The living room of the sorority house erupted into noise. Words bounced off each other, colliding into a cacophony of syllables that held little meaning except to argue. It didn’t surprise me that the announcement that the bathroom renovations would cause a stir.
I leaned on one hip, waiting for my peers to slowly die down into silence. Watching the light glint of one of my manicured hands, I feigned an air of indifference whilst I eavesdropped on their conversations. A lot of the students seated to the left were concerned about the upfront costs. Our house was newly founded, a defiant act against the less-inclusionary magic houses on campus, and our funding was low.
It was hard to save any money when a majority of our budget was spent undoing hexes the other sororities put on us. The main concern I heard was: how much does a bathtub remodel cost? On the opposite side of the debate were a few concerned students from the water speciality courses. They feared that a remodel of the bathroom would delay their studies. There were whispered murmurs from the people at the back, who I could see glancing at me through my peripheral vision, wary about my apparent obsession with my nails. They were quieter, paranoid that I would listen.
Unfortunately, it didn’t seem that anyone could understand my reasoning for the bath modifications. Sydney shifted beside me, her gaze pointed at the floor. Feeling responsible for her comfort, I sighed and let my hand drop. The group fell into silence as I slowly paced up and down in front of the crowd. “We created this sorority for one reason,” I said, meeting as many eyes in the room as possible. “What was it?”
“Extra participation credits!”
“Affordable share house rent!”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “No,” I said pointedly, snapping them open. “Because the other houses shut their doors on us and looked down on us when we tried to join them.”