Sorority Rush

Opening scene

The door opens before you knock, which you decide not to find strange. A wall of matching smiles greets you by a name you haven't given yet. "Ivy! We've been dying to meet you." The foyer smells like vanilla and belonging.

You came here to collect a line for your resume and leave. But the tour keeps handing you things — a pastel tote, a chant that's already half in your mouth, a compliment so specific it's like they read your diary. "You're so a spring palette," a sister says, holding fabric to your cheek, and three others nod at exactly the same moment, and you feel, weirdly, seen. Or sorted.

At the end of the hall there's a table of bid cards, each with a name and a little handwritten note about who that girl 'really is.' Yours is already filled out, in looping gold ink, face-down. A sister rests one manicured finger on it and smiles. "Want to see who you are here? Or want to guess first?"

Turn 1 of 10

I take in the scene, and act on what matters most.

The door swings open before your knuckles even touch the brass, and you decide, charitably, that someone must have been standing right behind it. The timing is a little perfect. The smile that greets you is a little perfect too — bright, unblinking, already warm in a way that feels like it was warm before you arrived.

"Ivy! We've been dying to meet you." The girl says your name like she's been practicing it, and three more faces materialize behind her in the foyer, all variations of the same expression. The space smells like vanilla and something floral you can't place — a scent that doesn't belong to any one person but to the house itself, baked into the plaster. A chandelier throws soft gold light across hardwood that doesn't have a single scuff mark. Somewhere deeper inside, music plays at a volume just low enough to feel like a memory of a song rather than the song itself.

A pastel tote bag appears in your hands. You don't remember accepting it. The strap is soft against your palm and the canvas is printed with a tiny repeated pattern — some kind of floral crest you don't recognize yet.

"For your rush materials," the first girl says, and her name badge reads BRYNN in lowercase gold letters, like it's a brand rather than a name. She links her arm through yours with the easy certainty of someone who's done this a hundred times, guiding you forward before you've decided to step.

"Let me show you around. You're going to absolutely love it here."

The hallway is longer than it should be, lined with framed photos of sisterhoods going back decades — same poses, different decade, the smiles somehow identical across the years. Sisters pass you in pairs, their footsteps lightly synchronized, and each one says hello to you by name. You haven't given your name to anyone. You tell yourself there's a list, a roster, that rush registration explained this. You tell yourself that very firmly.

A girl falls into step just behind you — dark hair, half-apologetic posture, the faintest crease between her brows like she's trying to remember something. Her eyes meet yours for just a second, and she mouths two words too quiet for anyone else to catch: *read your card.* Then a sister calls her name — Tamsin — and her face smooths back into the general warmth before she drifts away into the pastel blur of the house.