart, huh?”
Once she’s got it, the bee buzzes angrily at being trapped. At first, I’m frozen to the spot, until Liz snaps me out of it so I can open the back kitchen door. As she steps outside to release the bee into the sunlit garden, I remind her, “Give her a moment. She doesn’t want—”
“To attack me. She’s trying to defend herself, I know. I’ve got this, Summer.”
So I close the door. Rush back to the sink. Furiously scrub my hands clean and take giant gulps of air to calm down. That was too close.
I watch from the window over the sink as Liz carries the bee hostage through the garden. Far away from the ABB house, to the flowers in the back. And I smile, knowing the creature’s safe. She’ll keep flying for another day. Go back to her own hive.
Some wonder why, exactly, I love bees so much. Especially since that love it only returned with a critical drop in blood pressure and the lethal weakening of my heart. But while it’s a miserable thing, to love something so much when it will only cause you pain, I still do it anyway. Because bees are amazing. They do a world of good. And how could I fault them, for protecting themselves, for doing what comes naturally, what they’ve always known?
My phone vibrates in my dress pocket. Distracted by watching Liz outside—and still a bit rattled from that near brush with death—I don’t bother to look at the screen before hitting the green call button.
Too late, I see the name flashing across the screen and blurt out, “Shit!”
There’s a pause on the other line. Then, “Good day to you, too, Summer.”
“Nolan,” I respond flatly.
“I’ve been calling all morning.”
Which is why I’d put the device on mute. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Summer.”
“It’s rush week, Nolan.” I grab a towel from a drawer and begin cleaning the mess of watermelon on the island. “What do you want?”
An impatient breath comes through the speaker. “We need to talk. About your grades.”
Something plummets in my gut. This, I know, cannot be good.
“I don’t know how or why it’s taken me this long, but I finally got a hold of someone in the admissions office.”
Hmm, that’s weird. Certainly, it’s not because I paid off Marcie, the admissions receptionist, to give him the runaround.
“—And I reviewed your transcripts from last semester.”
Fuck.
Et tu, Marcie?
Not that I outright blame her. I’m sure Nolan gave a big old bribe to go along with his request. One thing I’ve learned from years of working around his controlling asshole ways: there’s always a higher price someone’s willing to take in order to fuck you over.
“General chemistry. Statistics 101—these are introductory courses. Meant for freshman. Simple subjects any pea-brained imbecile with a calculator and a Bunsen burner can pass. How the fuck did you fail them?”
Joke’s on you, Daddy. You spawned a pea-brained imbecile.
Whoever decided that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree obviously never visited the Prescott orchard. Because the tree that produced Nolan and me? Well, it sits on a hill. Right next to a cliff. Overlooking a ravine.
And when my apple fell, it rolled far, far, far away.
Nolan Prescott may be a genius when it comes to math and science. But I’m not. The subjects which come so effortlessly to him give me pause. That’s always been a source of contention between us. Just like the time at my mother’s funeral, when I’d overheard him say he hates children. Most especially, his own.
I’m not supposed to know that.
Unfortunately, I have a bad knack for discovering things I’m not supposed to know.
“Do you know how this will look if it gets out? That my daughter can’t pass a basic math class? I’ll be a laughingstock.”
“Can’t have that,” I grit.
“No, we can’t.” The line crinkles with static as Nolan takes another breath. “I see that you’re retaking them this semester.”
Yeah. Because they’re dumb courses required for me to graduate. I’m not looking forward to either.
I look forward to them even less when Nolan says, “You’ll pass them this time. Or you’re done with ABB.”
“What.” I drop the towel, staring at my phone.
“It’s your senior year, Summer. Time to grow up. Spend less time with your sorority and more on your studies.”
Red, angry heat bubbles in me. I want to scream. Rage at him that it was his dead wife’s sorority, once. Where they met, even.
But screaming doesn’t do anything. It just makes him more set in his ways.
“And if you can’t, you’re out. I still have some pull at Lakewood. And I’ll pull, Summer. Pull you right out of the Greek system, if you don’t get your fucking act together.”
He wouldn’t.
A deeper voice inside me says, Oh, he would.
Because Nolan Prescott only cares about one thing. Keeping up appearances. Knowing how to look good. Convincing the entire world that he’s not completely made of shit.
I hang up, without bothering to respond. Nothing I say, or do, will get me out of this. Nolan made a command. Now I have to follow it. Or else.
A loose, frantic sensation threatens to overtake every inch of my body. I squeeze my arms tight over my stomach to make the panic subside. To reflect on the problem at hand, objectively.
Except, I can’t really be objective when all my hard work is at stake.
Since Nolan’s warning only serves to remind me of something that I’d already been worried about. I’ve maintained ABB’s required grade point average. Just barely. Enough to stay afloat. To hold onto my philanthropy chair this semester. But if I fail these classes again…
It’s gone.
I can’t lose my chair. Not over two dumb fucking classes on subjects I can’t stand. There’s a full calendar of service projects for this upcoming semester. The senior center game show. Fun run clothing drive. Bake sales and volunteer hours. Saturday mornings with the group home. Not to mention prepping for this year’s spring fundraiser, which takes up even more of my limited schedule. Especially if… If I can get everything I want seen to this year, my final year, the last chance I have to make it happen.
I have ideas. Plans. Things I still want to do with this position. Still need to get done. Philanthropy’s a thankless job. It’s a lot of effort and a lot of time, and nobody else in my sorority wants either.
Well, almost nobody.
Once more, I think of beehives. Because sororities provide a home. A collective space for budding young women to thrive. To learn from one another. Advance career opportunities, through networking and support. Every sister counts. Makes a difference. Whether it be through recruiting new members, as a bee would gather pollen. Or achieving goals, inspiring momentum, and celebrating progress, by taking the lead.
Because in all beehives, there must be a queen.
Figuratively speaking, Sierra Wallace (Senior political science major. Black Student Union secretary. Founder of the sky-diving club) is sorority president.
But everyone in Alpha Beta Beta knows that Summer Prescott is the real queen bee.
And I’m dangerously close to losing my throne.
My sisters lost their trust in me after our spring fundraiser. Iris is only making it worse, because even before I drunkenly hooked up with her ex-ex-boyfriend, she’d been campaigning for my seat. Trying to usurp me.
If it gets out I’m just a few digits away from falling under ABB’s academic policy, or that Nolan’s thiiiiis close to yanking me out of the sorority entirely…
I’ll lose everything. Not just my clout, or all my influence, but everything I’ve worked so hard for.
I can’t fucking have that. I won’t let Nolan win.
I’m scrolling through the library’s online tutoring reservation system when Liz gets back inside. She sets the plastic cups down, wipes her hands, then catches the manic look in my eye. “Oh, no. What’s wrong?”
So I tell her. Because my little sis is the only other person I can trust with this information.
“I need to find a tutor,” I say, scrolling through alphabetical names. Names I know, belonging to those I don’t trust. My frown grows deeper with each one. “But I’ve studied with these guys before. They’re creeps.”
“Why don’t you use the guy who tutored me last year?” Liz takes my phone when I scrunch my face in confusion. Scrolls all the way to the bottom. “There. He got me an A in O-chem. And you know how much I hated that class.”
Because Liz—a music major—is just as scientifically inept as I am.
I take my phone back to stare at the name on the screen. And…
Nothing.
See, I have this habit. Or rather, a knack. For collecting information about people.
I stare at that name.
I know everyone on this campus.
Everyone.
So who the hell is Grayson Rowe?