Shots - Frat!l.h.

Twenty Seven: Nora

"I was floating in a peaceful sea, rescued by a sinking ship." --Aaron Weiss

Nora Keilee

I was late. Very late. A lateness so postponed it would have been considered archaic.

I had a tear in my costume, and my sewing skills were not prime. The other girls waited patiently in the dorm, Emma and Kailee pregaming with shots of Tequila. Ming had decided that she didn't have anything better to do on this Hallow's Eve, so she was tagging along. She hadn't bought a costume, so she wore her regular long sleeve and jean pairing. Emma and Kailee had decided that they wanted to match, but neither of them could agree on what, so they looked like two miss-matched black cats.

I didn't have the money to buy myself a new costume, so I had recycled one from junior year. I was dressed up as The Bride from Kill Bill. I had taken a pair of yellow leggings and a yellow long sleeve sweater and taken black tape to the sides of it. The last time I had worn it, I'd gotten a fruit punch stain on my chest, but Kailee had just taken some fake blood to it. She had also spritzed some on my cheek, like whoever I had murdered had very excited arteries. The platinum blonde wig I wore was itchy, but it completed the look.

I had a tear in the shoulder seam, so I sat patiently on my desk chair, sewing away. Once I was satisfied with my work, I slipped the top back on over my white tank top and stood up.

"Ready?" Kailee said, scratching her head. Her cat ears looked itchier than my wig.

"Yeah, thanks for waiting," I replied, grabbing my dorm key and slipping it into the pocket of my sweater.

"Can we get going?" Emma said, annoyed. She was obviously tired of waiting, so I nodded quietly as to not cause any conflict with the cat/girl.

We left the dorm, and I quickly double checked to see if the automatic lock was on. It was.

Ming and I walked easily, our feet clad in flat shoes-- she wore sneakers, and I wore black booties. Emma and Kailee surprisingly didn't struggle as much as I thought they would, even though both of their heels were towering in height.

Even a full block away, we heard the frat house's choice in music; some rap song that blasted across the street. Kailee started humming along, laughing when I looked at her in confusion. She used to say she hated rap. She listened to indie, and she always said that the lyrics of most rap songs didn't touch her soul like folk and indie did.  I realized that college had changed the two of us in very different ways. I was much more introverted and she had become a party monster. I barely recognized her. I wondered how long she had been changing right under my nose.

Because this party was an open house, we just walked right in. Speaking of things I couldn't recognize; the frat house looked very different with a million people in it.

The girls immediately dispersed, Ming going towards a circle of girls-- I think she knew them from one of the clubs she was in. Kailee and Emma went towards a group of frat boys by the kegs. The men cheered as the two girls went their way-- they were obviously very familiar with each other.

Feeling awkward just standing there, I wandered through the house. It was weird how different it looked in low lighting. It was almost like a different building. Then again, I hadn't really been in much other than Luke's room.

I walked around for a while, my head bopping along to the music as I looked at some of the pictures hung up the halls. They were photos of frat members, some I recognized from this year, but most of them drew a blank in my mind. The majority of them had sharpie colourings on them; moustaches, beards, devil horns. There were also words scribbled on the glass, but most of them were crude, and I didn't really want to repeat them.